Syrian Revolution Digest – Monday 10 September 2012

Falling Apart!

Syrian Revolution Digest – September 10, 2012 

The only strategy at play in Syria is succeeding in tearing the country apart. Guns speak louder than God, and the international community.

Monday September 10, 2012

Today’s Death toll: 136. The Breakdown: The toll includes 8 women and 2 children. 73 were killed in Damascus and Suburbs (including 36 who were field-executed in Tadamon, 17 whose bodies were found in Zamalka and 3 who were field-executed in Moadamia), 16 in Aleppo, 10 in Hama, 4 in Daraa, 4 in Idlib, 2 in Homs, 2 in Lattakia, and 1 in Deir Ezzor. (LCC)

* Syrian Author, intellectual and activist, Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, AKA the Wise Man of the Syrian Revolution, isamong ten recipients of the 2012 Prince Claus Fund Award.

* Syrian filmmaker, Tamer Al-Awam, died on Saturday of shrapnel wounds received while filming a new documentary in Al-Itha’ah Neighborhood in Aleppo City.

 

News

Syrian Rebel Video Appears to Show 20 Executed Soldiers

Egypt to host regional meeting over Syria crisis

Syria general Tlas opposes foreign intervention

Syria defector Manaf Tlas hints at French intelligence aid

Russia says Syria’s Assad “still solid”

Angelina Jolie in Jordan to visit Syrian refugees

Syrian couple gets married at refugee camp in Jordan

 

Op-Eds & Special Reports

In Syria’s countryside, vital support for rebels

Syria’s rebels counting on captured anti-aircraft guns to defeat air force

Turkey’s ‘Free Syrian Army’ troubles

 

Video Highlights

Aleppo

Rebels in Aleppo City have reportedly perpetrated a massacre against recruits in the Hanono Military Compound. According to local eyewitnesses, the recruits, 20 in all, were mostly Kurds, and did not take part in any recent battle. The rebels, we are told, knew this but wanted to send a message to all pro-Assad militias. Some say that the killers were mostly Egyptian and Libyan Jihadis, though we don’t see any evidence of that in the videos that came out of the attack. This marks the first documented incident of a massacre on this scale perpetrated by rebels. All videos below were made by the rebels  http://tinyurl.com/ckba5r4

Rebels gather up for the attack http://youtu.be/Ut1Rb9hdRKk Scenes from the battle http://youtu.be/oA36IBLsb5s, http://youtu.be/rtlCcc9dPTM , http://youtu.be/80BH0QNIK5g Storming in http://youtu.be/reiQfH-7dDw This is the scene moments after the rebels took over the compound http://youtu.be/klh-AqZP468 Moments later, Assad’s jets bombard the
compound http://youtu.be/A44nQpcOQmE Close-up look of a MIG in action http://youtu.be/xFAWtu_4YHo

Elsewhere in the city, people live in constant anxiety over the exact spots were the bombs will fall. People used to play cat-and-mouse with snipers, now they have to play the game with MIGs http://youtu.be/1ipW-RItIbw

Earlier, some rebels found an old copy of the Alawite Holy Book, Al-Jifr, in the house of an Alawite officer. They read passages of it to showcase the heterodox nature of Alawite faith from the point of view of Sunni doctrinehttp://youtu.be/wlmQeoe4pU0

Elsewhere:

In Houleh, this little girls who had survived the infamous massacre, did not survive the merciless shellinghttp://youtu.be/qXHA5OH7JS

In Qusayr, the few civilians who remain try to go on with their lives as the aerial bombardment of their town proceedshttp://youtu.be/WbnKBFeUnHA

This leaked video shows pro-Assad militia torturing a mentally handicapped young man, reasons unknownhttp://youtu.be/DaBV64jwWYE

Documents Released Show U.S. Covered up Soviet Guilt in Katyn Massacre

By Emilee Gaebler
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

WARSAW, Poland – After over 70 years of silence regarding Soviet culpability in the Polish Katyn massacre of 1940, the United States has indirectly acknowledged the cover up they participated in.  Documents released on Monday show that the United States was aware, at a very early point, that the Soviet claim of the massacre being the work of the German Nazi’s, was false.

A Polish soldier testifying during the 1950-1951 Congressional hearings for the Katyn massacre. (Photo Courtesy of The Moscow Times)

In May of 1943, British and American POW’s were taken into the Katyn forest by their German captors and shown a mass grave site in a clearing.  The grave contained the bodies of close to 22,000 Polish high-ranking officers.  The men had been the educated elite of Poland in their civilian lives: doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professionals.  They had all been shot in the back of the head and dumped into the mass graves.  Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD, had killed them to eliminate public challenges to Stalinism.

Objects, like correspondence, ID cards, and newspaper clippings that were recovered from their bodies were dated from 1940 and earlier.  The uniforms that were still on the corpses were in new condition, hardly worn or used at all.  The bodies were in a partly mummified state and showed signs of advanced decay; all of this pointing to the reality that these bodies had been in the grave since 1940 or earlier

The Katyn forest was in the control of the Soviets until the Germans were able to gain control of it in 1941.  American officers, Captain Donald B. Stewart and Lieutenant Colonel John H. Van Vliet Jr., were among the POW’s taken to the site of the Katyn massacre.  Included in the roughly 1,000 documents released on Monday are coded messages sent by the two men, while still in captivity, that state their belief that the German claim that the massacre was done by the Soviets was true.

In 1951-1952 Congressional hearings were held regarding the Katyn massacre.  Both Stewart and Van Vliet testified at these but the record of the hearings does not reflect these coded messages from 1943, suggesting they were deliberately excluded.  As well, Van Vliet wrote two reports on the massacre, one in 1945 and one in 1950 but neither of them were part of the hearings or released by the United States government at any point.

Experts believe that the truth regarding responsibility for the Katyn massacre was deliberately withheld in 1943 by President Theodore Roosevelt to maintain the alliance between the two countries against Germany.  Following the end of the war the truth remained hidden to keep Cold War tensions down.

In 1990, during the fall of the Iron Curtain, the last head of state of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, finally admitted to the Soviet guilt in the massacre.  Even then, the United States government refused to admit to their participation in the cover-up.  United States historian and author of a Katyn massacre book, Paul Allen, believes that a public apology to the Polish people is required as Katyn remains a wound on the Polish psyche that to this day affects Polish and Russian relationships.

 

For further information, please see:

BBC News – US “Hushed up” Soviet Guilt Over Katyn – 11 September 2012

The Moscow Times – Secret Memos Show U.S. Hushed up Katyn Crime – 11 September 2012

Polskie Radio – Veterans Attend Release of US Katyn Documents – 11 September 2012

The Telegraph – US “Hushed up Katyn Massacre” – 11 September 2012

Associate Press – AP Exclusive: Memos Show US Hushed up Soviet Crime – 10 September 2012

Thousands In Chile March In Memory Of The Disappeared

By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SANTIAGO, Chile – While 3,500 Chileans marched on Sunday in memory of the estimated 40,000 casualties of the Pinochet dictatorship, a hundred masked figures used the opportunity to riot.

Imagen
Chileans March in Support of Former President Allende. (Photo Courtesy of Cooperativa)

On the 39th anniversary of the military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende in 1973 and installed General Pinochet; thousands marched through the streets of Santiago. Beginning in in the Hero’s Square in the center of Santiago, marchers placed lit candles to places that were used as detention centers by agents of the Pinochet dictatorship. Many of the marchers carried photos of missing relatives who disappeared during the 17 year reign of the dictatorship. Officials estimate that more than 3,000 people were killed during the 17 years of military occupation, and another 37,000 were detained as political prisoners, or were the victims of torture or exile.

General Augusto Pinochet was eventually arrested and kept under house arrest for two cases of human rights violations, but died in 2006 before receiving any conviction for the thousands of victims who died under his dictatorship. Today more than 700 retired military officers face trial for human rights violations and some 70 have been convicted and 67 of them have been incarcerated for their compliance with the military dictatorship. The Chilean courts still have over 350 open cases of concerning the disappearance of political opponents, and incidents of torture dating back to the period of the dictatorship.

Lorena Pizarro, president of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared used the opportunity to lay a wreath on the grave of Salvador Allende and criticize the current ruling party and in light of reports of police repression, demand an “end impunity and advance truth and justice.”

While overwhelmingly a peaceful rally, there were incidents of hooded and masked individuals who rioted. There are reports of vandalized public offices and community property as rioters clashed with police and barricaded intersections and lit fires near the general cemetery. Police met the rioters’ stones and firebombs with water cannons and gas canisters.

The riots resulted in eight arrests for the destruction that occurred in the building that housed the regional secretary for education, the looting of a bank, and for the possession of Molotov cocktails.

The march ended peacefully at the general cemetery where marchers laid wreaths on the graves of the executed and disappeared. The general cemetery houses the Memorial of the Disappeared, which stands in remembrance of the victims of the dictatorship.

 

 

For further information, please see:

Univision Noticias – Chile recordara a Salvador Allende – 9 September 2012

Cooperativa – More than five thousand people marched through the disappeared – 9 September 2012

Fox News Latino – Procession by relatives of Chile dictatorship victims ends w/ incidents – 9 September 2012

Google – Thousands march in Chile in memory of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship – 9 September 2012

Terra – Thousands march in Chile in memory of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship – 9 September 2012

Cooperativa – With eight detainees ended up in memory of the disappeared – 9 September 2012

Iraqi Vice President Maintains Innocence after Receiving Death Sentence

By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and his Chief Officer Ahmad al-Qahtan were sentenced in absentia by the Criminal Court of Iraq last Sunday to death by hanging for the murders of Suhad al-Khafaji, a lawyer, and the National Security Officer, Talib Balasim.  Speaking at a press conference in Turkey on Monday, Hashemi insisted his innocence and denounced the verdict, calling it “politically motivated.”

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi said in a press conference last Monday that his conviction was “politically motivated.” (Photo Courtesy of the Guardian)

“While reconfirming my complete innocence and my guards, I totally reject and will never recognize the unfair, unjust and politically motivated verdict, which was expected at the beginning of this ridiculous lawsuit,” he said.  Hashemi fled Iraq in December after the government announced the charges against him.  The court has given him 30 days to return to Iraq to appeal the charges, but Hashemi has said that he will not return.

Since his escape, Hashemi, a Sunni, continues to criticize Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his longtime rival, accusing him of manipulating the Iraqi judiciary.  In a statement regarding Maliki, Hashemi’s political party, the secular Iraqiya political bloc, said that “[t]he conduct of court hearings only reinforces the feeling that the sentence by the court is politicized and predictable.”

Hashemi’s case has created an issue for the Iraqi government, as it has fueled resentment from Sunnis and Kurds against Maliki, who critics say is monopolizing power.

“The verdict is unjust, politicized, illegitimate and I will not recognize it,” Hashemi said.  “But I put it as a medal of honor on my chest because it was Maliki, not anyone else, behind it.  I’m proud that it is Maliki, and not anyone else, to target me.”  He also said that “[t]he death sentence is a price I have to pay due to my love for my country and my loyalty to my people.  I reiterate that I’m innocent, and am ready to stand before a fair judicial system and not a corrupt one under Maliki’s influence.”

Hashemi’s defense team also accused the court of losing its objectivity and siding with the Shia-led government.  In his closing argument, attorney Muayad Obeid al-Ezzi, head of the defense team, said that “[f]rom the beginning and through all procedures, it has become obvious that the Iraqi judicial system has been under political pressure.”  In an interview with Al Jazeera, Ezzi said “This ruling has no legal value or effect.  In-absentia rulings cannot be considered final or enforced.  It should remain with the court until the person sentenced is handed over to authorities or arrested.”

The Iraqi government has also accused Hashemi of playing a role in 150 bombings, assassinations, and other attacks from 2005 t0 2011 – most of which were carried out by his bodyguards and other employees.

The verdict against Hashemi is also expected to spark tension with neighboring Turkey.

“Political tensions are likely to escalate in Iraq and relations between Ankara and Baghdad could also worsen in the coming months,” said John Drake, a security specialist.  Drake added that Hashemi’s death sentence “will certainly exacerbate divisions between Maliki and Iraqiya.  This could hinder the work of Parliament.”

For further information, please see:

Al Bawaba — Iraqi VP Rejects Death Sentence — 10 September 2012

Al Jazeera  — Iraq Vice-President Rejects Death Sentence — 10 September 2012

BBC News — Iraq VP Tariq al-Hashemi Rejects Guilty Verdict — 10 September 2012

Guardian — Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi Attacks ‘Unjust’ Verdict in Terror Trial — 10 September 2012

National Iraqi News Agency — Death Sentence to al-Hashemi and his Chief Office — 9 September 2012

Colombia Begins Peace Talks With FARC Rebels

By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTÁ, Colombia – Peace talks began this week between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also known as the FARC Rebels. The FARC are Latin America’s oldest guerrilla army and have been active for nearly 50 years. FARC Leader Rodrigo Londono confirmed that talks had opened up in a video released on the FARC website.

FARC Rebels marching on patrol. (Photo Courtesy of The Telegraph)

This will be the first time that formal peace talks have commenced between the Colombian government and the FARC Rebels since 1999, which ultimately disintegrated after the rebels regrouped and continued to carry out attacks and kidnappings against government and civilian targets.

While FARC proposed a ceasefire during these peace talks, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos refused the proposition, announcing that until talks have proceeded, combined military and police forces will continue assaults on FARC camps. The bi-lateral cease fire is expected to be reintroduced as FARC has announced it will reprise the issue during talks in October.

The rebels are likely to address issues such as the distribution of government held land to the people. The Colombian government, on the other hand, will likely address the rebel’s link to drug trafficking and the reincorporation of guerrilla members into society, a sensitive topic considering the large amount of Colombian citizens still thought to be held hostage by the rebel army.

Established in 1964 as a Marxist revolutionary movement, FARC has become infamous for funding itself through the drug trade, holding hostages for ransom, and for the murder, rape, extortion and torture of many people. FARC is responsible for the kidnapping and disappearing of numerous military officials, soldiers and Colombian citizens throughout its fifty years, in a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. FARC alleges that they are not currently engaging in kidnapping and have not done so since February. Reports from the New Hope Foundation – an NGO that collects the records of from concerning the abductions in Columbia – dispute that claim, suggesting that the FARC still hold an estimated 400-694 Colombian citizens hostage somewhere in the jungle. FARC negotiators, however, have reiterated that they are no longer actively abducting Colombians or holding them hostage for ransom.

These peace talks were announced just three weeks after Colombian FARC rebels blew up an oil pipeline in the Narino department of Columbia. This was just the latest in a series of pipeline attacks; 67 incidents have been reported between January and June 2012, compared to 84 for all of 2011.

 

For further information, please see:

El Pais – And if the FARC say they do not kidnap, what about those missing in Colombia?  – 7 September 2012

La Vanguardia – The FARC pose a bilateral ceasefire in peace talks  – 6 September 2012

The Herald Sun – FARC rebel chief confirms Colombia peace talks  – 4 September 2012

International Business Times – Colombia Holds Informal Talks With FARC Rebels In Hopes Of Ending Half-Century Of Conflict  – 30 August 2012

The BBC – Colombian “Farc rebels ‘ blow up oil pipeline in Narino – 19 August 2012