Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Syria updates - note atrocities committed by both the Government and rebel forces once again .... Egypt updates covering the weekend protests - note the police going on strike , as well as Qatar cutting off further financial support for now....
Top news pertaining to Syria with links to the biggest news item from the weekend....
Hundreds of UN Syrian Golan UN observers scramble to safety in Israel
DEBKAfileSpecial ReportMarch 11, 2013, 5:25 AM (GMT+02:00)
The flight of hundreds of UN Disengagement and Observers Force (UNDOF) soldiers - Indian, Austrian and Filipino - in trucks and APCs from the Syrian side of Golan into Israel was in full swing early Monday, March 11. DEBKAfile quotes them as telling Israeli officers manning the Israeli side of the enclave that their commanders urged them to get out when they could because “We can no longer vouch for your safety.” Many more UN troops are expected to make their way during the day to refuge in IDF camps across the border. Their officers, they said, had already placed their belongings aboard waiting vehicles ready to move across as soon as they received permission from their governments in Vienna, New Delhi and Manila or the UN Secretariat in New York. Our military sources report that this mass exit signals the breakup of the 1,000-strong UNDOF which for 39 years manned the 8 sq. km separation zone between Syria and Israel. It was set up in 1974 to end the war of attrition fought in the sequel to the Yom Kippur War between the IDF and Cuban armored brigades flown in from Angola by the Soviet Union to support the Syrian army. The UN force’s collapse began with the Croatian government’s recall of its 100 troops last week.
As the peacemakers flee, Russia is today hardly likely to interfere with who gets to control the Golan separation zone which was split between Syria and Israel.
DEBKAfile reports three potential candidates are eying the sliver of land for different reasons:
1. The Martyrs of Yarmuk Islamist militia force of the Syrian rebel movement, which staked its claim last week by kidnapping 21 blue-and-white helmeted Filipino observers on the Golan and later releasing them in Jordan.
It is feared in Washington, Jerusalem and Amman, that Al Qaeda-associated forces will waste no time in overrunning the highly strategic patch of Golan borderland, armed with chemical weapons and even Scud D missiles captured from Syrian army bases. They may even be plotting an attack during President Barack Obama’s visits to Jerusalem and Amman, starting March 20.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that in sync with the UN observers’ escape, Israeli military reinforcements are massing on the Golan Syrian border.
2. US, Jordan and/or Israel may step in to keep the Islamists out, using either large special forces units for ground raids or a swarm of armed drones.
3. Hizballah militia units were spotted Sunday night on the move from south Lebanon toward the Lebanese-Syrian border areas abutting on the Golan separation zone.
The Guardian interviewed 11 family members of massacre victims in the Bustan al-Qasr area, who all confirmed that their dead relatives had vanished in regime areas, or had been trying to reach them. Two other men who had been arrested at regime checkpoints and later freed were also interviewed. Both alleged that mass killings had taken place in the security prisons in which they had been held. They identified the prisons as Air Force intelligence and Military Security — two of the most infamous state security facilities in Syria.
A photo log of all of the victims of the massacre has been put on display to help families who are seeking missing relatives. Photograph: Ben Solomon for the Guardian
This [video] places the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, the Dawn of Islam Brigade, the Croatian weapons, and Abu Jamal at the site of the killing of the POWs on the day of the incident the incident occurred.
Egyptian military personnel take over security in Port Said, where residents are furious with recent alleged police brutality. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters
Police have also refused to protect President Mohamed Morsi's home in the Nile delta province of Sharqiya. Among several seemingly contradictory grievances, police demand better weapons. But conversely, they also claim the Morsi regime is using them as unwilling pawns in the suppression of protesters who demand the regime's downfall.
"They're trying to Ikhwanise the police and we are against that," claimed Ahab Kamel, a spokesman for an informal union of junior police officers, who was on strike in Port Said. Ikhwan is the Arabic word for Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.
"We are at the same distance from all the political parties," added Kamel, sitting in the city's el-Sharq police station in civilian clothes, afraid to be seen in uniform by a local population furious with recent alleged police brutality.
The strike is the latest crack to emerge in the Egyptian state, which has been dogged by civil unrest in several cities over the past six weeks. It also adds a new dimension to the ongoing national debate about police abuses, which was a major cause of both the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, and the current unrest that continued across several pockets of Egypt this weekend.
In one case, lawyers say a 28-year-old activist, Mohamed el-Guindy, was killed by police after officers took him to a police camp in January. He was allegedly strangled with a cord and electrocuted via his tongue. Authorities first claimed the activists died in a car crash – a claim later contradicted by an official medical report.
But policemen on strike in Port Said deny the allegations. "I'm sure that this isn't the police," claimed Mohamed el-Adawy, deputy commander at el-Sharq police station, as he piled seven rifle rounds on his desk – for use as self-defence, he said. "It was thugs on the street."
Other officer argued that police were acting under extreme psychological pressure. "When people say that we are using force against the protesters, you have to go on the other side and see the situation when thousands are attacking you," said Kamel, who also claimed that the police had reformed their ways since the 2011 uprising.
But rights activists say that abuse continues. "There's definitely more activists subject to torture because there's more activism going on," said Aida Seif el-Dawla, the co-founder of the Egyptian Association Against Torture.
Tellingly, she reported that many of the recent survivors had been mocked by police in custody for their participation in overthrow of Mubarak. "The police want to belittle the revolution," she said.
Some striking policemen claim their treatment of protesters is a result of interference from Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Brotherhood argues that it has little control over an intransigent institution, loyal to Mubarak holdovers, that will take years to reform.
"The corruption of the past 60 years is not going to be solved in just one or two or even five years," Walid al-Haddad, a spokesman for its political wing, the Freedom and Justice party, has told the Guardian. A small number of Islamist policemen also claim they have been discriminated against for wearing beards.
For their part, human rights activists feel that while Morsi may not have as much control over the police as officers claim, reforming the service is not one of his, or his colleagues', priorities. "They have a choice: to remain in power supported by the people. Or remain in power supported by institutions like the police," said Seif el-Dawla.
But this weekend, as police strikes spread across the country, even the second option seemed unlikely.
"I think we [can] safely say a police mutiny is underway in #Egypt,"tweeted Issandr el-Amrani, an analyst and commentator on Egyptian politics.
DOHA — Qatar does not expect to give further financial aid to Egypt in the immediate future, Qatari Finance Minister Youssef Kamal said Monday.
"We already announced LE3 billion (US$5 billion)," Kamal told Reuters, when asked how much aid Qatar had provided Egypt to date.
Asked whether Qatar expected to provide more, he replied: "Not yet." He did not elaborate.
Qatar has been a key source of foreign aid to Egypt since its 2011 revolution through soft loans and deposits in Cairo's Central Bank.
With Egypt's foreign reserves falling to critically low levels and a hoped-for $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund delayed by political unrest, there has been speculation that Cairo could turn to Qatar for yet more aid.
With dramatic headlines, today’s newspapers agonized over the fires and violence that spread throughout Cairo and beyond following the verdict pronounced on the Port Said football massacre.
The massacre, where 72 Ahly Club fans were killed in a match between their team and Port Said’s Al-Masry Club, resulted in 73 people being put on trial. Of them, 21 were sentenced to death, five received life sentences and 28 were acquitted, with the rest receiving various sentences. Only two out of nine policemen accused in the case were given sentences, while the rest was acquitted, to the fury of some Ahly football fans.
“Burning Egypt” is the privately-owned Al-Shorouk’s headline of choice. “The second Cairo fire” was the privately-owned Al-Sabah’s headline, reminding readers of the first Cairo fire of 1952, which destroyed several state institutions in the midst of heightened anti-British occupation sentiments. Both papers’ coverage is more descriptive than prescriptive, saying only that the ultras’ anger has spread in Cairo and Port Said following a verdict that was less than satisfactory for both sides.
But tidbits of politics show in the coverage, albeit subtly. Al-Shorouk’s lead reads, “The anger of the ultras leads to the burning of public institutions in Cairo, while the anger of Port Said threatens the Suez Canal. The policemen continue their strikes in the meantime and the Brothers look into forming a ‘private sector’ police.”
In fact, Al-Shorouk is the only one to make a reference to Saber Abouel Fotouh, a member of the Freedom and Justice Party, and his statement about a possible law to be passed by the Shura Council to allow private security companies to replace the striking policemen in filling the security gap. Abouel Fotouh said that although the Armed Forces have some powers of arrest approved by the Parliament, “We don’t want to keep them busy with domestic issues.
Another headline in the same newspaper reads, “Crowds of ultras invade Cairo and the army puts out the fire.” The mention of the army refers to the fact that the Armed Forces did sent helicopters to put down the fire that erupted in the Egyptian Football Association and the Police Club, both near the Ahly Club, where crowds congregated ahead of the verdict. But the reference figuratively brings up scattered talk about a military takeover to put an end to the Brotherhood’s ruling failures, a possibility deemed desirable for a few and yet remote for many.
Less subtle is the coverage of partisan papers like that of the daily Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the veteran liberal party. “Where is Morsy?” figures in bigger Arabic red letters on top of its front page, in reference to President Mohamed Morsy.
And for the daily privately-owned Al-Watan, it’s even personal. “Hatred burns Egypt and the regime is content with praying.” For Al-Watan, it’s personal because the newspaper’s premises were attacked on Saturday by unknown assailants, who set fire to the first floor and destroyed the second. The story figures on top of today’s front page, whereby Al-Watan claims that the attack was organized by Morsy’s regime. The paper said that when its journalists asked Presidential Spokesperson Ihab Fahmy about the attack, the latter responded by asking, “Is this a question to be addressed to the presidency, and is the presidency expected to have an answer?”
But life is good for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice daily. Justice is served and all problems are/will be solved, according to the paper. The newspaper’s front page details the verdict focusing on those convicted (21 death sentences, five life sentences, 15 years for the head of the Security Directorate), while failing to mention the 28 found innocent. Meanwhile, and ahead of the Port Said news, the paper reports about a map of gas stations that will be focal points for natural gas 24 hours a day, in response to mounting disenchantment with the missing gas across the nation. The front page also makes space for other positive news, such as the youth of the Brotherhood organizing volunteers-based illiteracy classes and Freedom and Justice daily celebrating its 500th edition.
Less nonchalant coverage is found in the state-run Al-Ahram daily, whose editor, Abdel Nasser Salama, runs a front page interview with Muslim Brotherhood leader and Shura Council Speaker Ahmad Fahmy. In a self-defensive statement, Fahmy tells Salama that “no political party on its own can handle the responsibility in Egypt. The Freedom and Justice Party is a not a ruling party and it didn’t take its chance up until now.”
Egypt’s papers:
Al-Ahram: Daily, state-run, largest distribution in Egypt
Al-Akhbar: Daily, state-run, second to Al-Ahram in institutional size
Al-Gomhurriya: Daily, state-run
Rose al-Youssef: Daily, state-run
Al-Dostour: Daily, privately owned
Al-Shorouk: Daily, privately owned
Al-Watan: Daily, privately owned
Al-Wafd: Daily, published by the liberal Wafd Party
Youm7: Daily, privately owned
Al-Tahrir: Daily, privately owned
Al-Sabah: Daily, privately owned
Freedom and Justice: Daily, published by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party
Sawt al-Umma: Weekly, privately owned
Al-Arabi: Weekly, published by the Nasserist Party
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