The much-anticipated “Geneva II” Syrian peace talks might not be held in Geneva due to insufficient hotel availability, UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said in an interview broadcast Tuesday.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon finally set a date last week for the peace conference, which has been repeatedly postponed since June and is now set to kick off on January 22.
But while UN organisers were glad to finally have a date to work towards, they now find themselves in a pickle, Brahimi acknowledged in an interview with public broadcaster RTS. (Read more…)
The conference is due to begin on the same day the global elite gathers for the annual World Economic Forum at the swank Swiss ski resort of Davos and will also clash with a luxury watch fair in Geneva.
The city’s hotels are fully booked, leading organisers to look for alternatives.
One of them is Montreux — a scenic town at the other end of Lake Geneva and known for its jazz festival — to gather Syria’s warring parties for peace talks.
“If we go to Montreux, it would be for just 24 hours, while waiting for the watch show and Davos to end,” Brahimi told RTS.
Montreux is just over an hour’s train ride from Geneva, but the veteran Algerian diplomat explained that people who come to Geneva are often unwilling to accept a long commute.
“If you go to New York, you know that it will take you an hour or two to get into town, and you accept that,” he said.
“In Geneva you are used to being just 10 minutes from the airport, so if we told people they would have to travel for an hour and 15 minutes, they would say, oh la la.”
UN spokeswoman Corinne Momal-Vanian confirmed that the ministerial-level meeting on January 22 itself “may indeed be held outside of Geneva because of logistics reasons.”
She said no decision had yet been made.
When asked whether the conference would have to be renamed if moved, Momal-Vanian said: “We try not to respond to hypothetical questions.”
Here’s what it looks like when a respected reporter tweets about his blackmail note to an established anti-war organization regarding the organization’s upcoming conference in a tweet on November 15:
I’ve informed organizers of @STWuk that I will not participate in their conference if Mother Agnes is on the platform.
The reporter is Jeremy Scahill, who was booked as the keynote speaker and to show his film “Dirty Wars” (based on his book “Dirty Wars”) at the November 30 International Anti-War Conference in London, put on by Stop the War Coalition (STWuk), which was first organized in 2001 in opposition to an American attack on Iraq. More than 12 years later, the coalition notes dryly on its webpage for the conference, “We need more effective anti war resistance internationally. This conference is a chance to analyse, build links and lay plans.”
Scahill’s threat to boycott the conference soon became moot the following day, when the dreaded Mother Agnes withdrew from participation. Her letter read, in part:
“It has come to my attention that my participation in your conference has become a matter of serious contention, even prompting some other speakers to consider withdrawing. This is apparently due to a campaign of cruel and unsubstantiated accusations which seek to work against my efforts and those of the Musalaha (Reconciliation) Initiative in Syria.
“The basis of our work toward peace is reconciliation and forgiveness. This means extending an olive branch to some who may initially refuse it, and accepting an olive branch from others who are despised, even by our friends….
“Some may feel that an injustice will be done if I speak at your conference. Others may think that injustice will be done if I do not. Because my participation in your conference may be used by some to distract from your valuable efforts towards peace, non-violence and reconciliation, I believe it best to withdraw from participation.”
Why did Stop the War invitation to nun working to stop war raise objections?
Push comes to shove, and Mother Agnes is an apparent pushover. She’s also not flogging a movie. And the abuse she’s suffered online was as real as the pressure on Scahilll and others to have nothing to do with her. It’s hard to find any evidence that Mother Agnes has committed anything worse than what others consider thought-crimes and politically incorrect observations, some of which are actually correct.
Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross is a Carmelite nun and mother superior of the Monastery of James the Mutilated in Qara, Syria, which has a community of three monks and twelve nuns. Born in Lebanon in a refugee camp 61 years ago, she is Palestinian on her father’s side and has worked in Syria for about 20 years. She is the spokesperson for the Catholic Information Center in Beirut, where the Musalaha Initiative also has its office. Mother Agnes became a nun at 19, after several years in the late 1960s as a self-styled “hippie,” traveling to Europe, India and Tibet. Unlike others with an equally public profile, Mother Agnes has no Wikipedia page.
In June 2012, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire praised Mother Agnes as a peacemaker:
“In her community her voice has been clear, pure and loud. And it should be so in the West. Like many people in Syria she has been placed in life threatening situations, but for the sake of peace she has chosen to risk her own existence for the safety and security of others. She has spoken out against the lack of truth in our media regarding Syria and about the terror and chaos which a ‘third force’ seems to be spreading across the country. Her words confront and challenge us because they do not mirror the picture of events in Syria we have built up in our minds over many months of reading our newspapers and watching the news on our televisions. Much of the terror has been imported, we learn from her. She can tell us about the thousands of Christian refugees, forced to flee their homes by an imported Islamist extreme.”
What makes her controversial to people around Stop the War Coalition is their perception of her as a supporter of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Clear reasoning behind this perception is hard to come by. The reality for Christians in Syria is that their choice of friends is limited: the government represses them along with everyone else, but some rebel groups have taken to massacring Christians. With rebel groups numbering 1,000 or more, none is likely to be a reliable protector.
Mother Agnes’s heretical view of the Damascus chemical attack
In August 2013, when the world learned of the still murky chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb, Mother Agnes questioned the prevailing western view that the Assad government carried out the attack. She prepared a 50-page report questioning the authenticity of videos of the aftermath and submitted her findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council. As the New York Times of September 21 reported:
“When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, wanted to bolster his argument that rebels had carried out the poison gas attacks near Damascus on Aug. 21, he pointed to the work of a 61-year-old Lebanese-born nun who had concluded that the horrifying videos showing hundreds of dead and choking victims, including many children, had been fabricated ahead of time to provide a pretext for foreign intervention.
“’Mr. Lavrov is an intelligent person,’ said the nun, Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, with a wide smile in a recent interview in this Lebanese mountain town. ‘He will never stick his name to someone who is saying stupidities.’”
Taking a position on the chemical attacks that is supportive of the Assad government has led to intensified criticism of Mother Agnes as an Assad pawn. French reporters have written a book accusing her of conspiring with the government to kill another French reporter in 2012. She has sued the authors for libel.
The Syrian uprising started with peaceful protests in March 2011, but soon turned violent. Mother Agnes accuses the West of fomenting the violence to create a pretext for military intervention and re-ordering Syria. In November 2011, she wrote an open letter to President Assad, challenging the government over its treatment of hospital patients and prisoners, as reported in Vatican Insider in November 2011:
“Dear Mr. President, I have lived and worked in Syria since 1994, and I have learned to esteem the unique position Syria holds in the world of culture and of religions. But I am shocked to learn from Amnesty International that in the hospitals run by the government the wounded suffer discrimination and maltreatment because of their ideology. And I am saddened to find that, in the prisons, there are people there who have never been tried in court, or even accused of anything…. I ask for a serious inquiry into the hospitals and prisons, under the supervision of the International Red Cross, together with the creation of a committee to accelerate the exercise of justice.”
In late October, Mother Agnes, through the Musalaha Initiative, was involved in establishing a cease-fire and evacuating some 5,400 civilians from Moadamiya, a rebel-held city near Damascus.
Mother Agnes is currently on a six-week speaking tour in North America, largely ignored by most media. In Cleveland on November 14, she received a special peace award from the mayor, a congressman, and a senator. The tour ends December 4.
Jeremy Scahill has yet to explain his own behavior, but columnist Neil Clark, writing for Russia Today, blames “liberal hawks and neo-cons” for silencing the nun because:
“Mother Agnes’ testimony reveals that the so-called ‘War on Terror’ is a sham – that in Syria, the western countries and their regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, are on the same side as the extremist Islamic terror groups that we are told are our greatest enemies.”
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Head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, says he has dedicated his life to the persecution of wahhabi terrorists.
The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, fired a government official after the officials daughter travelled to Syria in order to fight along side Islamist militants.
Ramzan Kadyrov, commonly referred to as the President of Chechnya, wrote via his social media account on Instagram that he had dismissed the Director of Federal Migration, Asu Dudurkaev, after he had lost the trust of the citizens of Chechnya.
Kadyrov pointed out that several complaints had been lodged against Dudurkaev who is the head of an important institution.
Among the claims against Dudurkaev were those who thought the Federal Migration institution was mismanaged and corrupt. Kadyrov made the claim that Dudurkaev lacked the moral authority to talk with employees about morality, decency, patriotism and religion.
But what seems to have been the biggest concern is the fact that Dudurkaevs daughter recently travelled to Syria in order to participate in the “jihad” against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
“His [Dudurkaev’s] own daughter is in the ranks of the wahhabis and thugs, shedding the blood of civilians, [contributing to] the cruelty in the holy Islamic area of Syria,” Kadyrov wrote.
“We offered him [Dudurkaev] the chance to convince his daughter to return, which he said he would do. But his daughter is still among the bandits. For this, coupled with other reasons, we came to the conclusion that it is impossible to further trust Dudurkaev with this post,” he continued.
As Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, son of former president and grand mufti of Chechnya Haj Akhmad Kadyrov, has been credited with bringing peace and stability to Chechnya and the Caucasus region. He has the support of current Russian President Vladimir Putin and was awarded the Hero of Russia medal, the highest honorary title of Russia.
In an interview with Sky News Arabia on April 6 of 2013, Ramzan Kadyrov pledged to personally lead the operation of annihilating any wahhabi terrorists returning from Syria to Russia.
“I have devoted my life to the persecution of these devils. The more they are – the better for me,” he said.
Published time: November 17, 2013 21:16
Edited time: November 18, 2013 02:40
Screenshot from YouTube video by user Free Syria
A rebel bomb attack killed 31 Syrian military troops on an army base near Damascus on Sunday. Four generals were among those killed. The attack came amid a major regime offensive against rebel positions around Damascus and Aleppo, AFP reported.
“Three generals and a brigadier-general were among 31 troops killed in a bomb attack that caused a building in the army transport base in Harasta to collapse,’‘ Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdul Rahman said.
The rebel group Direh al-Aasmeh (Shield of Damascus) brigade – which is part of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army – has claimed responsibility for the attack, posting a video of the blast on YouTube. The video shows the military building collapsing.
Pakistan could be given the responsibility for training two militant brigades in Syria, with about 5,000-10,000 militants.
Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest spenders of the foreign-sponsored war in Syria is turning to Pakistan to train militants, repeating a partnership that once failed in Afghanistan, a new report says.
The Foreign Policy Magazine wrote in an article on Thursday that Saudi Arabia is embarking on a major new effort to train Syrian rebel forces.
The article cites three sources with knowledge of the program that say Riyadh has enlisted the help of Pakistani instructors to do it.
According to the sources Pakistan could be given the responsibility for training about 5,000-10,000 militants from two brigades.
The report says the main goal of the Saudi project is to unite the mainstream armed opposition in Syria, many of whom are extremist forces, under the banner of a unified army.
The decision came after signs of rift in relations between Washington and Riyadh became evident.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to move forward with training the Syria militants independent of the United States is the latest sign of a split between the two longtime allies.
In Syria, Saudi officials were aggrieved by Washington’s decision to cancel a strike on the Syrian government in reprisal for a chemical attack on the Damascus suburbs this summer.
A top Saudi official told the Washington Post that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan was unaware of the cancelation of the strike. “We found about it from CNN,” he said.
As a result, Saudi Arabia has decided to follow its own plans which rely on a network of Saudi allies in addition to Pakistan, such as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and France.
“As the Saudis expand their effort to topple Assad, analysts say the central challenge is not to inflict tactical losses on the Syrian army, but to organize a coherent force that can coordinate its actions across the country. In other words, if Riyadh hopes to succeed where others have failed, it needs to get the politics right — convincing the fragmented rebel groups, and their squabbling foreign patrons, to work together in pursuit of a shared goal,” the article writes.
“The biggest problem facing the Saudis now is the same one facing the US, France, and anyone else interested in helping the rebels: the fragmentation of the rebels into groups fighting each other for local and regional dominance rather than cooperating to overthrow Assad,” said David Ottaway, a scholar at the Wilson Center who wrote a biography of Prince Bandar.
Syria militants are facing with deep divisions and rivalries with every now and then several of them pledging alliance together to form independent armies.
On Thursday, al-Qaeda leader Aymen Zawahiri who has the strongest militant groups on the ground in Syria fighting alongside the US-backed opposition urged all armed groups to be united and overthrow the Syrian government and set up their own ruling system.
Syrian/Al-Qaeda rebels funded and armed by Obama did this. That makes Obama guilty of war crimes and mass murder.
The bodies of 30 Christian civilians, including women and children, killed by Islamist militias, have been found in two separate mass graves, in the city of Sadad. The number of Christian civilians confirmed dead in this small town halfway between Homs and Damascus has reached 45. Many are injured and several are missing.
According to eyewitnesses, many of the civilians were killed by militia gangs of ‘Al- Nusra Front’ and ‘Daash’. The city has been completely destroyed and looted. Some of the militants who invaded the city were holed up in the Syriac Orthodox Church of St Theodore, which was profaned. Sadad is an ancient Syriac village which dates back to 2000 BC located in the region of Qalamoon, north of Damascus. It had 14 churches, a monastery, temples, historic landmarks and archaeological sites.
Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh said: “What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two and a half years… 45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing.
Aftermath of last week’s shelling of the Aaisha al-Sidiqa School in Damascus.
Five children were killed and 27 people wounded when mortar rounds hit a school in the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday, state television reported.
“The toll in the terrorist targeting of the St. John of Damascus school with mortar rounds has risen to five dead, all of them children, and 27 injured,” a news alert on Syrian state television said.
Just last week, militants targeted another school, the Aaisha al-Sidiqa school in the Zahira neighbourhood of Damascus, with mortar fire injuring four first graders.
Push comes to shove, and Mother Agnes is an apparent pushover. She’s also not flogging a movie. And the abuse she’s suffered online was as real as the pressure on Scahilll and others to have nothing to do with her. It’s hard to find any evidence that Mother Agnes has committed anything worse than what others consider thought-crimes and politically incorrect observations, some of which are actually correct.
Aftermath of last week’s shelling of the Aaisha al-Sidiqa School in Damascus.
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