O fim do acordo Sykes-Picot na Siria, e no Oriente Medio em geral - Gregory Gause (Foreign Policy)

Is this the end of Sykes-Picot?

• BY F. GREGORY GAUSE III

• May 20 at 4:18 pm

The Gulf/2000 Project and United Nations ReliefWeb

The intensity of the civil war in Syria, combined with the continued upheavals in Iraq and the endemic instability of Lebanese politics, has naturally led to speculation that the famously “artificial” borders in the eastern Arab world, drawn by Britain and France in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, are on their last legs. Are the state entities created by European colonialism in the 1920s about to collapse? Are we about to see a grand redrawing of the borders in the Middle East? The short answer to this question is no. While none of these three states will be able to claim effective governance within their borders anytime soon, the borders themselves are not going to change. They are devolving into what the political scientist Robert Jackson perceptively referred to as “quasi-states,” internationally recognized de jureas sovereign even though they cannot implement de facto the functional requisites that sovereignty assumes – control of territory and borders. Real governance in the eastern Arab world is certainly up for grabs, but the borders themselves will be the last things to change, because almost none of the actors, either regionally or internationally, really want them to change.

“The end of Sykes-Picot” is the tagline used by those who argue that the borders themselves are on the verge of substantial change. This is something of a misnomer. The Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 made a preliminary division of the Arab (and some Turkish and Kurdish) territories of the Ottoman Empire between Britain and France, but the final borders were determined by the two powers at the San Remo conference in 1920. Sykes-Picot, for example, gave what is now northern Iraq to France and foresaw an international regime for the Holy Land. San Remo gave League of Nations approval to the borders that France and Britain subsequently worked out – Lebanon carved from the French mandate of Syria, Transjordan separated from the British mandate of Palestine, and the British mandate of Iraq created from the three Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. It would be more accurate historically to refer to the prospective collapse of the regional order in the Fertile Crescent as “the end of San Remo,” but that is not a semantic fight worth fighting.

Google returns 14,700 results when queried on “the end of Sykes-Picot.” Formerdiplomats, respected journalists and academics have all recently used the phrase to express their doubts that the territorial state status quo can be sustained. But we should be leery about jumping to the conclusion that the geopolitical dispensation created by France and Britain nearly a hundred years ago is not much longer for this world. These “artificial” entities have had remarkable staying power. Their borders are basically unchanged from their post-World War I creation. Transjordan is now Jordan, and the old mandate of Palestine is now completely under Israeli control (with Gaza a partial exception and the West Bank in an uncertain limbo regarding sovereignty). Iraq, Lebanon and Syria (with the exception of the cession of Alexandretta/Hatay by France to Turkey in 1939) remain as they were created.

The prospects that the map will continue to look as it does now remain strong. First, no one questions the longevity of either Israel or Jordan. Palestinian statehood, which would have been a major shift in the map, looked closer to realization in 1999 than it does now. If anything, the British-drawn border between “Palestine” and “Transjordan” seems more stable now than it has been for years. Second, the deconstruction of the Iraqi state began not recently, but back in 1991 with the establishment of the Western-protected (under a United Nations Security Council resolution) Kurdish region in the north and northeast of the country. That soft partition of Iraq became a constitutional element of the post-Saddam Iraqi state, with the establishment of the Kurdish Regional Government. The KRG has had most of the attributes of statehood – effective control of territory, its own military and an ability to conduct foreign relations – for more than 20 years, yet the map of the Iraqi state remains unchanged.

The anomalous status of the KRG, effectively sovereign but lacking international recognition, leads to the third and most serious weakness of the “end of Sykes-Picot” argument. The international powers constructed the post-Ottoman eastern Arab world. They created territorial shells in which colonial authorities, local elites in league with the colonialists and then independent state rulers, tried, with varying degrees of success, to build real states. But the success or failure of those efforts has not determined whether outsiders grant diplomatic recognition to those entities or not. The Lebanese government has not been able to claim effective control over all its territory since the civil war began in 1975. Yet not a single state granted diplomatic recognition to any sub-state Lebanese entity during the civil war, nor did a single state withdraw diplomatic recognition from Lebanon as a state. The KRG effectively governs a good chunk of Iraq, but no foreign government has recognized it as a state or limited its recognition of the Iraqi state to the territory that Baghdad effectively controls. Knowing that it is unlikely to receive international recognition, the KRG will very likely continue to maintain the fiction that it is a part of Iraq, despite the fact that most Kurds would rather have an independent state. Syria might end up, like Lebanon in its civil war, in a state of de facto partition, but it does not look like any foreign power would be willing to recognize the independence of any of those Syrian statelets. Nor is it clear that the Syrian leaders of such statelets would claim formal independence.

This is the ultimate analytical flaw of the “end of Sykes-Picot” argument. Outsiders drew those borders. No outsiders seem to have any interest in redrawing them, or recognizing the redrawing of them, at this time. The United States certainly does not. It has patronized the KRG for nearly 25 years while never encouraging the Kurds to declare independence. No Russian, Chinese or European leader has suggested an international conference to remake the Middle Eastern map. The states themselves might fragment internally. De facto governing authorities might emerge. But the international borders themselves do not look like they are going to change. All the action in the Middle East is bottom-up, as various domestic and regional groups fight for control of these states and regional powers aid their allies in these fights. But these fights look to remain, at least formally and in terms of international law, within the borders that the French and the British drew nearly a hundred years ago. “Sykes-Picot” lives, as fragile as governance within those borders is.

F. Gregory Gause III is a professor of political science at the University of Vermont and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. He is the author of “The International Relations of the Persian Gulf.”

Redesenhando o mapa (de 100 anos atras) do Oriente Medio - Robin Wright

Imagining a Remapped Middle East

Robin Wright

International Herald Tribune, September 29, 2013

(Excerpts in Foreign Policy)

"The map of the modern Middle East, a political and economic pivot in the international order, is in tatters. Syria's ruinous war is the turning point. But the centrifugal forces of rival beliefs, tribes and ethnicities -- empowered by unintended consequences of the Arab Spring -- are also pulling apart a region defined by European colonial powers a century ago and defended by Arab autocrats ever since.

A different map would be a strategic game changer for just about everybody, potentially reconfiguring alliances, security challenges, trade and energy flows for much of the world, too.

Syria's prime location and muscle make it the strategic center of the Middle East. But it is a complex country, rich in religious and ethnic variety, and therefore fragile. After independence, Syria reeled from more than a half-dozen coups between 1949 and 1970, when the Assad dynasty seized full control. Now, after 30 months of bloodletting, diversity has turned deadly, killing both people and country. Syria has crumbled into three identifiable regions, each with its own flag and security forces. A different future is taking shape: a narrow statelet along a corridor from the south through Damascus, Homs and Hama to the northern Mediterranean coast controlled by the Assads' minority Alawite sect. In the north, a small Kurdistan, largely autonomous since mid-2012. The biggest chunk is the Sunni-dominated heartland.

Syria's unraveling would set precedents for the region, beginning next door. Until now, Iraq resisted falling apart because of foreign pressure, regional fear of going it alone and oil wealth that bought loyalty, at least on paper. But Syria is now sucking Iraq into its maelstrom."

Siria: e a solidariedade brasileira com os refugiados?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/noticias/2013/09/130907_refugiados_siria_brasil_jf_mm.shtml

Sírios dizem que Brasil dificulta vinda de refugiados

João Fellet

Da BBC Brasil, em Brasília

Atualizado em  9 de setembro, 2013 - 05:08 (Brasília) 08:08 GMT

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Mohamad e Amer Masarani tentam trazer os familiares, sem sucesso, e criticam Itamaraty

Quando, há três meses, seu cunhado foi morto e teve o corpo atirado em frente à casa dos filhos na cidade de Homs, Mohamad encorajou sua família na Síria a fugir para o Brasil.

Em São Paulo há 14 anos, ele temia que outros parentes se somassem aos cerca de cem mil sírios que, segundo a ONU, morreram desde a eclosão dos conflitos no país árabe, em 2011.

• Repórter da BBC mostra tensão em Damasco com temores de ataqueAssistir02:25

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• Brasil, 
• Oriente médio

Desde então, porém, diz que nenhum deles conseguiu deixar a Síria – segundo ele, por causa de exigências irreais feitas pelo Brasil para lhes conceder vistos. "Os brasileiros estão com os braços abertos, mas o governo está complicando tudo", diz o sírio à BBC Brasil.

O Itamaraty afirma que as exigências buscam resguardar a segurança nacional.

Sede de uma das maiores colônias sírias fora do Oriente Médio, o Brasil concedeu refúgio a 258 sírios desde 2010, segundo o Ministério da Justiça. O número equivale a 0,01% dos 2 milhões de sírios que, de acordo com a ONU, fugiram desde o início dos confrontos.

Para analisar pedidos de refúgio, o governo determina que o solicitante esteja em território nacional. O problema, segundo Mohamad e outros sírios ouvidos pela BBC Brasil, é que muitos não têm conseguido sequer cumprir a etapa anterior: obter um visto para o Brasil. E, sem o documento, eles não podem voar até o país.

Mais de um milhão de sírios deixaram suas casas desde que o conflito teve início há dois anos

Membro da Coordenação da Revolução Síria no Brasil, grupo no Facebook que defende a queda do presidente sírio, Bashar al-Assad, o comerciante Amer Masarani diz que o número de refugiados no Brasil seria muito maior se as regras para o visto fossem menos rígidas.

Masarani, que vive em São Paulo há 17 anos, afirma ter sido procurado por ao menos seis compatriotas que tiveram pedidos de visto negados.

Junto de outros pequenos empresários árabes de São Paulo e de duas associações islâmicas, Masarani tem auxiliado sírios que tentam vir ao Brasil desde o pedido de visto até sua chegada e regularização.

Como o Brasil não emite vistos específicos a candidatos a refúgio, a alternativa aos que querem fugir para o Brasil são vistos de turista. Para concedê-los, o governo exige dez requisitos, entre os quais comprovante de emprego, extrato bancário dos últimos seis meses, certificado de antecedentes criminais e uma carta convite.

Para Masarani, as exigências não levam em conta o conflito. "A economia síria entrou em colapso, os bancos pararam de funcionar, muitos perderam o emprego, os prédios públicos fecharam. É impossível conseguir esses documentos."

"O governo brasileiro está tratando esses sírios como turistas, mas eles são refugiados que estão correndo risco de vida. Muitos fogem só com a roupa do corpo".

Joias por comida

Ao testemunhar a agonia de um sírio incapaz de obter um visto para o Brasil, a agente de turismo carioca A.A.C. passou a considerar um plano radical.

Ela diz ter conhecido o homem – morador de Alepo, segunda maior cidade síria – pela internet há um ano. Desde então, afirma que passaram a dialogar diariamente, tornando-se "amigos íntimos".

No período, ela foi apresentada a seus parentes, consolou-o quando um amigo foi morto e habituou-se a ouvir explosões durante suas conversas. Em março, estimulou-o a fugir para o Brasil.

"Ele quer muito vir. Lá está faltando luz, água, comida. Quem tem joias troca por uma dúzia de ovos."

A agente de turismo diz, no entanto, que ele jamais conseguiu reunir a documentação exigida. Além dos dez requisitos, ela diz ter sido informada por uma funcionária da embaixada brasileira na Síria de que ele precisaria comprovar movimentação bancária de ao menos US$ 2 mil (R$ 4,6 mil) mensais.

Desempregado – ela diz que a indústria em que trabalhava fechou por causa da guerra –, ele não pôde cumprir as exigências. Foi então que ela teve a ideia de se casar com ele, para que o sírio pudesse viajar com um visto familiar.

O matrimônio ocorreria por procuração, sem que ela precisasse estar na Síria, e reduziria as exigências para o visto. Ela diz estudar formas de tirar os planos do papel. "Eu seria capaz de fazer isso por ele, mas tenho que planejar tudo com cuidado".

'Riscos à segurança nacional'

Desde julho de 2012, a embaixada brasileira na Síria mantém apenas funcionários locais, que encaminham os pedidos de visto para o consulado em Beirute, no Líbano. Segundo Amer Masarani, da Coordenação da Revolução Síria no Brasil, a análise dos pedidos leva entre três e quatro meses.

Para agilizar o processo, ele diz que muitos sírios têm viajado para Beirute ou para Amã, na Jordânia, onde os serviços consulares brasileiros operam normalmente. Ele afirma, porém, que mesmo nas duas cidades muitos pedidos têm sido negados.

Masarani diz que o governo brasileiro dificulta a vinda de sírios porque, segundo ele, apoia Bashar al-Assad. "O Brasil não quer dar mais visibilidade ao conflito".

Já o Itamaraty diz que as exigências feitas aos sírios se aplicam a qualquer estrangeiro de países com os quais o Brasil não tenha acordo de isenção de vistos. Além disso, segundo um assessor de imprensa do órgão, "numa circunstância como a presente (na Síria), temos que tomar cuidado para não aceitar pessoas que possam pôr em risco a segurança nacional".

O órgão diz recusar vistos apenas quando uma série de requisitos é descumprida. A pasta estima que, desde agosto de 2012, apenas 10% dos pedidos de visto de sírios processados pelo consulado em Beirute tenham sido negados.

Para Masarani, o argumento da segurança nacional não se sustenta. Ele cita o caso da Suécia, que recebeu cerca de 15 mil refugiados sírios desde 2012, quase 60 vezes mais que o Brasil. A maioria ingressou no país com vistos de entrada regulares; outros, por uma cota de refugiados acordada com a ONU.

"Será que a Suécia não se preocupa com sua segurança nacional?", indaga.

Siria: um vespeiro geopolitico - Scott Stewart (Stratfor)

The Consequences of Intervening in Syria

Stratfor, January 31, 2013 | 1030 GMT

By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis

The French military's current campaign to dislodge jihadist militants from northern Mali and the recent high-profile attack against a natural gas facility in Algeria are both directly linked to the foreign intervention in Libya that overthrew the Gadhafi regime. There is also a strong connection between these events and foreign powers' decision not to intervene in Mali when the military conducted a coup in March 2012. The coup occurred as thousands of heavily armed Tuareg tribesmen were returning home to northern Mali after serving in Moammar Gadhafi's military, and the confluence of these events resulted in an implosion of the Malian military and a power vacuum in the north. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other jihadists were able to take advantage of this situation to seize power in the northern part of the African nation.

As all these events transpire in northern Africa, another type of foreign intervention is occurring in Syria. Instead of direct foreign military intervention, like that taken against the Gadhafi regime in Libya in 2011, or the lack of intervention seen in Mali in March 2012, the West -- and its Middle Eastern partners -- have pursued a middle-ground approach in Syria. That is, these powers are providing logistical aid to the various Syrian rebel factions but are not intervening directly.
Just as there were repercussions for the decisions to conduct a direct intervention in Libya and not to intervene in Mali, there will be repercussions for the partial intervention approach in Syria. Those consequences are becoming more apparent as the crisis drags on.

Intervention in Syria

For more than a year now, countries such as the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and European states have been providing aid to the Syrian rebels. Much of this aid has been in the form of humanitarian assistance, providing things such as shelter, food and medical care for refugees. Other aid has helped provide the rebels with non-lethal military supplies such as radios and ballistic vests. But a review of the weapons spotted on the battlefield reveals that the rebels are also receiving an increasing number of lethal supplies.

Visit our Syria page for related analysis, videos, situation reports and maps.

For example, there have been numerous videos released showing Syrian rebels using weapons such as the M79 Osa rocket launcher, the RPG-22, the M-60 recoilless rifle and the RBG-6 multiple grenade launcher. The Syrian government has also released videos of these weapons after seizing them in arms caches. What is so interesting about these weapons is that they were not in the Syrian military's inventory prior to the crisis, and they all likely were purchased from Croatia. We have also seen many reports and photos of Syrian rebels carrying Austrian Steyr Aug rifles, and the Swiss government has complained that Swiss-made hand grenades sold to the United Arab Emirates are making their way to the Syrian rebels.
With the Syrian rebel groups using predominantly second-hand weapons from the region, weapons captured from the regime, or an assortment of odd ordnance they have manufactured themselves, the appearance and spread of these exogenous weapons in rebel arsenals over the past several months is at first glance evidence of external arms supply. The appearance of a single Steyr Aug or RBG-6 on the battlefield could be an interesting anomaly, but the variety and concentration of these weapons seen in Syria are well beyond the point where they could be considered coincidental.
This means that the current level of external intervention in Syria is similar to the level exercised against the Soviet Union and its communist proxies following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The external supporters are providing not only training, intelligence and assistance, but also weapons -- exogenous weapons that make the external provision of weapons obvious to the world. It is also interesting that in Syria, like Afghanistan, two of the major external supporters are Washington and Riyadh -- though in Syria they are joined by regional powers such as Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, rather than Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, the Saudis and the Americans allowed their partners in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to determine which of the myriad militant groups in Afghanistan received the bulk of the funds and weapons they were providing. This resulted in two things. First, the Pakistanis funded and armed groups that they thought they could best use as surrogates in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. Second, they pragmatically tended to funnel cash and weapons to the groups that were the most successful on the battlefield -- groups such as those led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose effectiveness on the battlefield was tied directly to their zealous theology that made waging jihad against the infidels a religious duty and death during such a struggle the ultimate accomplishment.
A similar process has been taking place for nearly two years in Syria. The opposition groups that have been the most effective on the battlefield have tended to be the jihadist-oriented groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra. Not surprisingly, one reason for their effectiveness was the skills and tactics they learned fighting the coalition forces in Iraq. Yet despite this, the Saudis -- along with the Qataris and the Emiratis -- have been arming and funding the jihadist groups in large part because of their success on the battlefield. As my colleague Kamran Bokhari noted in February 2012, the situation in Syria was providing an opportunity for jihadists, even without external support. In the fractured landscape of the Syrian opposition, the unity of purpose and battlefield effectiveness of the jihadists was in itself enough to ensure that these groups attracted a large number of new recruits.
But that is not the only factor conducive to the radicalization of Syrian rebels. First, war -- and particularly a brutal, drawn-out war -- tends to make extremists out of the fighters involved in it. Think Stalingrad, the Cold War struggles in Central America or the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans following the dissolution of Yugoslavia; this degree of struggle and suffering tends to make even non-ideological people ideological. In Syria, we have seen many secular Muslims become stringent jihadists. Second, the lack of hope for an intervention by the West removed any impetus for maintaining a secular narrative. Many fighters who had pinned their hopes on NATO were greatly disappointed and angered that their suffering was ignored. It is not unusual for Syrian fighters to say something akin to, "What has the West done for us? We now have only God."
When these ideological factors were combined with the infusion of money and arms that has been channeled to jihadist groups in Syria over the past year, the growth of Syrian jihadist groups accelerated dramatically. Not only are they a factor on the battlefield today, but they also will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.

The Saudi Gambit

Despite the jihadist blowback the Saudis experienced after the end of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan -- and the current object lesson of the jihadists Syria sent to fight U.S. forces in Iraq now leading groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra -- the Saudi government has apparently calculated that its use of jihadist proxies in Syria is worth the inherent risk.
There are some immediate benefits for Riyadh. First, the Saudis hope to be able to break the arc of Shiite influence that reaches from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. Having lost the Sunni counterweight to Iranian power in the region with the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the installation of a Shiite-led government friendly to Iran, the Saudis view the possibility of installing a friendly Sunni regime in Syria as a dramatic improvement to their national security.
Supporting the jihad in Syria as a weapon against Iranian influence also gives the Saudis a chance to burnish their Islamic credentials internally in an effort to help stave off criticism that they are too secular and Westernized. It allows the Saudi regime the opportunity to show that it is helping Muslims under assault by the vicious Syrian regime.
Supporting jihadists in Syria also gives the Saudis an opportunity to ship their own radicals to Syria, where they can fight and possibly die. With a large number of unemployed, underemployed and radicalized young men, the jihad in Syria provides a pressure valve similar to the past struggles in Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The Saudis are not only trying to winnow down their own troubled youth; we have received reports from a credible source that the Saudis are also facilitating the travel of Yemeni men to training camps in Turkey, where they are trained and equipped before being sent to Syria to fight. The reports also indicate that the young men are traveling for free and receiving a stipend for their service. These young radicals from Saudi Arabia and Yemen will even further strengthen the jihadist groups in Syria by providing them with fresh troops.
The Saudis are gaining temporary domestic benefits from supporting jihad in Syria, but the conflict will not last forever, nor will it result in the deaths of all the young men who go there to fight. This means that someday the men who survive will come back home, and through the process we refer to as "tactical Darwinism" the inept fighters will have been weeded out, leaving a core of competent militants that the Saudis will have to deal with.
But the problems posed by jihadist proxies in Syria will have effects beyond the House of Saud. The Syrian jihadists will pose a threat to the stability of Syria in much the same way the Afghan groups did in the civil war they launched for control of Afghanistan after the fall of the Najibullah regime. Indeed, the violence in Afghanistan got worse after Najibullah's fall in 1992, and the suffering endured by Afghan civilians in particular was egregious.
Now we are seeing that the jihadist militants in Libya pose a threat not only to the Libyan regime -- there are serious problems in eastern Libya -- but also to foreign interests in the country, as seen in the attack on the British ambassador and the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Moreover, the events in Mali and Algeria in recent months show that Libya-based militants and the weapons they possess also pose a regional threat. Similar long-lasting and wide-ranging repercussions can be expected to flow from the intervention in Syria.

Read more: The Consequences of Intervening in Syria | Stratfor

Assad, do Partido Bath: um aliado dos companheiros...

Este é o líder do partido que tem um acordo de cooperação com o partido dos companheiros. Entendo que alguma nota virá, de alguma parte, só não sei ainda adivinhar o teor...

Syria Uses Cluster Bombs to Attack as Many Civilians as Possible
Cluster bombs are impossible to use precisely, and the victims of such attacks describe them as collective punishment against populations that side with the rebels.

Em boca fechada nao entra mosquito; e o que mais fica de fora?

Muita coisa, certamente. Cada um imagine como, por que, em que condições, pessoas e instituições escolhem aplicar um auto-zipper...
[Received from David V. Fleischer:]

Violence in Syria Increases While Brazil Takes a Policy of Silence

Stacey Berger

Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

– Posted on August 24, 2012

On July 20, 2012, Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Patriota, announced the withdrawal of all Brazilian diplomats from Syria due to the intensified fighting and violence throughout the country. Though, for Brasilia, this was a note-worthy step, it should not be regarded as a clear political move intended to condemn the Bashar al-Assad regime.[1] While the situation in Syria worsens with each passing day, Brazil has yet to apply any sort of pressure on Damascus. Brazil certainly is a rising economic superpower, but the foreign policy dictated by Brasilia disappointingly indicates it has yet to achieve a similar status in the diplomatic arena.

Source: The Economist

When Brazil originally served on the 15-member United Nations Security Council in 2011, it abstained from voting on the first draft resolution condemning Syria, while 9 of 15 members of the council members voted in favor.[2] Brazilian officials have provided various reasons as to why the government abstained from voting, one of which involves the concept of “Responsibility while Protecting.” Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, developed this notion to express concerns within the framework of the associated but substantially different “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. This concept espouses that Brasilia understands its responsibility to protect civilians in armed battle abroad, but must think of its own civilians first and foremost.[3]

Although it is a priority for Brasilia to protect the highest interest of its populace, Brazil sees itself as rising into a role of global leadership, and therefore must face up to conflicts such as the one encountered in the Syrian uprising. And if Brasilia truly wishes to see itself gain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council—a desire frequently heard in Brasilia—it will have to take a hard stance on Syria, especially because President Assad has committed a deplorable level of UN human right violations, “from arrests of political activists to torture and killings on a massive scale.”[4]

The ability to strike a severe posture toward the Assad regime should come easily enough for President Rousseff, due to her history as a leading political adversary against Brazil’s military dictatorship. In 1970, the government jailed Rousseff for three years where interrogators tortured her on numerous occasions. Despite her harsh personal experiences, Rousseff still claims to be unashamed of her past as a guerrilla.[5][6] Therefore, Rousseff, due to this evolutionary background, does not seem like the leader that would readily shirk from conflict, particularly when a possible outcome could relate directly to Brazil’s strategic interests. Yet, Rousseff first introduced the “Responsibility while Protecting” concept, and then has adhered to the policy of silence.[7]

Alongside the notion of “Responsibility while Protecting,” some Latin American experts have justified Brazil’s abstention on the Syrian vote by claiming the draft resolution will lead to foreign intervention. Regarding Syria, this type of direct action has been off the negotiating table, as many worry that the vote can be seen as just another instance of imperialist motivation that might generate anti-Western sentiments and conjure up a negative backlash from Russia and China, both important trading partners for Brazil.[8] But the Brazilian concept to preserve westernization in a noble light as well as to maintain strategic alliances pays the price of countless lives lost.

Source: The Washington Post

In August of 2011, the India-Brazil-South Africa dialogue forum (IBSA), composed of the nations with non-permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council in 2011, sent a delegation to speak with the Syrian foreign minister and president. This discussion proved to be unfruitful and Nadim Houry, Deputy Middle East Director of Human Rights Watch, observed, “Their efforts at private dialogue have achieved nothing, and hundreds more Syrians have died in the meantime.”[9] Shortly after the Security Council vetoed the draft resolution, IBSA engaged in a Heads of State and Government Dialogue Forum on October 17, 2011, but failed to even mention Syria.[10]

As of now, Brazil has only reduced trade with Syria; the Brazil-Syria trade volume decreased by $178 million USD from 2010 to 2011. But this figure does not include the indirect trade Brazil has been able to maintain with Syria. The president of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce reported, “from experience, some Brazilian companies have sold to Lebanon, and from there, follow the goods to Syria.”[11] The Brazilian government has condemned the violence in Syria, but actions speak louder than words. In that sense, the most bold action Brazil has taken has been voting in favor on the most recent resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly, A/RES/66/253 B, which demands an end to violence in Syria, a completely unenforceable initiative.[12]

It is clear by now that Brazil has maintained nothing but a passive position toward the Syrian regime, but it still has a chance to prove itself as a rising global leader, obtain a spot on the U.N. Security Council, and help mend the desperately tangled situation in Syria.  In October of this year, the third ASPA summit, composed of the heads of state and government from South America and Arab nations, will be in Lima, a forum where a discussion on the catastrophic Syrian situation is scheduled to take place.[13] Brazil should lead by example by cutting off all diplomatic and trade relations with the Syrian government, and urge other countries to do the same. This would be a great chance to send the Syrian government a strong message about their human rights violations as well as positively influence Brazil’s reputation as a serious rising power.

Please accept this article as a free contribution from COHA, but if re-posting, please afford authorial and institutional attribution.

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[1] Jordan, Lucy. “Brazil Removes Diplomats from Syria.” The Rio Times, June 24, 2012. Accessed August 16, 2012 http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/front-page/brazil-removes-diplomats-from-syria/#

[2] Charbonneau, Louis. “Russia, China veto U.N. resolution condemning Syria.” Reuters, October 4, 2011. Accessed August 16, 2012. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/us-syria-un-idUSTRE7937M220111005

[3] Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti. “Responsibility while Protecting: Elements for the Development and Promotion of a Concept.” Paper presented to the U.N Security Council, November 11, 2011.

[4] Mohamed, Saira. “The U.N. Security Council and the Crisis in Syria.” Insights 16.11 (2012) Accessed August 16, 2012. http://www.asil.org/pdfs/insights/insight120326.pdf

[5] O’Shaugnessy, Hugh. “Former Guerrilla Dilma Rousseff Set to be the World’s Most Powerful Woman.” The Independent, September 26, 2010. Accessed August 16, 2012 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/former-guerrilla-dilma-rousseff-set-to-be-the-worlds-most-powerful-woman-2089916.html

[6] Romero, Simon. “Leaders Torture in the ‘70s Stirs Ghosts in Brazil.” The New York Times, August 4, 2012. Accessed August 16, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/world/americas/president-rousseffs-decades-old-torture-detailed.html?ref=world

[7] Foley, Conor. “Welcome to Brazil’s Version of ‘Responsibility to Protect.’” The Guardian, April 10, 2012. Accessed August 16, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/10/diplomacy-brazilian-style

[8] Spektor, Matias. “The Arab Spring, Seen From Brazil.” The New Y.ork Times, December 23, 2011. Accessed August 16, 2012. http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/the-arab-spring-seen-from-brazil/

[9] “IBSA: Push Syria to End Bloodshed.” Human Rights Watch, October 16, 2011. Accessed August 16, 2012 http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/10/16/ibsa-push-syria-end-bloodshed

[10] “Africa: India-Brazil-S.A (IBSA) Dialogue Forum Fifth Summit of Heads of State and Government Tshwane Declaration.” All Africa, October 18, 2011. Accessed August 16, 2012. http://allafrica.com/stories/201110190947.html

[11] “Brazilian Trade with Syria Declines.” Nuqudy, February 2, 2012. Accessed August 16, 2012. http://english.nuqudy.com/Levant/Brazilian_Trade_wit-1065

[12] “Brazil Slowly Moves Towards Condemning Syria Violence.” Ya Libnan, February 10, 2012. Accessed August 16, 2012. http://www.yalibnan.com/2012/02/10/brazil-slowly-moves-towards-condemning-syria-violence/; “General Assembly, In Resolution, Demands All in Syria ‘Immediately and Visibly’ Commit to Ending Violence That Secretary-General Says is Ripping Country Apart.” Resolution Presented to the U.N. General Assembly, NY, New York, August 3, 2012.

[13] “Peru Will Host Leaders’ Summit of Arab and South America Countries in October.” Mecro Press, August 11, 2012. Accessed 16, 2012. http://en.mercopress.com/2012/08/11/peru-will-host-leaders-summit-of-arab-and-south-america-countries-in-october

Siria: mais espaco para o "dialogo"

Parece que alguns membros permanentes do Conselho de Segurança, nisso apoiados por certo número de países não permanentes, acreditam que é preciso dar mais espaço para o diálogo entre o governo e a oposição na Síria.
O governo daquele país já encontrou os seus representantes para o diálogo: 

ASSAD'S PACT WITH THE DEVIL 

Syrian Regime Using Hired Killers to Cling to Power 

The regime of Syrian ruler Bashar Assad has enlisted gangs of murderous thugs known as 'Shabiha.' No assignment is too brutal or bloody for these men who are free to kill, plunder and rape. Assad knows that outright victory over the opposition is his only remaining chance to stay in power.

Der Spiegel, 4/06/2012

When the images and details of the massacre in the western Syrian town of Houla were released, the comparisons with other horrific killings were inevitable: My Lai, Srebrenica, Rwanda. More than 100 people, half of them children and a third of them women, were killed on the evening of May 25, after Friday prayers, in the Taldou neighborhood. Some died as a result of hours of shelling by tanks and Syrian army artillery, but most were killed by death squads from the surrounding villages, thugs who slit their neighbors' throats or shot them at close range.

The world was horrified. Even China and Russia, loyal allies of the Syrian system, agreed to a United Nations Security Council statement condemning the massacre, albeit without identifying those responsible. Even the generally reserved UN special envoy, Kofi Annan, spoke of a "turning point," while newly elected French President François Hollande promptly called for a military intervention.
Europe, the United States and perhaps even Kofi Annan are slowly realizing that there will be no compromise with Syrian President Bashar Assad, because there can be no compromise with Assad. Now that more than 10,000 people have died and tens of thousands have been tortured, the phase in which protesters were still staging peaceful demonstrations, and in which negotiations, transitional governments and compromises were possible is irrevocably over.
When the regime was still able to negotiate its own exit, it didn't want to. Now it no longer has that option, because any sign of weakness would lead to its overthrow.
This realization hasn't been triggered by the fact that the regime is massacring civilians to save itself. Similar bloodbaths have already taken place in the past. In April of last year, more than 60 people disappeared without a trace in Homs, after government troops had mowed down a group of peaceful protesters. In January, several families in a southeastern Homs neighborhood were massacred in a way that resembled the Houla killings. And when the Bab Amr neighborhood was captured by regime troops several weeks later, after having been almost destroyed by artillery fire, witnesses said that there were mass executions of those who hadn't fled.
'The Evidence is Clear'
What was different this time was that on Saturday morning, only hours after the killing frenzy, a team of UN observers managed to reach Houla, where they saw and counted the bodies, heard what the survivors had to say and saw the tracks the tanks had made. "The evidence is clear -- it is not murky," said German UN Ambassador Peter Wittig. "There is a clear government footprint in those killings." Whereas earlier massacres were only documented in reports by the Syrian opposition and video recordings that could not be corroborated, this was a different situation.
By failing, the UN mission appears finally to be having an impact. The roughly 300 unarmed observers cannot possibly monitor a nonexistent cease-fire, during which more than 2,000 people had been killed by the end of last week. The UN observers cannot prevent what is happening, but they can prevent it from being covered up. This isn't much, and for angry Syrians who burned images of Annan, it's far too little. "We called the observers during the massacre," a man from Houla who calls himself Abu Emad was quoted as saying, "but they refused to come and stop the murders. Damn then, and damn the entire mission!"
The observers eventually arrived. They were too late, but they came.
According to the overwhelmingly consistent statements of survivors and investigations by the UN observers, as well as the independent organization Human Rights Watch, people from several Houla neighborhoods demonstrated peacefully for the overthrow of the government around noon on May 25, after Friday prayers. Suddenly they came under fire, first from tanks and then from heavy artillery guns. Other witnesses said that soldiers had fired directly at demonstrators first.
After that, armed rebels with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) set out to attack the Assad troops' bases outside Houla. It is unclear whether they retreated when they came under fire from the tanks or were hiding in the difficult terrain, but only a few men remained in the Taldou neighborhood when the heavy shelling stopped in the afternoon and the armed men arrived.
Killers Went From House to House
The men, some in civilian clothing and others dressed in army uniforms, went from house to house, reported survivors like 11-year-old Ali, who told CBS News: "They came to our house at night. First they took out my father and then my oldest brother. My mother shouted: Why are you doing this? Then they shot both of them, and after that my mother. Then one of the men came in with a flashlight and saw my sister Rasha. He shot her in the head." Ali hid with his two little brothers. The man saw them and shot the brothers, but he missed Ali.
Other survivors who hid or played dead consistently gave the same accounts: The men combed through house after house and room after room, killing everyone, some with knives and some with guns. The massacre continued until the morning hours. When the UN observers arrived, they found nothing but corpses in the villages controlled by regime forces. The survivors had fled to neighborhoods held by the FSA, where they placed the bodies they had recovered on mats in the mosques before filming and burying them.
The regime in Damascus could not deny that the massacre had taken place. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi, parroting the government's standard position, promptly blamed the killings on "armed terrorists" and "Islamists." The Russian government, which had blocked every Security Council resolution condemning Syria, launched into a bizarre attempt to apportion the blame. The regime was apparently responsible for the assault by tanks and mortars, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. But the brutish murders, said Alexey Puchkov, chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, "were definitely committed by the other side."
Igor Pankin, Russia's deputy UN ambassador, agreed: "We cannot imagine that it is in the Syrian regime's interest to sabotage Special Envoy Kofi Annan's visit to Damascus." And he is right in one respect. In PR terms, a massacre of children cannot be helpful to the Assad regime. But he was wrong in another sense, inadvertently putting his finger on Russia's growing frustration with its ally: Syria's leadership is no longer taking decisions that would make sense for a government hoping to reach a political solution to the crisis.
Violence the Only Option For Keeping Power
By gradually concentrating power in the hands of the Alawite minority, to which the Assad clan belongs, the regime is fomenting a religious war against the Sunni majority, the very conflict it claims it wants to prevent. Now Assad has backed himself into a corner from which he believes there is only way out: victory. This is why the latest proposal from Berlin and Washington to attempt the "Yemeni solution," which would be to depose Assad but keep the regime in power, will not work. The regime is relying solely on violence, accompanied by an outrageous propaganda narrative that blames foreign terrorists and al-Qaida for the uprising.
This conspiratorial obsession is nothing new. Starting in 2003, the intelligence services began secretly organizing the transfer of jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait across the Syrian border into Iraq, to deter the Americans from seeking regime change in Damascus as well. At the same time, the regime painted itself as a bulwark in the fight against al-Qaida. Foreigners who were later arrested reported how they had been kept in Syrian intelligence camps in Homs while waiting to be transferred into Iraq.
The attacks on several Scandinavian embassies in Damascus after the Danish cartoon controversy in early 2006 were blamed on an Islamist mob, but as it turned out, the regime had planted Islamists in the crowd. As a precaution, it also removed the guards from in front of a general's house next to the Norwegian Embassy. Although there was no evidence that the regime was behind the major bombing attacks in Damascus, Aleppo and Deir al-Zor in recent months, they had several strange elements in common: The bombers had immense quantities of explosives, which they easily managed to get through all government checkpoints, and they detonated most of their bombs in front of empty buildings. When the regime published its death tolls after the first attack on Dec. 23, they included the names of men who had already died elsewhere. During the ostentatious burial service at the Umayyad Mosque, signs attached to many of the coffins read "anonymous martyr." On May 9, just before a bomb exploded near the convoy of UN observer mission chief Robert Mood, the vehicles were detained at a military checkpoint just long enough so that they would be nearby at the time of detonation.
Conspiratorial violence is part of the Syrian regime's approach to survival, a paranoid trait that ties in with its history. When the current president's father Hafez Assad, a retired general in the Syrian air force, staged a coldly brilliant coup in November 1970, he brought his family, his clan and, ultimately, the Alawite minority into power after centuries of oppression. From then on, the Alawites defended their position at all costs, despite their relatively small share of the overall population.
Bashar Assad tried to preserve the illusion of a country that supposedly promotes reforms. Several months ago, he held a referendum to end decades of Baath Party control, and a few weeks ago he held bogus parliamentary elections. With the Houla massacre, however, all pretense at reform has evaporated again.
Murderous 'Ghosts'
What happened in Houla followed the pattern of earlier attacks like the one in Homs. First, the target is bombarded with tanks and artillery from a great distance. Then the regular troops move in and drive out or shoot the last remaining rebels. Finally, the regime sends in its helpers, the Shabiha ("ghosts"), over which it has less and less control.
What were once gangs of thugs and smugglers from the hills around Latakia, the home turf of the Assad clan, have turned into an army of irregular troops numbering in the thousands. The gangs are backed by the beneficiaries of the regime, those who profit the most from Syria's façade of a market economy, and who now have the most to lose. It's a Faustian bargain. As long as they are loyal to Assad, they are permitted to murder, loot and rape, as was the case in Houla, where the Shabiha came from neighboring villages to the south.

The Shabiha were also active in the capital Damascus in August 2011. Every evening during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, dozens of them stood in front of mosques in Sunni neighborhoods, prepared to bludgeon and drag off anyone who said anything derogatory about the regime after emerging from prayers. At about 8 p.m., swarms of Shabiha thugs emerged from the intelligence service quarters, were loaded into requisitioned buses and driven to their deployment locations, where they lay in wait until the faithful dispersed after leaving the mosques.
The Shabiha are criminals and day laborers, mostly Alawites, but also Kurds with the PKK terrorist group, members of Sunni clans from Aleppo loyal to the regime, and some Christians. The Shabiha are the shadow force of a regime that no longer trusts its own army, but instead has created a monster that is taking on a life of its own, undermining the Syrian government long before it suffers a military defeat.
Months ago, the author and dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh, who is in hiding in Damascus, wrote: "The current heads of the security services may very well reform themselves into a mafia-type organization after the collapse of the regime and continue to practice the violence, theft and discrimination at which they are so adept." Syria could eventually be controlled by marauding gangs, driven by greed and the fear of reprisal, which becomes more justified with each new wave of killings.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Brasil-Siria: "E' preciso manter o dialogo"

Dixit, redixit, tridixit (et encore):


Brasil se isola na questão síria
Editorial O Globo, 31/05/2012

No momento em que os principais países recorrem às mais duras medidas para repudiar o massacre sistemático do povo sírio por seu próprio governo, o Brasil mais uma vez decide contemporizar. Segundo o Itamaraty, o governo brasileiro está preocupado em não piorar ainda mais a situação na Síria. "O diálogo precisa ser mantido", sustentou o porta-voz da chancelaria brasileira.

Não é um bom sinal. Mostra uma recaída na diplomacia companheira praticada nos dois governos Lula, de um terceiro-mundismo arcaico e antiamericanismo juvenil, que resultou em episódios grotescos, como a recepção em Brasília do presidente iraniano, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, e a viagem do brasileiro a Teerã para tentar evitar, inutilmente, uma ação da comunidade internacional contra o programa nuclear iraniano. Ou manifestações de simpatia pelo ditador do Zimbábue, Mugabe, com quem se reuniu por iniciativa de Hugo Chávez. Ou a impotência diante da transformação da Embaixada do Brasil em Tegucigalpa num palanque do aliado Manuel Zelaya, presidente deposto de Honduras.

A presidente Dilma Rousseff deu sinais importantes de que restabeleceria as melhores tradições do Itamaraty ao fazer dos direitos humanos a pedra de toque de sua política externa. Foi uma decorrência disso o voto brasileiro no Conselho de Direitos Humanos da ONU de apoio à condenação de atrocidades de Muamar Kadafi na Líbia. Mas a evolução dos fatos, que levaram à intervenção militar da Otan para derrubar o ditador, criou mal-estar em muitos países, inclusive o Brasil. Objetavam que a ONU teria dado carta-branca à Otan para derrubar um governo, ainda que fosse uma ditadura cruel.

Agora, porém, não há justificativa para a inação do governo brasileiro diante do massacre cotidiano de sírios por parte de um regime que não se acanha de praticar genocídio. Bashar Assad tacha de "terroristas" os que lutam para derrubá-lo - uma força heterogênea de rebelados contra a ditadura, desertores das forças sírias, civis que pegaram em armas. Mesmo que haja entre eles sectários. Assad só tem demonstrado frieza diante das tentativas da comunidade internacional de obter um cessar-fogo via esforços do ex-secretário-geral da ONU Kofi Annan.

Recentemente, Dilma determinou ao primeiro escalão da área internacional que repensasse a política externa brasileira para ajustá-la ao pós-Primavera Árabe e à crise europeia. O objetivo seria aumentar a influência do país no cenário internacional. Mas há erros evidentes. Ao se referir às divergências de opinião no Conselho de Segurança em relação à Síria, principalmente entre americanos, de um lado, e China e Rússia, de outro, o assessor especial da Presidência, Marco Aurélio Garcia, comentou: "Parece a volta da Guerra Fria."

A frase resume o caráter equivocado da posição brasileira num mundo multipolarizado. Não tem sentido manter uma postura de inércia envergonhada, até porque entre ela e a intervenção militar há uma série de gradações diplomáticas possíveis. O que não pode é defender o indefensável só para não destoar de "companheiros" da sigla Brics e se isolar dos demais países.

Diplomacia bizarra?: Bernard-Henry Levy sobre Siria

Geopolítica - O Globo, 25/04/2012

‘Diplomacia brasileira para Síria é bizarra’

Bernard-Henri Lévy - Intelectual francês critica resistência do Itamaraty à intervenção contra Assad e diz que ação militar é a única opção

Luciana Martinez

Considerado um dos maiores intelectuais da França na atualidade, o filósofo e jornalista Bernard-Henri Lévy foi um grande defensor da intervenção na Líbia e chegou a pedir pessoalmente ao presidente francês, Nicolas Sarkozy, uma ação contra Muamar Kadafi.

Um ano depois, BHL, como é conhecido em seu país, pressiona por uma ação na Síria, criticando o Brasil por se apresentar como obstáculo à operação militar, e chama atenção para a impotência da comunidade internacional diante do "cinismo desconcertante" da Rússia e da China. "É uma guerra justa, de último recurso.

Não há escolha", diz o escritor em entrevista, por e-mail, ao GLOBO.

O GLOBO: O senhor foi um dos defensores da guerra na Líbia e agora apoia uma ação militar na Síria. A intervenção estrangeira é a única saída para deter a violência do regime de Bashar al-Assad? Por quê?
BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY: Não há outra escolha. Estamos lidando com um regime autista, que enlouqueceu e enveredou numa espiral de crimes alucinante. Nós tentamos a diplomacia, e nada foi feito. De alguma forma, estamos exatamente na situação descrita por teóricos clássicos como a "guerra justa". É uma guerra necessária, de último recurso. Claro, é um conflito terrível, como todos os outros, mas é uma guerra de mal menor, a qual recorremos quando não há mais opções.

A intervenção militar na Síria tem encontrado dificuldade para ser aceita pelo Conselho de Segurança, e por muito tempo, também não foi uma opção para opositores. O que deve ser feito para que a Síria pós-Assad não se torne um país dividido?
LÉVY: Primeiro, a intervenção deve ser uma demanda, um desejo dos principais interessados, como aconteceu com a Líbia, quando rebeldes pediram ajuda da Liga Árabe e da França. É preciso, sem dúvida, que a operação de resgate de civis seja conduzida, total ou parcialmente, por potências regionais.

Para mim, a Turquia teria papel fundamental, ou talvez o Qatar. Agora, se isso é o suficiente para impedir que a nova Síria, aquela que virá depois de Assad, seja dividida, eu não sei. O que sei é que nós não podemos ficar de braços cruzados, com medo do que pode vir, e aceitar o que acontece agora, quando dezenas de pessoas são mortas com armas pesadas diariamente diante da indiferença da comunidade internacional.

O senhor andou conversando com opositores sírios. Como tem sido esse diálogo?
LÉVY: É comovente. Os relatos são terríveis. O que eles me contam sobre os métodos de Assad e seu regime vai além do imaginável. Ao mesmo tempo, eu os escuto com um certo sentimento de impotência. O que podemos fazer quando sabemos que há, no Conselho de Segurança, dois países, Rússia e China, que, com um cinismo desconcertante, estão decididos a tudo para o banho de sangue continuar. Poderia ser mais simples. Homs é Benghazi.

Aquilo que a comunidade internacional, liderada pela França, fez na Líbia, ela poderia fazer amanhã em Homs. Mas, indo contra o que nos contam, decidimos não agir e procuramos desculpas para nossa inação vergonhosa.

Ano passado, o senhor procurou o governo francês para pedir uma ação militar na Líbia. Pretende fazer o mesmo em relação à Síria?

LÉVY: Claro, até já fiz, mas milagres demoram a se repetir. Houve, ano passado, uma conjuntura milagrosa, pela qual eu, independentemente de nossas discordâncias e da minha opção política, sou grato ao presidente Sarkozy. Se isso vai se repetir com a Síria? Seria preciso. Eu gostaria. Mas, até agora, não consegui.

Muitas críticas foram feitas à ONU e ao plano de paz de Kofi Annan. Em 1994, Annan foi também criticado por seu papel no genocídio de Ruanda, chegando a admitir que poderia ter feito mais pelo país africano.

Quase 20 anos depois, o senhor acha que ele vai conseguir sucesso na Síria?
LÉVY: Há dois pontos negros que pairam sobre a comunidade internacional: a Bósnia e Ruanda. Além disso, há uma série de líderes (como Sarkozy, Hillary Clinton e David Cameron) que vivem assombrados por essas lembranças, com uma certa obsessão de nunca mais ver algo parecido se repetir na História.

Esses são os chefes de Estado que apoiaram a intervenção na Líbia. E são eles que hoje defendem uma ação militar na Síria. Annan faz parte desse grupo. Ele também pertence a esse clube informal de pessoas, cuja impotência diante do genocídio ruandês é coberta por vergonha e obsessão. Isto é um bom sinal.

Em sua opinião, onde a comunidade internacional tem errado?
LÉVY: China e Rússia sempre conduziram mal seu poder de veto no Conselho de Segurança. O Brasil também adere a uma posição bizarra, comportando- se como um obstáculo à intervenção. Por que isso? Não consigo entender, até por admirar a presidente brasileira. Talvez seja a ideia de que não se deve interferir nos assuntos domésticos de um Estado que já foi colonizado. Ou a percepção de que o Ocidente deveria se manter longe de qualquer intervenção nessas regiões do mundo.

Ou ainda aquele velho disco arranhado de anti-imperialismo. Mas o resultado está aí. Um país grande como o Brasil, que serve de modelo para seus vizinhos, mas que age contra os civis sírios assassinados junto com a complacência de Pequim e Moscou. É chocante.

Tropecando no proprio discurso: sobre a Siria, claro...

Mais um tema da agenda diplomática em que a agenda "diplomática"dos companheiros -- acordo do PT com o partido Bath, da Síria -- coloca algumas cascas de banana no caminho dos profissionais...

29 février 2012

La valse-hésitation du Brésil sur la Syrie d’Al-Assad

Lundi 28 février, à Genève, la ministre brésilienne des droits de l’homme, Maria do Rosario Nunes, dans son tour d’horizon au Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU, a consacré deux paragraphes aux printemps arabes, sans citer la Syrie, sujet du jour.

Après la réunion, la ministre a précisé la position de Brasilia sur la proposition de fournir des armes à l’opposition syrienne :

« Le Brésil est contre livrer des armes à qui que ce soit. Le Brésil condamne les actions armées de tous les côtés. »

« L’idée de l’Arabie saoudite d’armer l’opposition n’est pas une bonne idée, l’excellente idée serait que la politique et la diplomatie remplacent la confrontation », a déclaré la ministre, qui renvoie dos à dos les opposants et Damas. Le vote d'une résolution à Genève a été repoussé à jeudi

La diplomatie brésilienne est embarrassée par la crise syrienne. Lorsque le Brésil siégeait au Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU, en 2011, sa représentante s’est alignée sur la Russie et la Chine pour éviter toute résolution contre la Syrie. Le motif invoqué par les diplomates était le précédent de la Libye. La résolution destinée à protéger les civils libyens aurait servi à justifier une intervention dans le but de renverser le colonel Kadhafi.

Le 16 février 2012, l’assemblée générale de l’ONU avait mis au vote une résolution non contraignante sur la Syrie, à l’initiative de la Ligue arabe. Cette fois, le Brésil a préféré suivre les pays arabes et a rejoint les 137 Etats qui ont adopté ce texte. Une douzaine de gouvernements ont osé soutenir Bachar Al-Assad à cette occasion.

Toutefois, huit jours plus tard, le 24 février, les Brésiliens ne figuraient pas parmi les 70 pays représentés à la Conférence des pays amis du peuple syrien, à Tunis. Le ministre brésilien des relations extérieures, Antonio Patriota, effectuait ce jour-là une visite en Turquie. La prochaine réunion des amis du peuple syrien aura lieu à Istanbul : le Brésil boudera-t-il encore, alors que la Turquie est son interlocuteur privilégié dans la région ? L'ambassadeur brésilien n'a pas quitté Damas.

Dans le cadre de sa diplomatie Sud-Sud, Brasilia avait déployé de gros efforts pour réunir des sommets Amérique du Sud-pays arabes, en 2005 et 2009. Le printemps égyptien de 2011 avait obligé à reporter sine die le troisième sommet.

Les diplomates brésiliens semblent accorder désormais plus d’importance au regroupement des BRICS, fait de bric et de broc, comme si le Brésil, l’Inde et l’Afrique du Sud, de grandes démocraties, pouvaient partager des valeurs avec la Russie et la Chine, les deux puissances mal dégrossies du stalinisme.

Ces zigzags et errements ne donnent pas l’image d’une diplomatie réfléchie, défendant à la fois les intérêts nationaux et des principes universels. La confusion à ce sujet peut-être mesurée par ce qu’écrit l’ancien ministre José Dirceu, l’homme fort du premier mandat de Lula, remplacé par Dilma Rousseff, mais toujours très influent au Parti des travailleurs.

« Dans les rues d’Espagne et de la Grèce, la répression a la même face de celle qui s’abat sur les aspirations populaires en Syrie et en Libye », écrit-il sur son blog.

« De Homs à Valence, ce ne sont pas les violations des droits de l’homme qui manquent ». Bref, la répression à Homs, Athènes ou Valence, seraient équivalentes. Dirceu se demande pourquoi les « véritables rebellions, les insurrections populaires en Grèce et les manifestations étudiantes en Espagne ne seraient pas portées devant les organismes de droits de l’homme et le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU ».

Depuis que l’ancien guérillero s’est reconverti dans les affaires, il semble avoir oublié la différence entre une matraque de flic et les obus tirés par les canons de tanks de l’armée.

Contrairement au relativisme en vogue à Brasilia, les violations des droits de l’homme ne sont pas de même nature dans tous les pays, et en tout état de cause, les unes n’excusent pas les autres. Surtout, elles ne sauraient justifier l’injustifiable, les crimes de masse commis en Syrie, et l’impuissance de la communauté internationale à les stopper.