The UN implicates Assad in Syria war crimes

The UN’s human rights chief says an inquiry has produced evidence that war crimes were authorized in Syria at the “highest level,” including by President Bashar al-Assad.

Navi Pillay

It is the first time the UN’s human rights office has so directly implicated Assad.

Commissioner Navi Pillay said her office held a list of others implicated by the inquiry.

The UN’s commission of inquiry into Syria has produced “massive evidence... [of] very serious crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity,” Ms Pillay said.

“The scale of viciousness of the abuses being perpetrated by elements on both sides almost defies belief," she said.

The evidence indicated responsibility “at the highest level of government, including the head of state,” she added.

The inquiry has also previously reported it has evidence rebel forces in Syria have been guilty of human rights abuses.

However, the investigators have always said the Syrian government appears to be responsible for the majority, and that the systematic nature of the abuse points to government policy.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was dismissive of Ms Pillay’s remarks.

"She has been talking nonsense for a long time and we don't listen to her," he told AP.

Mekdad was in The Hague at a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to discuss the effort to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. Mekdad told the BBC's Anna Holligan, Syria needed lorries and armored vehicles to move the chemicals

He told the BBC Syria needed more money and equipment from the international community.

He said Syria needed lorries and armored vehicles to transport chemicals to prevent “terrorists” attacking the vehicles on their way to the port of Latakia, where they will be loaded onto a US naval vessel for destruction.

An OPCW spokesman at the conference told the BBC that any donations of dual-use equipment would be carefully monitored and there would have to be strict guidelines imposed to make sure the machinery could only be used for the purpose of removing the weapons.

Ms Pillay said the UN commission of inquiry had compiled a list of those believed to be directly responsible for serious human rights violations.

It is assumed senior figures in the Syrian military and government are on that list, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports from Geneva.

However, the names and specific evidence relating to them remain confidential pending a possible prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

She has previously called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the ICC.

Foulkes says Ms Pillay has repeatedly called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the ICC, something it has not so far done. Her surprising candor today may be a sign of her impatience.

Syria is not a state party to the ICC and therefore any investigation into the conflict would need to be mandated by the Security Council.

However, Russia and China have a veto on the council and would be highly unlikely to let such a move pass.

Human rights groups say the regime's use of air power often amounts to war crimes

Ms Pillay's statement is a reminder of the severity of the situation in Syria as preparations are made for the Geneva-2 peace conference next month, the BBC correspondent says.

Ms Pillay, a former judge at the ICC, said perpetrators of crimes must face justice.

"Accountability should be key priority of international community, and I want to make this point again and again as the Geneva-2 talks begin," she said. "I reiterate my call to all member states to refer the situation to the ICC."

Both the government and the opposition National Coalition have said they will attend the conference, but the head of the Western-backed rebel Free Syrian Army has said it will continue fighting during the talks.

The National Coalition says it categorically rejects any role for Assad in any transitional government, while the regime has said it is not going to negotiate a "handover of power".

Also on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based activist group that monitors deaths in the conflict, said its estimate of the number of dead had now reached 125,835, more than a third of them civilians.

Almost 28,000 rebel fighters had died, and more than 50,000 on the side of the government, including both regular soldiers and pro-regime militias. The latter figure also includes almost 500 dead from the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and other foreign Shiite militias.

However, it said it believed these figures were an underestimate as both sides were reticent about reporting deaths in their ranks.

BBC/Agencies

Syria: Will Obama’s key women make a difference?

From L., Obama, Power, Dilon and Rice (White House photo by Pete Souza)

Would the two women named to major national security posts this month by Barack Obama eventually convince the president of America’s “Responsibility to Protect” the Syrian people – by military means if necessary?

Praising their “integrity and their heart” on June 5, Obama elevated Susan Rice to National Security Advisor and nominated Samantha Power as American ambassador to the United Nations.

The two are veterans of his 2008 campaign and have strong personal relationships with the president.

But a third woman doubts whether the two prominent advocates of liberal interventionism could prod into action a president who has persistently resisted intervening in Syria’s ongoing human rights disaster.

The third woman is Marah Buqai, a Syrian American academic researcher, professor and published poet who was nominated by the Middle East Forum’s Campus Watch project as one of the most thoughtful and balanced scholars among the Middle East Studies faculties in North America.

Writing this week for Aljazeera news portal, Ms Buqai makes three main observations:

(1) Ms Rice is the voice for humanitarian intervention, which going to war not for imminent national-security needs but to save innocent lives. As the ambassador to the UN, she pushed through the March 17, 2011 Security Council vote of 10-0 to take “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians. Rice was a staffer at the National Security Council in 1994 when the world failed to stop the genocide in Rwanda. A participant in deliberations on the crisis, she later said the White House failed to see the larger moral imperative to act and later told her friend Ms Power, a Harvard scholar at the time and now her likely successor at the UN, "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."

(2) For Ms. Power, who has also leaned toward intervention and made her name as a journalist covering the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia was a formative experience. In her 2002 Pulitzer Prize book “A Problem from Hell,” she presented a history of genocide in the 20th Century and a withering critique of the failure of the United States and other countries to respond to them.

(3) Australia’s international policymaker and former politician Gareth J. Evans is the godfather of the Responsibility to Protect concept. “The core idea of the Responsibility to Protect (often abbreviated as 'R2P' or 'RtoP'), as endorsed by the UN General Assembly at the 2005 World Summit, Wikipedia writes on Evans’ profile page, “is that every state has the Responsibility to Protect its population from genocide and other mass atrocity crimes; the international community has a responsibility to assist the state if it is unable to protect its population on its own; and that if the state fails to protect its citizens from mass atrocities and peaceful measures have failed, the international community has the responsibility to intervene with appropriate measures, with coercive military intervention, approved by the UN Security Council, available as a last resort. The concept was expressly designed to supersede the idea of 'humanitarian intervention', which had failed to generate any international consensus about how to respond to the 1990s catastrophes of Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.

“Evans has been widely acknowledged as playing a crucial role in initiating, and advocating the international acceptance of, the concept, first as Co-Chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty which introduced the expression in its 2001 report of that name, and subsequently as a member of the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the Global Centre on the Responsibility to Protect, and as the author of the Brookings Institution-published The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All and many other published works…”

Ms Buqai writes in her think piece, “In May 2012, I handed Ms Rice at her State Department office a legal memorandum outlining the case for the Responsibility to Protect civilians in Syria.

“Today, as Ms Rice prepares to assume her new and influential role as National Security Advisor, it is a national duty to take up where we had left and revisit the case of the Responsibility to Protect civilians in Syria.”

Buqai says the policy legacy of Tom Donilon, the man Ms Rice will be replacing, is the Obama Administration’s shift in priorities from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the fast-growing economies of Asia.

The substantial shift in focus from the Middle East and South Asia toward Asia proper could live on after Donilon’s departure.

Can the two newcomers make a big difference when Obama’s own presidential priorities do not include getting involved in another Middle East war?

Probably not, Buqai says.

“The most America will be doing now is drag the two sides to the conflict – a fading opposition and a keyed up regime – to the negotiating table, where the Syrian revolution would be nipped in the bud.”

Syria monthly death toll at 5,000, says UN

"Sorry, we do not accept natural death cases" (freesyria.tumblr.com)

As at 30 April 2013, at least 93,000 people have been killed in Syria since the start of the conflict, according to new United Nations figures.

This represents a rise of more than 30,000 since the UN last issued numbers covering the period to November 2012.

“The constant flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels -- with more than 5,000 killings documented every month since last July,” from around 1,000 per month in the summer of 2011, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay announced Thursday.

“Unfortunately, as the study indicates, this is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher,” she said

“This extremely high rate of killings, month after month, reflects the drastically deteriorating pattern of the conflict over the past year,” Pillay said.

Some 82.6 percent of the victims documented so far are male, while 7.6 percent are female. The gender of the victim is not indicated in 9.8 percent of cases.

Nevertheless, “the killings of at least 6,561 minors, including at least 1,729 children under ten years old, have been documented,” the High Commissioner said.

“There are also well-documented cases of individual children being tortured and executed, and entire families, including babies, being massacred – which, along with this devastatingly high death toll, is a terrible reminder of just how vicious this conflict has become.”

While the study stresses the accuracy of geographical patterns may be affected by variable reporting by the different data sources, it shows that the greatest number of documented killings has been recorded in the governorates of:

• Rif Dimashq (17,800)
• Homs (16,400)
• Aleppo (11,900)
• Idlib (10,300)
• Deraa (8,600)
• Hama (8,100)
• Damascus (6,400) and
• Deir Ezzor (5,700)

OHCHR called for an immediate ceasefire "before tens of thousands more people are killed or injured.”

The Geneva-2 watchword is “ceasefire”

From top: Assad, Milosevic and the Chateau de Rambouillet 

By Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia’s analyst, author and kingpin of the impending Al Arab TV news channel, writing in Arabic today for the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily al-Hayat

You can assume the endeavor to end the Syrian people’s tragedy is wholehearted once you hear them talking at Geneva-2 of a binding ceasefire under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

The watchword is “ceasefire.” After that, they can talk ad nauseam of the need for a shared transitional government with full powers or for national elections next year in which everyone can stand.

The Syrian opposition would overburden itself, disharmonize internally and bicker with allies if it carped too much about the immortality of Assad running for a third term, or about the irrationality of a transitional government that includes people with blood on their hands.

At Geneva-2 – if it convenes at all in mid-month – the spotlight won’t be on the government and opposition delegations.

The spotlight will be on the U.S. secretary of state and Russian foreign minister. They will be doing the hard bargaining.

More exactly, the public eye will be on an American-Saudi-driven international stab at goading the Russians to the UN Security Council.

The Russians have been resisting this for two years while the Syrian people were being butchered. They, and the Iranians in tow, kept repeating: a political solution is the only way forward in Syria. They also kept extolling the merits of the June 2012 Geneva Agreement, which provides for the immediate cessation of armed violence in all its forms and the establishment of a transitional government.

Everyone is now transfixed by the word “negotiations,” when and where they would take place and how a transitional government comprising regime and opposition representatives would be set up.

But the cardinal provision in the Geneva Agreement –i.e. “the immediate cessation of armed violence in all its forms” – is being overpassed.

The regime does not want a ceasefire. The Damascus government and its allies know they can only survive by armed violence.

The regime dithered when it was whispered that a binding ceasefire is in the cards, which is why the Russians had to literally tug Damascus to the negotiating table.

To underscore the importance of a ceasefire for the political solution, we need to trace the Syria crisis back to its roots.

The crisis is not between eastern Syria and western Syria, or between two sects. The opposition, for instance, is not after winning a bigger share in parliament for Aleppo.

At the same time, Damascus is not after specific ministerial portfolios for people to draw parallels between Geneva-2 – if it ever convenes – to the meeting of rival Lebanese leaders in Taef in 1989.

The Syrian revolution is fundamentally the revolution of a national and multi-sectarian population striving for freedom in all governorates.

The population is not making sectarian or provincial demands. Like the Egyptians who flooded Tahrir Square before Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, the overwhelming majority of Syrians forgot all their differences to clamor for regime change, freedom and dignity.

A Syria ceasefire does not mean a pause for talks and the demarcation of frontlines between the sides. What you now have is a Syrian majority wanting to get rid of an oppressive regime and build a new Syria on the same landmass and within unaltered borders.

At Geneva-2, the Syrian regime will try to avoid this.

Not to be overthrown, it would propose a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution that keeps it in power.

It would want to exclude the so-called Takfiri forces it lured into the conflict in the first place.

It could perhaps request the eviction of foreign volunteers from Syrian soil or claim legitimacy to commit this individual or that to justice.

In a show of humility, or in order to waste time, it might even propose a national reconciliation assembly.

What is certain though is the regime will do everything in its power to wriggle out of committing to a binding cessation of armed violence in all its forms.

Something similar happened in early 1999 at Rambouillet, a commune in north-central France, which hosted talks (between then-Yugoslavia and a delegation representing the ethnic-Albanian majority population of Kosovo) on the Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo.

The Americans, Russians and Europeans participated in the talks at Rambouillet, much as they would at Geneva-2. They all knew then what the workable solution was, but they needed to go through the “peace process.”

They were familiar with the brutality and intransigence of Serbian and Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic. They knew him from the earlier 1992-1995 Bosnian War. They were aware the only way to convince him is by force.

He was a prototype of today’s Bashar al-Assad, who represents a sect instead of a population and fights for sectarian instead of national interests.

Like Milosevic, the only way to convince him is by force. Only when cruise missiles and airstrikes reach his bedroom, instead of the Syrian people’s heads, would Assad yield and negotiate.

The Russians invariably clone themselves. They were the ones who obstructed a workable and quick fix solution in Kosovo. They are doing the same in Syria now.

The Americans and Europeans had no choice back in 1999 but to get the Russians to Rambouillet and sanction an interim agreement, which did not last long but opened the door for NATO to do what it should have done from the beginning: air bombardment.

That’s the thing to do after Geneva-2 if the Friends of Syria want to end in earnest the Syrians’ suffering.

Assad cannot put up with a strict and binding ceasefire. Given the carnage and bloodshed to date, peaceful protests against his rule will erupt in every Syrian city and town the moment he commits to one. And he wouldn’t swallow today the mass protests he could not tolerate two years back.

The regime will breach the ceasefire without any doubt, just like Milosevic.

Geneva-2 having bound all sides to the ceasefire under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, everyone would then have to go back to the Security Council.

I expect the opposition’s National Coalition and the head of the Free Syrian Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Salim Idriss, to commit to such an agreement.

Commanders of the FSA and rebel brigades, including Jabhat al-Nusra, would be put on notice that they too would be bombed if they breached the ceasefire agreement.

I doubt Geneva-2 will be held at all -- short of a genuine about-face by Moscow, not Iran or Syria.

But just in case Geneva-2 is held, make sure to eyeball the watchword “ceasefire.”

Russia, U.S. and “Friends” get SNC slap in the face

The Syrian National Coalition, the country’s opposition umbrella group, has finally given Russia, the United States and the so-called “Friends of Syria” group a kick in the teeth.

The Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces said it was turning down invitations to visit Moscow and Washington and suspending participation in the “Friends of Syria” conference due in Rome next month.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page late Friday night, the National Coalition described the deathlike “silence of the international community over daily crimes committed against our people” as “complicity in the slaughter of Syrians throughout the past two years.”

The statement said, “Hundreds of defenseless civilians are being killed by Scud missiles.

“Aleppo, the city of history and civilization, is being systematically destroyed.

“Add to this millions of refugees and displaced and hundreds of thousands of detainees, wounded and orphans.

"In protest against such shameless international stance, the coalition leadership decided to suspend its participation in the ‘Friends of Syria’ conference in Rome and to turn down invitations to visit Russia and the United States.

“We hold the Russian leadership ethically and politically responsible for the most part because they continue to back the (Damascus) regime with arms.

“We also urge people around the world to regard the week of March 15-22, which marks the Syrian revolution’s second anniversary, as a week of mourning and protest.”

Kuwait’s Muslim scholar Dr. Ghazi al-Tawbah, writing for Aljazeera.net last week, wondered if “Friends of Syria” conferences were not in reality meetings of “enemies.”

The Syrian opposition, he said, has been telling its “friends” for two years -- at successive meetings in Tunis, Istanbul, Paris and Marrakesh -- what it needs to protect the Syrian people.

All the Syrian opposition got in return was “hollow promises.”

Dr. Tawbah wrote, “Opposition leaders told their hosts opposition forces needed some qualitative weapons to face tanks and warplanes. They said setting up an interim government needed safe zones and a budget of $500 million to meet the Syrian people’s needs. They explained the Syrian people suffered 60,000 fatalities, 140,000 wounded, 60,000 disappeared, 140,000 detainees, 720,000 refugees, two million displaced and four million in need of humanitarian aid.”

The “friends” having offered zilch, “we are justified to ask: Were these ‘Friends of Syria’ conferences in the past two years meant to be meetings with the friends or enemies of Syria?”

Friends, Dr. Tawbah opined, “are supposed to answer their friends’ pleas. But why is that not so with Syria of all the Arab Spring countries?”

Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia’s analyst, author and kingpin of the impending Al Arab TV news channel writing today for pan-Arab al-Hayat, says, “Raising funds nowadays is tough, given the global economic slowdown.

“At the (January 30) Kuwait conference, the United Nations sought to raise $1,2 billion in humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Since then, it received not more than 20% of the pledges made.

“So who is going to come up with the billions needed to rebuild Syria?

“Even if Bashar (al-Assad) were to succeed in putting down his people’s revolution, the region’s states and leaders won’t rehabilitate him or return him to their fold. Nor will they bear the cost of seeing him survive without victory or defeat.

“Accordingly, it is time to focus on the benefits of seeing him out and the establishment of a friendly, democratic and popular regime. All regional countries will draw benefit from this happening, except Iran.

“If truth were told though, losing Syria is better for Iran long-term. Losing Syria would bring Iran down to reality instead of continuing to live its pipedream of reversing 1,400 years of history. Iran would revert to its regional size, concentrating on its people’s wellbeing.”

With Assad’s exit, Khashoggi continues, “Jordan would be relieved of its northern neighbor’s plots and resultant security and intelligence costs. It would have a neighborly country complementing its economy and agriculture. Jordan and the new Syria would connect with Lebanon in a Bilad al-Sham economic triumvirate without border or regime change.

“Saudi Arabia would also be relieved of security strains the Baathist regime posed on and off in Lebanon or in connivance with Iran – this, without Saudi Arabia being able to isolate, or dissociate from, Syria.

“After all, Syria represents Saudi Arabia’s strategic and economic expanse and its doorway to Turkey and Europe.

“A free, democratic Syria with a market economy would certainly be good news for Saudi Arabia.”

Khashoggi says if Turkey and the Arabs choose to boost their support of the Syrian people, they could induce U.S. President Barack Obama not to wait any longer and to put his weight behind the Syrian revolution independently of the UN Security Council.

“Precedents of ‘Special Operations’ behind the Security Council’s back are many,” Khashoggi remarks.

Syrian opposition chief stands in the line of fire

Moaz al-Khatib

Moaz al-Khatib is today facing calls to step down as head of the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces over his “unilateral offer” to negotiate with representatives of President Bashar al-Assad.

The resignation calls come after the Syrian National Council (SNC), a key component of the National Coalition, openly challenged Khatib’s conditional proposal.

The overt controversy broke out soon after Khatib posted Tuesday a statement on his personal Facebook page saying he would “sit face to face with Syrian regime representatives in Cairo or Tunis or Istanbul.”

He made the talks offer conditional on the Damascus government first releasing 160,000 detainees and renewing or extending for two years all Syrian exiles’ passports. (See last night’s post, “War of words breaks out in Syrian opposition ranks.”)

“Speaking in a personal capacity does not change the fact Khatib heads the National Coalition,” says Anas al-Abdah, a member of the SNC and chairman of the Movement for Justice and Development in Syria.

He tells today’s edition of Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat, “[Khatib] should have resigned before broaching such a sensitive issue. As head of the National Coalition, he should have consulted its members first.

“By failing to do so as Coalition leader, he proved to be short of political and leadership maturity and lacking political experience…

“I urge him to reconsider his position as Coalition leader.”

The SNC’s Ibrahim Merei, whose London-based Barada TV has been focusing on issues of democracy, human rights, youth activism and civil society empowerment since April 2009, tells Asharq Alawsat:

“I stand by the revolutionary forces… Whoever represents them should preclude direct or indirect talks with the regime...

“Khatib’s remarks are a betrayal of the blood of people killed in Syria. I urge him to retract... If he is coming under international pressure, he can simply pull out.”

A third reaction comes from Obeida Faris, head of the Arab Foundation for Development and Citizenship (AFDC).

He tells the paper: “Syrians sacrificed over 60,000 martyrs, more than two million refugees and exiles as well as tens of thousands of detainees. This was not to win a loaf of bread or renew passports.

“Passports were denied to tens of thousands of Syrians for several decades. But that didn’t drive them to sit down with a bloodstained regime that committed more crimes than any other serial killer in history.

“I can understand the humanitarian pressure the National Coalition leader is coming under… But concessions need not exceed red lines set by the National Coalition.”

Faris was specifically referring to two provisions in the agreement that founded the National Coalition in Doha last November.

The two provisions are: “(1) The sides agree to bring down the regime and all its symbols and mainstays, to disband the regime’s security services and to call to account those responsible for crimes against Syrians, and (2) The Coalition commits not to engage in any dialogue or negotiation with the regime.” (See my November 11, 2012, post, “The Syrian opposition’s Doha agreement.”)

Editorially, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi, Abdelbari Atwan, today writes of “Khatib’s bombshell shattering the Syrian scene.”

Sheikh al-Khatib is neither ignorant nor naïve, says Atwan. He only aired his initiative after taking stock of information and facts gathered at two international conferences he attended this month. They are the January 9-10 meeting hosted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to galvanize international support for a Syrian-led transition to a stable democratic country and the January 28 “Friends of Syria” conference in Paris.

“He heard the opinions of both guests and hosts at the two venues. And the opinions simply dashed his hopes, chiefly as regards the supply of qualitative weapons to the opposition.”  

Atwan continues:

“Multiple reasons must have prompted Khatib to air his initiative, which could see him resign after coming in for a lot of shameless flak, or which could see a breakup of the Syrian opposition with the SNC choosing to opt out of the National Coalition.”

Atwan encapsulates the multiple reasons as follows:

1. The definitive rejection by the West -- chiefly the United States – of the idea of arming the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups coupled with an explicit warning to the Gulf States not to fund or arm the rebels.

2. Barack Obama’s upbeat proclamation in his second inaugural speech earlier this month that “a decade of war is now ending.”

3.  The Syria crisis stagnating after the regime’s failure to overcome the armed opposition and the latter’s inability to bring down the regime by force.

4. A misreading by the opposition’s Arab and other backers of the regime’s resilience and Russia and Iran’s unbounded support of Assad.

5. A rise in the clout of Jihadists on the ground, especially in northern Syria, and their success in recruiting thousands of young Syrians and in offering social welfare services in areas under their control, which is what the Taliban did earlier in Afghanistan.

6. The acquiescence of most Arab countries supportive of the armed opposition that a peaceful transition is the way out of the crisis. The consequence is acceptance of the regime – albeit for a short period – and opening the door of dialogue with it.

7. Mothballing of the Syria file by the Arab League and its foreign ministers.

“Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib grasps all that,” Atwan writes. “But, above all,  he realizes that the international community has started to address the Syria crisis as an issue of refugees, rather than the cause of a people seeking reform, democratic change and the removal of a dictatorship.

“The just-concluded conference in Kuwait of international donors for Syria, where more than a billion dollars were pledged for Syrian refugees, is proof of the new turnaround.

“The focusing on humanitarian and apolitical aspects by Arab and foreign countries under the sponsorship of the United Nations and its secretary-general evokes memories of a similar approach 65 years ago to the Palestine Question. That’s when the ‘Question’ became one of refugees deserving relief aid in their host countries…”

Assad to get his cut from Kuwait aid conference

By www.facebook.com/rev.multimediateam

I've heard it said that mixed feelings, like mixed drinks, confuse the soul and mind. So I don’t know whether to hail or wail tomorrow’s international pledging conference for Syria in Kuwait City.

Hail, because over four million people are in need of assistance in Syria, half of them in Aleppo, Homs and Rural Damascus, plus another 704,314 Syrian refugees in neighboring countries and North Africa.

Wail, because UN fundraisers have already earmarked at least a third of the required humanitarian response for the next six months to President Bashar al-Assad’s tentacles.

Tomorrow, heads of state and representatives from UN agencies and non-governmental organizations will gather at Bayan Palace in Kuwait City to attend the first-ever high-level International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria.

The one-day conference will give member states an opportunity to continue supporting the much-needed humanitarian response. So far, only a small percentage of the funding has been received, limiting the ability of UN agencies and their humanitarian partners to reach people who desperately need help. 

Hosted by Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah and chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the conference will address the funding gaps for the Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan (HARP) for Syria and the Syria Regional Refugee Response (SRRP).

Together the plans seek $1.5 billion to assist millions of civilians affected by the Syria war over the next six months, including those inside the country as well as many others taking refuge beyond its borders.

About $1 billion is for the SRRP, which will support more than 700,000 refugees who have fled Syria to Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Algeria.

HARP requires more than $519 million to help over four million people inside Syria, including an estimated two million internally displaced persons.

Problem is the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has unashamedly said all humanitarian assistance is, and will continue to be, delivered “with full respect to the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic” during the implementation of this Response Plan.

“This Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan aims at supporting the Government of Syria’s efforts in providing humanitarian assistance to the affected populations.  It will cover the period from 1 January 2013 until the end of June 2013.  The financial requirements amount to $519,627,047,” according to unocha.org.

And here is how HARP will disburse the $519,627,047 to Assad’s government ministries:

Agriculture & Agrarian Reform: $196,896,716

Health: $81,905,133

Education: $23,024,800

Foreign Affairs: $9,438,752

Labor & Social Affairs: $20,547,692

Local Administration (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene): $43,417,139

Labor, Social Affairs, Local Administration and Municipalities (Non-Food Items and Shelter): $110,771,867

Agriculture & Agrarian Reform, Labor & Social Affairs and Local Administration Labor (Livelihoods): $19,670,111

Logistics, Emergency Telecom and Staff Safety Services: $13,954,837

I wonder if UN budget planners had the wisdom of consulting Assad about his own destruction chart for the next six months to at least work in synch.

The Syrian Expatriates Organization (SEO), the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations (USMRO) and the Syrian Americans for Democracy (SAD) have all deplored the UN decision assigning Assad’s government to manage the humanitarian aid inside Syria.

The Local Coordination Committees, a network of grassroots activists in Syria, said the proposed aid amounted to "blatant support for the regime to continue its savage crimes to repress the Syrian revolution.”

The Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces wondered in a statement, “Is it logical to provide aid to a regime responsible for destroying cities, bombing hospitals and bakeries and displacing a population, so it can fix the dire situation it created?”

It said, “Humanitarian aid to the widows and orphans, the hungry, wounded and displaced in Syria, should not be delivered to them through the same party that caused their suffering and pain, for it would be an added humiliation and degradation.”

Avaaz, the international activist network, has condemned the HARP plan as a “crazy handout” to the Syrian government. It has called for donors to bypass the Kuwait conference and give money instead to the relief efforts of “the Syrian National Coalition, the recognized and legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”

Cuba, Baghdad and turning Aleppo to rubble & ash

Aleppo's souks on fire (Photo from BBC News)

Raging battles between Syrian government forces and rebels in the historic districts of central Aleppo have started a major fire that threatens to destroy the city's medieval markets.

Reports say hundreds of shops in the souk, one of the best preserved in the Middle East, have been destroyed.

The labyrinth of narrow alleys lined with shops was once a major tourist attraction, but has been the scene of near-daily firefights and shelling in recent weeks, after rebels who fought their way into the city two months ago pushed toward its center.

Some activists described the overnight blaze as the worst blow yet to a district that helped make the heart of Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub, a UNESCO world heritage site.

The fire started late Friday amid heavy government shelling and was still burning Saturday, activists told The Associated Press. Video posted online showed a pall of smoke hanging over the city.

One Aleppo-based activist, Ahmad al-Halabi, estimated the fire destroyed a majority of the shops in the district.

"It's a disaster. The fire is threatening to spread to remaining shops," said al-Halabi, speaking to AP from the stricken area by telephone. He claimed Syrian authorities cut the water supply off the city, making it more difficult to put out the fire. He said rebels and civilians were working together to control the fire with a limited number of fire extinguishers.

"It is a very difficult and tragic situation there," he said.

The souks -- a maze of vaulted passageways with shops that sell everything from foods, fabrics, perfumes, spices and artisan souvenirs -- lie beneath Aleppo's towering citadel where activists say regime troops and snipers have taken up positions.

Many of the shops have wooden doors, and clothes, fabrics and leather inside helped spread the fire, activists said.

"It's a big loss and a tragedy that the old city has now been affected," Kishore Rao, director of UNESCO's World Heritage Center, told AP.

In awarding heritage status, UNESCO said Aleppo's "13th-century citadel, 12th-century Great Mosque and various 17th-century madrasas, palaces, caravanserais and hammams all form part of the city's cohesive, unique urban fabric."

The Guardian says Aleppo's souks are not the only Syrian cultural treasures to have fallen victim to the violence following the country's uprising and the crackdown by the Assad regime.

Some of the country's most significant sites, including centuries-old fortresses, have been caught in the crossfire in battles between regime forces and rebels. Others have been turned into military bases. In Homs, where up to 7,000 are estimated to have died, historic mosques and souk areas have also been smashed and artifacts stolen.

In his Aleppo-related column this morning for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, the peerless Samir Atallah writes of “Cuba, Baghdad and Aleppo.”

In his words, as rephrased from Arabic:

Politics has many rules that are mostly uncivil and unethical. Rules in politics often prioritize interests over humans. The latter are at times sacrificed on account of concern or cowardice.

Cuba was at one point the Soviet Union’s Number One ally -- a Communist island nation (just 90 miles) off U.S. shores. Moscow, for Cuba’s sake, risked a nuclear war that could have devastated the world.

A while later, America started instigating East Europe against the Soviets. As soon as it felt America’s grip tightening around its neck, Moscow counseled Fidel Castro to stop backing Communist movements in Latin America.

Though he fancied painting the whole southern hemisphere red, Castro desisted – not so much to avoid irritating Moscow but for fear of an American-Soviet deal at his expense. Who says Russia won’t close its eyes to an American invasion of Cuba such as America let pass the Soviets’ occupation of Prague?

“Today’s Iraq” resembles the “1960s Cuba.” Today’s Iraq has ideological ties with Iran. It also complies with demands from its American ally, who signed away at the White House the State of Law Coalition to the epitome of democracy, Nouri al-Maliki.

When Barack Obama’s busy schedule prevented him from flying to Baghdad, Maliki hopped over to Washington to receive the freedom keys. And as soon as he returned to Baghdad, Maliki refocused on reconciling his old crush on Iran with new American constraints. That’s why when America told him Iran should stop using Iraqi airspace to fly arms to Syria, he listened to his head, not his heart – or so it seems.

In the Syria war, each has a tie-in. We don’t need to know them all today. We could get to know them after a while or when it is too late. But there is certainly a link-in-the-chain that makes Hilary Clinton talk more like a political analyst from The Times than a secretary of state.

There is another tie-in that makes China stand by Russia against Arab states and their Arab League, Europe and the Muslim-world-minus-Iran.

In politics, no rule prevents the monitoring of developments on the ground to gauge the power balance instead of to take care of victims. That’s why no one sees the Bombing of Aleppo as akin to the Bombing of Dresden.

In 1975, Suleiman Franjieh sent two rusting Hawker Hunter warplanes to bomb Palestinian refugee camps. The outcry in the Arab world saw the fighter-bomber jets hangared again.

Each day, loathsome MIGs take to Syria’s skies to pound cities and turn Aleppo neighborhoods into piles of rubble and ash.

Meantime, the world at the United Nations still has to listen to the speeches of Sergei Lavrov.