Published on The Drum, 29/3/2012
Syrian opposition must heed Annan’s call for dialogue
In the 1979 Monty Python comedy film Life of Brian, the Judean People’s Front scoff at the People’s Front of Judea.
In the lead up to the April Fool’s Day conference in Istanbul by the splintered motley crew of opposition groups, there are already echoes of this aerial stone throwing which trivialise a serious on the ground situation in Syria.
It is difficult to avoid cynicism about this opportunistic ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ logic. It has even brought the US and Al Qaeda on the same side of the bedlam. Around 200 ‘Friends of Syria’ have been invited to this conference by host country Turkey and Al Jazeera country Qatar, who have no love lost with the Syrian regime. The ‘friends’ would include those who may prefer a theocracy than a democracy such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi Jihadists, Al Qaeda and the Khomeini movement.
It would include ‘lone warriors’ such Rami Abdulrahman whose London-based front the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has successfully sold a Syrian narrative to the western media while the Syrian government repeatedly peddled its ‘armed gangs’ excuse for stalling reform.
However, the Syrian National Council (SNC) is ambitious to be the ‘sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people’, and this arrogance may lead to more enemies than friends.
In Monty Pythonesque manner, a founding member of SNC, Osama al-Munjid, told ABC radio that the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change ‘does not represent anyone but themselves’.
His ‘legitimate’ organisation ostensibly works towards a ‘peaceful transition to free, democratic rule’ but undermines its pacifist goals with its violent slogans that the current Syrian government is an ‘illegitimate occupying militia’ and a ‘murderous regime’ led by ‘butcher Bashar’. He has conjured up all the comparisons with Saddam
Hussein and Moamar Gaddafi, both of whom were ousted by foreign military force and militia groups that cannot be disarmed. The SNC now appears hell bent on wanting a repeat of the NATO-Libyan Rebels model.
This was reinforced this month when SNC president Dr Burhan Ghalioun announced the formation of a Military Bureau to coordinate the ‘brave factions of the armed resistance’ including the Free Syrian Army ‘under one central command’. The SNC unashamedly declares that ‘all forms of intervention are on the table… to bring down the Assad regime’.
This is ironic given that the SNC started in 2005 as a non-violent political movement by Syrian expatriates, ‘headquartered’ in Washington DC .
Recognising the inherent illegitimacy of Diasporic voices, United Nations and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan told the SNC that that they needed to have continuous and open communication with people ‘inside and outside of Syria’.
Already, Ammar al-Qurabi who chairs the Syrian National Conference for Change declared that he welcomed the ‘unified vision’ but not ‘under the umbrella of the Syrian National Council’.
Five senior members of the SNC resigned earlier this month, including human rights lawyer Catherine al-Talli who then formed the Syrian Patriotic Front, and former judge Haitham al-Maleh who lost patience in ‘working to arm the rebels’.
Another opposition to the SNC, the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, intends to boycott the ‘friends’ conference.
Kofi Annan’s six-point plan, approved by UNSC, includes political dialogue, yet SNC’s Osama al-Munjid told ABC that ‘we will never sit and talk’.
Unsurprisingly, the SNC refuses to acknowledge any of the reforms implemented by the Syrian government, even though many mirror the SNC’s own stated goals such as abolishing emergency laws, abolishing laws restricting rights to establish political parties, licensing of media outlets, and specific terms governing the election of the president.
Herein lies one of the tragedies of stubbornness where the most vocal opposition group insists on revolution from outsiders, rather than evolution from within Syria.
Foreign intervention by the kings on this chessboard come with a price tag and reduce the SNC to future pawns indebted to new masters – not a government that will only answer to the Syrian people. The SNP should come clean about its sponsors, who are most likely the Gulf States and their US-Israeli allies.
Already the US and turkey have pledged ‘non lethal’ assistance such as communications equipment.
Given its alliance with the Free Syrian Army, the SNC may be an accomplice to the atrocities committed.
The SNC has many admirable aspirations such as a ‘truth and national reconciliation commission’, presumably modelled on post Apartheid South Africa – something that many Palestinians seek in a shared and post Apartheid Holy Lands.
Perhaps before the SNC and other ‘fronts’ embark on a bloody path to wipe the Syrian government off the map, with ‘assistance’ from above and beyond, it would be wise to listen to the will of Syrians on Syrian soil. Ask them a question along the lines of ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ Only then will the SNP begin to earn legitimacy and the Syrian government be relegated to history.