The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Damascus residents pray for ‘miracle’ at Geneva Posted: 21 Jan 2014 04:36 AM PST Ahead of the talks, the army's bombardment of rebel-held suburbs of the city, and opposition mortar fire on its centre, have been less frequent. And in the streets of the Old City and elsewhere, there is a rare semblance of normality. Citizens go about their daily lives, youngsters take photos in front of the famed Ummayad mosque, and a vendor peddles souvenir pictures of President Bashar al-Assad and his ally Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon's Hezbollah group. But weariness shows on people's faces when they are asked about a solution to the conflict that has ravaged their country for nearly three years, killing more than 130,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights NGO. "Geneva? It would take a divine miracle for it to succeed," said Akram, who sells beans in the historic neighbourhood of Bab Touma. "Neither one side nor the other wants to make concessions," he added, referring to the regime and to the opposition which voted on Saturday to attend the talks. Assad's government has said regularly that his departure from office will not be on the table, even though this is the opposition's main demand. Akram's hopes are more simple. "What we want before anything else is security. If there isn't a ceasefire, we'll never get anywhere," he said as pro-regime militiamen patrolled nearby. "Let them talk for months, but I want to sleep in peace," the 35-year-old added, bemoaning the economic ruin the war has brought. "We used to export wheat and flour. Now we're importing it from Lebanon and Iran." Bab Touma, a majority Christian district, is now home to Syrians of all faiths who have come from across the war-torn country. "I don't have much hope," said Maher, a Sunni Muslim medical engineering student who arrived five months ago from the northern town of Raqa, which is controlled by jihadists. 'Too much pain' The talks "will end without results, particularly if the solution is imposed by the West," he added in particular reference to France and the United States, which back the opposition. His girlfriend Maha, a timid brunette, is even more pessimistic. "Syria will never go back to how it was. I don't think there will be reconciliation because there has been too much pain." Omar, a baker in Bab Touma, left the Palestinian Yarmuk camp south of the city about a year ago. He is delighted to have escaped the camp, which is mostly controlled by the opposition and has been under a regime siege that led to deaths from starvation among remaining residents. "We are exhausted. We really need a miracle at Geneva II," said the 31-year-old former accountant, who sports a neatly trimmed beard. "The two sides have to put aside their egos. If not, peace is impossible," he added, as he prepared "manoushe" flatbreads. While many Damascus residents want nothing more than a return to normal life, others trumpet the regime line. "We hope for victory for us, for our president!" shouted one passer-by in the central Marjeh neighbourhood of the capital, where many displaced families now live in budget hotels. "Everything will be over when the terrorists leave the country," said Amjad, another former Yarmuk resident, echoing the regime term for the rebels. Others questioned the role of the National Coalition, which is based in Turkey and is due to represent the opposition at the peace talks. "Who are our leaders going to talk to?" asked Malek, in the working-class district of Sarouja, near Marjeh. "The Coalition doesn't represent anything and the (rebels) are completely divided, so why should we negotiate with them?" Hussam, a drama student having a drink in a pub in the upscale Rawda neighbourhood, will be watching the talks closely. "If I don't feel like anything is happening after the conference, I'm going to leave Syria," he said. – AFP, January 21, 2014. |
| Rwanda in diplomatic trouble 20 years after genocide Posted: 21 Jan 2014 03:59 AM PST As Rwanda marks 20 years since its 1994 genocide, the government is seeking to stress the strides the country has made since those dark days, despite international concern over its hardline leader. Fiercely proud of its legacy, Kigali is displaying a country at peace, enjoying some of the best security on the continent and hailed by global financial institutions for its pro-reform, business-friendly agenda. But the seemingly hardening stance of strongman Paul Kagame, Rwanda's president, is casting a shadow over the country's relations with the outside world. Accused of backing rebel warlords who recruit child soldiers in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and suspected of eliminating exiled dissidents, Kagame now appears to be suffering a backlash. On January 1st, Patrick Karegeya, a one-time close ally of Kagame turned fierce critic, was found dead in a luxury Johannesburg hotel. South African police found a bloodied towel and a rope, and said Karegeya might have been strangled. Critics of the regime immediately pointed the finger at Kigali, and Kagame responded with an ambiguous, hawkish tone. Without mentioning the Karegeya case, the president simply said that "treason brings consequences". "Anyone who betrays our cause or wishes our people ill will fall victim. What remains to be seen is how you fall victim," Kagame said. His comments prompted a surprisingly stiff rebuke from Washington, which had been a staunch supporter of Kagame ever since his rebel army defeated Hutu extremists and ended the genocide of the Tutsi minority in 1994. "We condemn the murder of former Rwandan government official, Colonel Patrick Karegeya, in South Africa, where he lived in exile," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a press briefing last week, adding the US welcomes South Africa's "prompt and thorough investigation" into Karegeya's death. Psaki also said the US was "troubled by the succession of what appear to be politically motivated murders of prominent Rwandan exiles", and said Kagame's comments were a cause for "deep concern". Rwanda 'won't be lectured' The criticism of Kigali comes amid increasing unease in Washington, which had last year suspended some of its aid to Rwanda over its support for the M23, a rebel group based over the border in the resource-rich east of the DR Congo. Rwanda denied backing the group, but diplomats say it was subjected to intense pressure to back off and the M23 were subsequently defeated. "The US used to be one of the biggest supporters of the Rwandan president," said Paul Simon Handy of the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), adding that Washington liked Kagame's "capacity to manage, to govern, to take Rwanda to the next step." "It's clear that the Obama administration has a completely different approach (to Rwanda) from those of the Clinton and Bush administrations," Handy told AFP, saying the current administration "seems less inclined to tolerate human rights abuses". A European diplomat said there had been a reluctance to criticise Kagame, mainly because of "Western guilt for having failed to prevent the genocide and essentially having stood by and watched" while close to a million of Rwanda's ethnic Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutu extremists. "You cannot dispute that Kagame has also done a lot of positive things for Rwanda. His record on corruption and economic reforms are an example to the rest of the continent," said the diplomat, who asked not to be named. "He's also brought peace and stability to Rwanda, that's undeniable. The problem is that there are certain aspects of him that are making us feel, well, deeply uneasy." But in Rwanda, reaction to criticism is increasingly one of defiance – with the country signalling it does not take kindly to criticism from an international community that stood by and did nothing while the genocide was in full swing. "It's not the first time that a US official tries to lecture an African Head of State," was the response from Olivier Nduhungirehe from the Rwandan mission to the UN. He added that the US should be more "concerned about Al-Qaeda" and also let Rwanda deal with 'terror' threats. Rwandan Foreign Minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, dismissed the idea of a deterioration in US-Rwandan relations. "Rwanda and the United States have enjoyed strong ties that cut across the political spectrum, especially after the 1994 genocide .... Of course, as in any relationship, there are ups and downs, but we always manage to work them out," she said. Kagame himself also appears unrattled. Asked by the French weekly Jeune Afrique who killed Karegeya, he replied bluntly that the answer was of no importance to him. "For those who ask that question, even though they know perfectly well that this type of individual stood for violence and terrorism, I have this answer: terrorism has a price, treason has a price. People are killed the way they themselves killed," Kagame told the magazine. "Each man gets the death he deserves," he said. – AFP, January 21, 2014. |
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