RAJAPAKSA FIRES FIRST SALVO AGAINST CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM PROCESS

Image: Tamil women waking past two military soldiers in Jaffna: Tamil demand for autonomy based on institutionalized ethnic discrimination in Sri Lanka.

04/12/2016

Issuing  a statement f ormer President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated “I request all members of the SLFP serving in this government not to allow their enslavement to the UNP to go so far as to betraying every principle that the SLFP has stood for in the past six decades.”

He has focused his criticism mainly on report of the subcommittee on Centre-Periphery relations opposing greater devolution of power to the provinces.

Full statement:

The reports submitted by six subcommittees on constitutional reform appointed by the Constitutional Assembly were tabled in parliament while everybody’s attention was focused on the budget. With that government ministers moved fast to meet the Ven. Mahanayake Theras with a view to obtaining their support for these proposals by saying that no recommendations have been made to alter the unitary character of the constitution, the special status accorded to Buddhism or for the merger of the northern and eastern provinces. Furthermore, leaving aside all the strikes and demonstrations over the budget, the president himself spoke in parliament about the need to devolve power. In the meantime government parliamentarians and ministers are being showered with all kinds of privileges such as new cars and generous special allowances.

All these are signs that portend great danger to the nation. During the last presidential election campaign, the two main constitutional reforms promised to the people by this government were; the abolition of the executive presidency and reform of the electoral system. Neither of these two key issues have been dealt with by the subcommittees appointed by the Constitutional Assembly. Instead, six reports have been released on matters that were never even mentioned during the presidential elections.It is only in reading the subcommittee reports that the connection between the above mentioned events become clear. The subcommittee on ‘Centre Periphery Relations’ has openly stated that the ‘unitary character’ of our constitution is an ‘impediment’ to the functioning of the provincial councils and some of the reports have made recommendations that are designed to end the unitary character of Sri Lanka without however deleting that word from the constitution. I would like to highlight some of the most harmful recommendations as follows:

1.      The Subcommittee on Centre-Periphery Relations has made recommendations to strip the provincial Governors of all their powers. The Governor’s discretionary power to sign into law statutes passed by the PC is to be abolished and that authority given to the Chairman of the provincial council. His discretionary power to refer statutes back to the PC suggesting amendments or to refer a statute to the president to be sent to the supreme court for review is to be abolished. The Governor’s authority over the provincial public service is to be transferred to the chief minister and the provincial board of ministers. Furthermore, the  Governor  is to be appointed only with the concurrence of the chief minister and will have to perform his duties on the advice of the chief minister and the provincial board of ministers. Our system of devolution is modelled on that of India and the Governors of the Indian states have exactly the same powers as the provincial Governors in Sri Lanka. It is through the role of the governor that the provinces and the states are bound to the centre. If the powers of the Governors are taken away, both India and Sri Lanka will cease to be unified nations.

2.      The list of concurrent powers which are wielded by both the central government and the provincial councils is to be done sway with and those powers transferred to the provincial councils so that the PCs and the central government become ‘distinct spheres of authority’. To further this objective, it has been recommended that the District Secretaries and the Divisional Secretaries who now function under the central government be placed under the authority of the provincial councils. Furthermore, the provincial public services commissions are to be allowed to decide on their cadre need including that of the local authorities, without Treasury oversight.

3.      The Subcommittee on Centre Periphery Relations has also suggested that powers over state land be transferred to the provincial councils. The central government will be able to utilise state land in the provinces only with the concurrence of the provincial authorities. In India, the central government can use any state land with or without the concurrence of the state concerned.

4.      The Subcommittee on police and law and order has recommended that the police force be divided into a national police force and nine separate provincial police forces. The national police will exercise jurisdiction over offences against the state and state property, the armed forces, parliamentarians, judicial and public officers, offences relating to elections, currency and government stamps, and international crimes. Everything else including crime investigations, fraud, narcotics, traffic, etcetera, will be under the provincial police forces. An investigation can be referred to the national police only if the provincial police commissioner consents to it. The provincial police forces will conduct their own training and have the final say in the type of weapons their policemen would use. The IGP will not have any oversight regarding the work of the provincial police. Provincial police personnel are to be recruited on linguistic and residential criteria which together with the fact that there will be no inter-provincial transfers, will mean that the provincial police forces in the north and east will be completely separate and will have virtually no interaction with the rest of the police force.

5.       If a state of emergency is to be in force continuously for a period in excess of 3 months or for a period of more than 90 days within a period of 180 days, the extension of the state of emergency will require a ‘special majority’ in parliament. The courts will be given the power to review and even invalidate the declaration of emergency and the emergency regulations. The judiciary is not equipped to determine whether a situation warrants a declaration of emergency or not and such matters should be the exclusive preserve of the executive. These provisions are obviously meant to ensure that the state will not be able to respond adequately to an emergency. Everyone knows that there are some elements who want to weaken the Sri Lankan State.

6.       The Subcommittee on the Judiciary has recommended that when judges of the Supreme Court and the court of appeal are to be appointed, the nomination of suitable candidates would be done by a panel of former supreme court judges. This panel is to be appointed by the incumbent chief justice after consulting the Attorney General and the President of the Bar Association. The Bar Association is a highly politicised body and once had a UNP parliamentarian serving as President. His successor openly worked against my government and accepted a top political appointment from this government. The manner in which the Bar Association accepts funding from foreign powers has been commented on in the media. Such a body should never be given a role in nominating judges to the highest courts. There is also a serious conflict of interest issue in giving the private bar a say in appointing the judges who will be hearing their cases. This will lead to collusion and corruption and erode public confidence in the entire legal system.

7.      It has also been recommended by the Subcommittee on the Judiciary that a seven member constitutional court made up of judges and ‘specialists in the field’ be set up outside the regular court structure to exercise  exclusive jurisdiction in relation to interpreting the constitution, reviewing Bills, the post enactment review of legislation and to adjudicate in disputes between the centre and the provinces.  If a constitutional matter comes up in any case in any court in the country, it will have to be referred to this constitutional court. Under the present constitution, the interpretation of the constitution and review of Bills is the exclusive preserve of the Supreme Court and this should not be changed.  We also have concerns about who the ‘constitutional experts’ sitting on the bench of this court will be.  Furthermore, the principle applied hitherto in this country is that the courts will not have the power of post enactment review of legislation.

8.      The Subcommittee on Fundamental Rights has recommended that the standard provision found in most constitutions to the effect that the laws in force at the time the new Constitution comes into force would be valid only to the extent that they don’t clash with the new constitution; be dispensed with in relation to the ‘personal laws’ of certain communities. If any personal law is allowed to stand above the constitution, that would be a case of according to certain communities privileges not available to other communities and will give rise to ethnic and religious tensions.

9.       According to Sri Lanka’s legal system, foreign treaties entered into by the government are not automatically incorporated into domestic law and parliament has to legislate the provisions of that treaty into law. The Subcommittee on Fundamental Rights has recommended that treaties to which Sri Lanka is a party at the time the new constitution comes into effect, should automatically get incorporated into domestic law after a lapse of two years. This is a naked attempt to bring into force through the back door, Optional Protocol I of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which was ill-advisedly signed in 1998 but due to subsequent enlightenment, never incorporated in our law by parliament because it makes our Supreme Court subordinate to the Human Rights Committee in Geneva. The automatic, unplanned incorporation of foreign treaties in our laws in the manner proposed will lead to confusion within the legal system.

10.  One of the principal recommendations of the Sub Committee on Fundamental Rights is that both Sinhala and Tamil be recognised as the official languages of Sri Lanka. In 1957 S.J.V.Chelvanayagam proposed to make Tamil the language of administration in the North and the East with ‘reasonable provision’ for the use of Sinhala for the Sinhala minority living in those areas. This was same the policy that S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike applied to the whole country with Sinhala as the official language and reasonable provision for the use of Tamil especially in the north and east. In India too, Hindi – the language of the largest linguistic group – is the official language while reasonable provision has been made for the use of other languages like Tamil, Malayalam etc. These are arrangements that should not be disturbed with ill-advised experiments.

I call upon the government to act more responsibly in this all important matter of constitutional reform and to take up the two main electoral reform pledges they gave the people first, before dealing with matters that are of interest only to separatists and certain interested foreign parties. None of the recommendations mentioned above should be in the final draft of the constitution. The fact that the government sent an SLFP delegation to mislead the Ven. MahanayakeTheras about the constitutional reform proposals shows that they are trying to use the nationalistic credentials of the SLFP to deceive the MahaSangha and the people to push through a constitution which will divide the country without using the word ‘division’.  I request all members of the SLFP serving in this government not to allow their enslavement to the UNP to go so far as to betraying every principle that the SLFP has stood for in the past six decades.

SriLankan Airlines: Disgruntled Corporate Heads Vent Frustration On Social Media

December 4, 2016

Disgruntled and prominent business folk in Colombo have taken to Facebook to vent their frustration at the denial of basic services offered by the country’s national carrier SriLankan Airlines towards its full fare paying customers.

Suren Goonewardene – Denied Access To SriLankan Airlines Business Class Lounge In Singapore

Suren Goonewardene a pioneer in the mobile telecommunications business who was denied access to using the Business Class lounge in Singapore last night posted “Bloody Sri Lankan lounge in Singapore refuses me entry to the lounge after a long trek from Aussie . The excuse given is that a passenger cannot stay in the lounge for more than 3 hours.. bunch of jokers who run the airline .. never has this happened before to me . Flight code share with Qantas ..”

Incidentally Goonewardene who purchased a full fare ticket from Hemas Travels (Pvt) Ltd to travel on SriLankan Airlines / Qantas from Colombo via Singapore to Australia was granted access to the Qantas Business Class lounge on his first leg during his four hour stopover. However on the way back as the stopover was over nine hours, he was denied access by SriLankan Airlines. Since denied access he had no option but to check into a transit hotel.

Kasthuri Chellaraja Wilson – Managing Director Hemas Says “Travel Emirates Instead”

Another prominent passenger Dr. Thiyagarah Iraivan who traveled recently on SriLankan Airlines to Bangalore and took to Facebook earlier to also vent his frustration wrote “This is the state of the national airline”. Earlier he had posted pictures of a broken arm rest of a passenger seat he had to sit when he traveled.

Commenting under Goonewardene’s post, Kasthuri Chellaraja Wilson the current Managing Director of Hemas Pharmaceuticals (Pvt) Ltd and former Managing Director of Hemas Transportation wrote “That’s why you should travel Emirates”.

Michael De Soysa the former Manager of the national Sri Lanka Cricket team also commented ” Ouch… never fly UL or Qantas…unless absolutely no other option”. ‘UL’ is the two letter abbreviation for SriLankan Airlines.

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Modi’s masterstroke - with blemishes

India’s demonetisation is worthy of support

Short term costs of demonetisation (Grossly overestimated) The 61,500 will be recovered within a year and there will be faster growth thereafter (Rs 111, 600 crore = Rs 1.116 trillion)

What the supporters of demonetisation claim (Item 8: Rs3 lakh crore = Rs 3 trillion)

by Kumar David-December 3, 2016, 

The demonetisation of Rs500 and Rs1000 currency notes which commenced on November 8 is worthy of strong support in principle. There have been a few cock-ups - serious ones at that - but that notwithstanding the measure is welcome. The acts of mismanagement are that the government was not adequately prepared to deal with the amount of cash that would pour in, nor to cope with the numbers that would queue up. The first point I cannot understand; how come the Reserve Bank (RBI) did not know the quantum of notes of the
relevant denominations in circulation (to a layman like me it would be the number issued minus the number in bank vaults). Of course one cannot anticipate the rate of inflow on different days but surely it should have been possible to estimate the proportion of white, brown and black money out there and to prepare contingency plans to deal with the inflow. The mismanagement is not excusable, but certainly not a reason to oppose demonetisation. If you ask me "Look, you know the scale of things in India and the competence issues of its bureaucracy, so should the government have refrained from demonetisation?" my response is "Bollocks, knowing that cock-ups are unavoidable I still believe that it was entirely correct to demonetise".

Regarding the long queues let me tell you about NM’s demonetisation in October 1970 when he changed Rs 50 and Rs 100 notes. I have some personal insight because only four people knew about it in advance, NM and Mrs B, the Secretary to the Treasury Chanda Cooray (oftened mis-called Chandra) or some name like that, and my step-father Uncle Lloyd (L.O. de Silva) who was Senior Assistant Secretary in NM’s ministry. I found out that Uncle Lloyd knew only after the event. It came as a shock to NM and the Party (I was Secretary of the University Local at the time or had just handed over to Paul David) that many worker-comrades and trade unionists were in the queues selling their services and laundering money. They lined up and accepted gratuities to exchange black money. Demonetisation was less successful than it should have been because the working class let down NM.

I told you this little anecdote because the same thing is happening in India. Hoarders and currency criminals are paying commissions to ordinary folk to line up. Fortunately the Indian authorities are using indelible ink to make return visits more difficult and given the sheer size of the loot hoarded in India only a relatively small proportion can be laundered in this way. Another problem, due to size of the country and the number and remoteness of bank branches, is that bank employees help relatives and friends, not to launder money, but to circumvent sweating it out in the queue.

Plain Krishnan and Sita

There are three categorize of un-deposited currency. Hoarders and currency criminals (black money), small traders and small tax avoiders holding on to maybe twenty-five to fifty thousand rupees and the small man (worker, farmer) who would usually have no more than ten thousand rupees at home (brown money). Maybe these numbers are off by a factor but we can proceed because it does not change the qualitative nature of what I am saying. The third category is legitimate household savings which together with what is in bank deposits and business liquidity is white as snow. The government and RBI should have been able to make a plus or minus 10 to 15 % accurate estimate of each category and should have been well prepared for the length and pressure of the queues. It should have been possible to make a guess of how many people would line up on behalf of financial criminals to sell their services – this was going to happen but if it was kept to below 15% of the total amount demonetised I would consider the exercise a success. To believe my left inclined friends in India, they are of the view that the government got much of its planning horribly wrong; it underestimated the problem.

This certainly does not change my mind - I believe demonetisation had to be done; it simply makes me fault the authorities for not implementing practical aspects better. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Sing has shot his mouth off in all the wrong directions. He says targeting black money is correct. He then says it was badly managed; not as badly managed as the government of India when he was PM, but still so far he is right. But then instead of extending critical support he goes off damning demonetisation with gusto. When reminded that in about two financial quarters these difficulties will be ironed out and a strong economic recovery may follow, silly Singh quotes Keynes "In the long run we will all be dead". Singh neither understands the time scales Keynes had in mind nor does he seem to be aware that Keynesian Economics was discredited 40 years ago by the onset of stagflation.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of Bengal and anti-corruption hero Arvind Kejerwal are also playing politics, condemning demonetisation instead of extending conditional support. Ah well, you know, the overhead costs of democracy! Obama says Yes, the Republican Congress says No; Obama says No, the Republican Congress says Yes. It has been the same story in Lanka for 70 years of uninterrupted parliamentary democracy, so it’s not unexpected that Banerjee and Kejerwal play politics.

Still this is not to deny that there has been considerable dislocation of the economy (unavoidable) and a lot of inconvenience for poorer people (plain Krishna and Sita) who had to line up for a whole day which could have been much reduced by better planning. Some people lining up are errand boys of black money merchants working for commissions – this too was foreseeable. A diagram on the web (fig 1) shows the costs of demonetisation. The numbers are an overestimate but I have reproduced it so that readers can judge for themselves.

Despite the inconvenience and sweat and heat there is good humour in the queues because the sentiment is that unless black-money wallahs are defeated there is no way India can go forward. The public grumbles but knows this has to be done. Three people are reported to have died from heat exhaustion and better management would have avoided such tragedies though in a country of India’s size scores people pass away during the massive pilgrimages in Varanasi and elsewhere.

The anticipated benefits

Thanks to demonetisation there has been an immediate cessation of terrorism in Kashmir and the North-East. Millions of rupees slashed away by these organisations have been rendered useless at the stroke of a pen. Property transactions were often more than 50% paid in black cash; this has ended and property prices have plummeted. This will benefit buyers and small people and low interest rate loans will become available. The government thinks the economy will be depressed for two quarters and then rebound and investment all round will pick up. It argues that "limited pain for two quarters is worth it." Most economist agree that there will be a 1% to 2% slow down in the growth rate for the next two quarters but anticipate much improved performance thereafter.

The government has so far not given a breakdown of the amounts deposited by categories or indeed an overall figure for deposits. This is understandable; it would be premature for more reasons than one. Mr Modi will have to address parliament on demonetisation and a full accounting can be expected at the time. This may be after the "50 day" period – demonetisation commenced on 8 November so 50 days is the end of December.

The motives for demonetisation are said to be many; flush out or destroy hoarded black money, render fake currency sterile, push the country into a banking (and cashless) economy by forcing people to open bank accounts and perhaps most important, to end tax evasion. When hoarders and tax dodgers make huge deposits to rescue at least a part of their loot, the rest is confiscated unless the cash can be explained. This is a boon to current year revenue. But more important is that once tax dodgers are flushed into the open the taxman can keep them under surveillance in future. Demonetisation is a unique, large and complex exercise; parts of the project will fail. Nevertheless, overall it is to the good.

Abused, pregnant and behind bars: Former IS slaves in Libyan prisons

Months after the battle for Sirte was declared 'over,' women raped by IS are still imprisoned for questioning by forces of UN-backed government

An Eritrean woman held at the Libyan air force compound in Misrata (MEE/Alessio Romenzi)

Francesca Mannocchi-Sunday 4 December 2016 

MISTRATA, Libya - Wered vomits every morning. Her dream, like that of so many others, was to cross the Mediterrean to Europe to seek a better life for herself and her family. Now, at 16, she is pregnant after months of rape and abuse by Islamic State fighters, and locked in a Libyan prison for 23 hours a day.

She faces a choice between delivering the baby here or in Eritrea after her deportation.

"This is a child of evil – I do not want it," she said. "I just want to forget. I want to forget being raped, and being sold like an object. I want to forget about being treated like garbage."

Wered has asked for an abortion, but was refused. Abortions are generally illegal in Libya, even in cases of rape and incest. The women who seek them or perform them on themselves can be jailed for six months.

So Wered, herself still a child, is facing the prospect of giving birth to the baby of one of the four men who systematically raped her – she has no idea which.  

The prison wing where she is held spans two floors. On each floor is a locked door, behind which runs a long corridor with five cells on each side. Each cell has four to six beds crammed into it, and a rudimentary toilet.

Children are held in the cells with their mothers. Middle East Eye saw one woman and her young son eating stale bread chopped into tiny pieces.

The wing is inhabited solely by women and their children - about 100 of them - who had been abducted by IS as they travelled through the Libyan desert hoping to reach the coast and cross to Italy.

The women fled IS, but are being held as 'suspects' (MEE/Alessio Romenzi)

Eritrean, Filipino, Syrian and Iraqi women are all present among the prisoners. The path of each one, though, had ended in Sirte, where they were taken by their abductors to live as sex slaves for the fighters.

"I was sold to several different men," said Yemane, 25, who was also kidnapped in the desert and brought to Sirte.

"They used us as gifts: my life was worth less than a bunch of flowers."

Wered and Yemane are two of many women and children who have been detained for months by forces of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), while they are interrogated for any information they may hold on IS operatives.

MEE was invited to the prison, inside an air force academy south of Misrata, by Mohammed al-Ghasri. Ghasri heads al-Bunyan al-Marsous, the GNA-led military operation to retake Sirte from Islamic State.

The offensive, launched in May 2016, declared in August that the group had been pushed out of most of the city.

"From a military point of view, the battle for Sirte is over," Ghasri said then, adding that "victory" would be announced soon.

More than three months later, his forces are struggling to complete their mission - and vulnerable former IS captives are still being detained some 275km along the coast at the prison in Misrata.

"A Sudanese man raped me for four months," Yemane said. "He never told me about what was happening outside. He just told me that my life was worth nothing."

Eventually the outside world came to them, during the GNA-backed offensive to recapture Sirte that began this summer.

"After May things changed," Yemane said. "We began to hear noises from the fighting. We couldn't get out, but we could hear the bombs and guns. I was terrified. It's a miracle we're still alive."

Some said they had tried to escape previously, but the violence they faced after being caught persuaded them against trying a second time. Mesmer, who is in her late 20s, broke her leg trying to escape through a window of the locked house where she was being held.

"It was early in the morning when I tried to run. [After I broke my leg] I walked for many miles, but they caught me and beat me fiercely. After that I no longer tried to escape."

Dozens of women are being held in the Misrata air force compound (MEE/Alessio Romenzi)

When Libyan forces finally seized the area where they were held, many women walked toward the soldiers holding whatever pieces of white cloth they could find to surrender.

"We wanted them to understand we were civilians," Mesmer said. "We wanted to show them we needed to be helped and saved and that we had no weapons."

The women were taken on a four-hour journey along the coast to Misrata, where forces loyal to the GNA hold sway. Months later, they are still being held in the prison, being interrogated to investigate any possible ongoing contact with IS militants.

Most soldiers in the prison declined to say how long the women would be held for.

"They have to stay here until we finish the interrogations," one official said, requesting anonymity.

The Libyan forces fighting in Sirte feared that IS members might hide among groups of civilians. But Tecle, who has been in the prison for two months, said she doesn't understand why she is still being held.

"I have not done anything. I ran away from hunger and dictatorship in Eritrea and now I am here, locked in a cell in Libya," she said, tears falling behind the black veil that revealed only her eyes.

"I am a Christian, and IS forced me to convert. They told me that Christians were devils, that for us there would never be a paradise, only the flames of hell.

Abducted by IS, rescued by Libya - but this Eritrean woman's future hangs in the balance (MEE/Alessio Romenzi)

"I was afraid to die by drowning in the Mediterranean, but I never imagined ending up in the hands of IS."

She lowered her face to the ground, repeating over and over again: "I have never harmed anyone. Why am I here?"

None of the women interviewed have mobile phones, and cannot not their families even to say where they are, and that they are safe – or if not safe, then at least alive.

The prison's infirmary is empty. Soldiers who asked not to be quoted said there is not enough money to buy medicines for the inmates.

They said that, when the weather is sunny, the women and children are allowed out for an hour for fresh air. But despite the hardship of their current situation, the women said their greatest fear is their uncertain future.

Libya, a key transition point for migrants hoping to cross to Europe, is under intense pressure to curb flows. Deaths by drowning in the stormy seas hit a record high this year.

The North African country, ravaged by years of fighting and political chaos, regularly deports hundreds of people back to countries such as Nigeria, Gambia and Eritrea, to where 16-year-old Wered fears she will be deported.

“Now I have escaped," she said. “But I will never have a future worthy of the word."

Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss 'bad' Iran nuclear deal with Donald Trump

Israel leader renews criticism of Iran pact, which Trump has called a ‘disaster’, and says they will discuss it after president-elect enters the White House

Benjamin Netanyahu on Donald Trump: ‘I look forward to speaking to him about what to do about this bad deal.’ Photograph: Reuters

Sunday 4 December 2016 

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he and Donald Trump will discuss the “bad” nuclear deal with Iran after the US president-elect enters the White House.

During the US election campaign, Trump called the nuclear pact a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated”. He has also said it would be hard to overturn an agreement enshrined in a United Nations resolution.

Speaking to the Saban Forum on the Middle East in Washington via satellite from Jerusalem, Netanyahu said: “Israel is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons ... That has not changed and will not change.

“As far as President-elect Trump, I look forward to speaking to him about what to do about this bad deal.”

Netanyahu has been a harsh critic of the nuclear deal, a legacy foreign policy achievement for Barack Obama. But he had largely refrained from attacking the pact in recent months as Israeli and US negotiators finalised a 10-year, $38bn military aid package.

Before the nuclear agreement, Netanyahu further strained relations with the White House by addressing Congress and cautioning against agreeing to the pact.

The Obama administration promoted the deal as a way to suspend Tehran’s suspected drive to develop atomic weapons. In return, Obama agreed to lift most sanctions against Iran. Iran denied ever having considered developing nuclear arms.

“I opposed the deal because it doesn’t prevent Iran from getting nukes,” Netanyahu said in Sunday’s question-and-answer session. “It paves the way for Iran to get nuclear weapons.”

Under the deal, Iran committed to reducing the number of its centrifuges by two-thirds, capping its level of uranium enrichment well below the level needed for bomb-grade material, reducing its enriched uranium stockpile from around 10,000kg to 300kg for 15 years, and submitting to international inspections to verify its compliance.

“The problem isn’t so much that Iran will break the deal,” Netanyahu said, “but that Iran will keep it because it just can walk in within a decade, and even less … to industrial-scale enrichment of uranium to make the core of an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

“So the problem how to deal with this deal is something that I will discuss with … President Trump when he takes office.”

Netanyahu telephoned Trump after his election victory in November and said the president-elect had invited him to meet in the US “at the first opportunity”. The two talked in New York in September, when Netanyahu also saw the Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.

“He [Trump] has a clear vision of America’s role and dominance in the world. I don’t think he’s going to put the world aside – I don’t see that at all. In fact, I think the contrary is true,” Netanyahu said on Sunday.

Fearing abandonment by Trump, CIA-backed rebels in Syria mull alternatives

Syrian army soldiers patrol the east Aleppo neighborhood of Tariq al-Bab on Saturday. Tariq al-Bab was captured by Syrian government forces on Friday. (Hassan Ammar/AP)

By Karen DeYoung and Louisa Loveluck December 3 at 6:03 PM

Three years after the CIA began secretly shipping lethal aid to rebels fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, battlefield losses and fears that a Donald Trump administration will abandon them have left tens of thousands of opposition fighters weighing their alternatives.

Among the options, say U.S. officials, regional experts and the rebels themselves, are a closer alliance with better-armed al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, receipt of more sophisticated weaponry from Sunni states in the Persian Gulf region opposed to a U.S. pullback, and adoption of more traditional guerrilla tactics, including sniper and other small-scale attacks on both Syrian and Russian targets.

Just over a year ago, the opposition held significant territory inside Syria. Since then, in the absence of effective international pushback, Russian and Syrian airstrikes have relentlessly bombarded their positions and the civilians alongside them. On the ground, Syrian government troops — bolstered by Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Shiite militia forces from Iraq — have retaken much of that ground.

In brutal attacks over the past three weeks, they have been driven out of much of the eastern Aleppo stronghold that they have occupied since 2012.

[‘We are alone’: The voices of besieged, rebel-held Aleppo]

Trump has made clear that his priority in Syria is the separate fight against the Islamic State, ideally in cooperation with Russia and the Syrian government, as well as other allies. While still vague about his plans, the president-elect has rejected the Obama administration’s view that ending the civil war and bringing Assad to the negotiating table are ultimately key to victory over the Islamic militants, and indicated he will curtail support for the opposition.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed the rebels, saying, “We have no idea who these people are.”

“My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS,” he told the Wall Street Journal last month, using another name for the Islamic State.

Assad, in an interview the week after Trump’s election, called the United States a “natural” 

counterterrorism ally. He has long labeled the opposition as terrorists equal to the Islamic State.

The possibility of cutting loose opposition groups it has vetted, trained and armed would be a jolt to a CIA already unsettled by the low opinion of U.S. intelligence capabilities that Trump had expressed during his presidential campaign.

From a slow and disorganized start, the opposition “accomplished many of the goals the U.S. hoped for,” including their development into a credible fighting force that showed signs of pressuring Assad into negotiations, had Russia not begun bombing and Iran stepped up its presence on the ground, said one of several U.S. officials who discussed the situation on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The United States estimates that there are 50,000 or more fighters it calls “moderate opposition,” concentrated in the northwest province of Idlib, in Aleppo and in smaller pockets throughout western and southern Syria, and that they are not likely to give up.

 

“They’ve been fighting for years, and they’ve managed to survive,” the U.S. official said. “Their opposition to Assad is not going to fade away.”

Although their fortunes were boosted last year by U.S. and Saudi Arabia-provided TOW antitank missiles, the rebels have long complained that American assistance has been stingy and has come with too many strings attached. Concerned that more sophisticated weapons, including portable antiaircraft missiles, would end up in the hands of extremists, President Obama refused to send them and prevailed upon regional allies to impose similar restrictions on their own arms shipments.

Now, said one U.S.-vetted rebel commander, “we are very frustrated. The United States refuses to provide weapons we need, and yet it still thinks it can tell us what to do. They promise support and then watch us drown.”

“America will have no influence if our comrades are forced [to retreat to] Idlib” from Aleppo, said the commander, who asked not to be identified to speak about sensitive rebel relations with the United States.

Most rebels already forced to relinquish territory have gone to Idlib, which is fast becoming a holding pen for what is left of the rebellion. The area is dominated by as many as 10,000 fighters for Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda-linked group now known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and an equal number of Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist group tied to the wider rebel movement that the United States does not consider terrorist.

Some experts, including Trump’s designated White House national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, think that the growing operational alliance between the rebels and extremist groups began long ago.

Flynn argued last year that Obama’s Syria strategy of first withholding, then offering only measured support for the opposition through a covert CIA program, effectively allowed extremist organizations to grow at rebel expense. Asked in a July 2015 al Jazeera interview whether there should have been stronger early support for the opposition, Flynn said: “When you don’t get in and help somebody, they’re going to find other means to achieve their goals. . . . We should have done more earlier on in this effort.”

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At the same time, Flynn has said, the administration played down early intelligence indicating that al-Nusra and eventually the Islamic State organization, which combined Islamist extremists and former Iraqi army officers left adrift by the 2003 U.S. invasion, were growing rapidly.

In a book published last summer, Flynn wrote that they are allied with those who “share their hatred of the West,” including “North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela.”

But in an analysis looking forward, echoed by Trump and certain to be influential in the incoming White House, Flynn has also outlined a World War II -type global alliance, including both the United States and Russia, under a single leadership, to combat what he has called “Islam’s . . . political ideology.”

Others have noted that cutting off the opposition would not only support Russian and Syrian aims but also would benefit Iran at the perceived expense of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other regional U.S. allies who view that country as an existential threat.

“There will be significant reputational costs with our allies in the region if we abandon support of the moderate opposition,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

He said the question is “whether our Gulf allies can count on us or they can’t, whether the Iranians are going to be given free rein or they won’t.”

“A lot obviously will depend on what the president-elect does, what his advisers urge him to do,” Schiff said. Referring to retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s choice for defense secretary, Schiff added, “I think Gen. Mattis will have different views . . . [that] recognize the implications in terms of Iranian influence in the region.”

Disagreement over whether to take a tougher line against Russia in Syria — including direct military intervention on behalf of civilians and, indirectly, the rebels — in Aleppo and beyond has already caused deep divisions between Obama’s State Department and the reluctant Defense Department and the White House.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry has continued negotiations over a cease-fire, meeting again with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Rome on Friday. Talks have focused on an agreement to safely deliver humanitarian aid and to evacuate both civilians, who want to leave, and the al-Nusra forces that Russia says are the majority of some several thousand anti-Assad fighters in the eastern part of the city. U.S. officials think the militants there number in the hundreds.

But Kerry has had little leverage to persuade Moscow to change its strategy, designed to ensure a military victory for Assad.

As the incoming Trump administration considers withdrawing from involvement in either assisting or resolving the civil war, others have indicated they will move into the anticipated vacuum.

Qatar has said it will continue supporting and supplying the rebels, regardless of what the United States decides.

“We want to have the U.S. with us, for sure. They have been our historic ally,” Qatar Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Jassim al-Thani said last week in an interview with Reuters in Doha. “But if they want to change their minds . . . we are not going to change our position.”

Loveluck reported from Beirut.

Trump Reaches Out to Central Asia, Looking For a Back Door to Russia

BY REID STANDISH-DECEMBER 1, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump has already spoken to 44 world leaders on the phone since winning the U.S. election, including severalconversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Wednesday, Trump made his first overture to former Soviet Central Asia, speaking with Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan. The pair talked counterterrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, and ways the Trump administration could actually mend fences, as promised during the campaign, with Moscow.

According to a readout of the telephone conversation released by the Office of the President of Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev congratulated the president-elect on his recent victory. Trump then praised the Kazakh president’s 25 years of leadership, which he described, according to the readout, as a “fantastic success that can be called a ‘miracle.’” (While Nazarbayev has managed to navigate the economic and political tumult of the fall of the Soviet Union and raise living standards in the country, his government has faced staunch criticism for human rights abuses and media censorship from advocacy groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.)

The pair then exchanged pleasantries and talked about a range of issues, from nuclear weapons to the war in Syria, before zeroing in on ways that Washington can reach out to Moscow. While far from revelatory — Trump’scall Wednesday with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif offered plenty more gobsmack moments as well as a possible rewriting of U.S. policy toward Pakistan — the exchange could still be significant as Trump’s transition team tries to cobble together its foreign policy agenda.

Nazarbayev is the first Central Asian leader to speak with the real estate mogul-turned-politician — and that’s no accident. Kazakhstan, an oil-rich country of more than 17 million, has distinguished itself by trying to punch above its weight diplomatically, by hosting peace talks on Syria, negotiationsabout the Iran nuclear agreement, and recently securing a non-permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

More to the point, perhaps, Kazakhstan is also a close ally of Russia. According to the readout, the two leaders discussed how Washington and Moscow could mend ties, with Nazarbayev suggesting “the fight against terrorism, the Ukrainian crisis settlement and the global nuclear security strengthening” as areas ripe for greater cooperation. In response, Trump is said to have been “very optimistic about the prospects of developing cooperation between Washington and Moscow,” given his recent conversations with Putin.

On the campaign trail, Trump said the United States should look to repair its relationship with Russia, especially by cooperating to fight the Islamic State in Syria. The president-elect’s transition team is yet to name several key cabinet posts, like secretary of state, that could augment the incoming administration’s foreign policy. But Trump has selected Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn as national security advisor, an appointment likely to shape the broad cut and thrust of the Trump administration’s global engagement.

A retired three-star general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012-2014, Flynn is petrified by the threat posed by Islamic terrorist groups — he actually likened the threat from the Islamic State to that posed by Nazi Germany — and called for cooperating with Moscow in order to fight terrorism. Flynn has also labeled Iran as a threat to the United States, and, like Trump, wants to tear up the Obama administration’s landmark nuclear agreement with Tehran.

Whether Trump decides to follow through on ending the nuclear deal could have a major impact on Kazakhstan, which has made nuclear nonproliferation a centerpiece of its foreign policy. Following the collapse the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan gave up its inherited nuclear weapons and has since parlayed its nuclear-free status into diplomatic outreach. According to Nazarbayev’s official biography, the president resisted calls from other world leaders, including former Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi, to keep the warheads, but instead elected to give them up in exchange for “international recognition, respectability, investment and security.”

Given Trump and Flynn’s views on the U.S. nuclear accord with Iran, Kazakhstan will likely be looking for new diplomatic avenues to limit the spread of nuclear weapons — especially if that means bending some important ears in the Trump White House. In an interview with Foreign Policy in April, Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov said that his country prized the nuclear accord as a positive achievement.

“We will play any role necessary to make sure the Iran deal stays in place,” Idrissov said at the time.

Photo credit: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images

Brexit: A costly pick-and-mix deal?

Jon Snow-4 DEC 2016

Yes, the Donald is still the Donald. He appears to be ruling by Twitter decree and his appointee list thus far seems a mixture of what he said he would do and the opposite of what he said. The hardline national security and defence appointees include General Flynn and ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis to run America’s external affairs, which is entirely in line with what he said on the campaign trail. To run America’s economy the appointment of a number of billionaires and members of the banking elite seems entirely counter to the concept of ‘draining the swamp’. His endless attacks on Hillary for being too close to Wall Street turn out to have been words rather than intended action. The concept of Trump never really meant more than a voyage into the unknown, and still does.

Brexit on the other hand was presented as a binary choice. Leave the EU or Remain. And the people chose ‘Leave’. Upon becoming prime minister, Theresa May made the crystal clear simple statement that ‘Brexit means Brexit’. We presumed therefore that she meant that it meant that Britain would leave the EU and all its structures. But the admission that the UK will almost certainly end up paying to access to the EU single market as both Norway and Switzerland do, appears to indicate that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ is far more complicated. As perhaps it was always going to be.

Worse, from the point of view of those who seek to leave the EU, we are to remain in Europol, although we shall lose the British official who heads it, as we shall in the cyber security organization, in which we also intend to ‘Remain’.

When it comes to trade, ministers talk of negotiating trade deals through the World Trade Organisation (WTO), save that the WTO is run by the Quad, which consist of the USA, Canada, the EU, and Japan. So in leaving the EU, we might be automatically leaving the Quad. A source in the WTO tells me there is no prospect of the UK joining the Quad. India, China, and Brazil are in the queue ahead of us and the organisation is seemingly as resistant to change as is the UN Security Council structure.

So Brexit could actually mean leaving the EU, and losing influence its elements – principally security and the single market. The payments themselves, to access these will be substantial – some believe that they will add up to representing a substantial proportion of what we already pay.

In short, so far, Brexit might be heading for a costly pick and mix deal, perhaps denuded of the power to influence either the EU or, perhaps even more critically, the WTO. Still, it does have a ring to it, even if it is a voyage, for us, into the unknown. Trump means Trump, Brexit appears to mean ‘pick n’ mix’ which is perhaps what many wanted .

I happen to be writing this in Cromarty in the far north of Scotland where I am attending a film festival. I am meeting people who voted against independence in the Scottish referendum. A number of them tell me they have changed their minds and now argue for it, though polls put the support for independence at 44%, a percentage point lower than in the actual vote. Much it seems is in flux on this voyage.