US blocks Syrian minister's assets

THE US government has moved to freeze the assets of Syria's interior minister and a military intelligence chief, accusing them of abetting terrorism and destabilising the region.

The Treasury Department named Syria's Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan and Rustum Ghazali, a military spy chief who had responsibility for neighbouring Lebanon, as "Specially Designated Nationals" under an anti-terrorism presidential order.

Ghazali left Lebanon when Syria withdrew its military forces and intelligence agents.

"Today's designation freezes any assets the designees may have located in the United States, and prohibits US persons from engaging in transactions with these individuals," it said in a press release.

The US government said it believed that Kanaan and Ghazali "have directed the Syrian Arab Republic Government's (SARG) military and security presence in Lebanon and/or contributed to the SARG's support for terrorism".

"Both Ghazali and Kanaan allegedly engaged in a variety of corrupt activities and were reportedly the beneficiaries corrupt business deals during their respective tenures in Lebanon," the Treasury added.

It said that before being replaced by Ghazali in late 2002, Kanaan served as Syrian Military Intelligence chief for Lebanon for about 20 years.

"Actions like today's are intended to financially isolate bad actors supporting Syria's efforts to destabilise its neighbours," Treasury Secretary John Snow said in the statement.

"We are seeing democracy take hold in Lebanon and other places in the Middle East, yet Syria continues to support violent groups and political strife," he said.

The move comes after the US administration used the executive order Wednesday to freeze the assets of eight Syrian, North Korean and Iranian entities accused of spreading weapons of mass destruction.

Syria withdrew its last troops from Lebanon in April to end a 29-year presence there. But Washington insists that Damascus still has intelligence agents working on the ground to destabilise the neighbouring nation.

The US government also accuses Syria of tolerating the passage of foreign fighters heading to fuel the insurgency in neighbouring Iraq.

How the vote was handled in Syria in 2000....

This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.meib.org/articles/0008_s1.htm as retrieved on Jun 1, 2005 10:35:51 GMT.

Jointly published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Middle
East Forum

Vol. 2 No. 7
Table of Contents
MEIB Main Page
5 August 2000

Bashar's Path to Political and Economic Reforms

In his first televised public address since taking the oath of office as
Syria's sixteenth president, Bashar Assad announced to the Syrian
people on July 17 that it would be "impossible" for the country to
become a Western-style democracy and called for "democracy specific
to Syria, that takes its roots from its history, and respects its society."
By this point, of course, most Syrians had already come to understand
what Bashar was really saying: that political liberalization "specific to
Syria" would be limited not by the country's unique culture and
society, but by Syria's unique brand of authoritarian government.

Sa'ad Jawdat Said came to understand
this six days earlier, when he entered a
polling station in his home village of Bir
Ajam to vote in the national referendum
on Bashar's candidacy for president and
checked the "no" box on his ballot. As
Said turned to leave, one of the officials
quickly retrieved his ballot, crossed out
his check mark and ticked the "yes" box
instead. When Said glanced back and
saw what the clerk was doing, he protested, insisting that he had the
right to vote any way he chose. Not surprisingly, Said was arrested
and taken to the local security bureau. According to the Arab
Committee for Human Rights, he remains imprisoned there to this
day.1

The next day, Syrian Interior Minister Muhammad Harba proudly
announced that 8.69 million voters said yes, 22,439 voters said no,
and 219,000 votes were "invalid" (he did not elaborate).2 The claim
that Bashar was approved by 99.7% of the valid ballots cast in the
election (or 97.3% of all ballots) was designed to communicate an
unmistakable message to the people of Syria and the larger Arab
world. For weeks, Syrian political analysts and commentators writing
in the London-based Arabic press had speculated that Bashar would
signal a break with the past by not claiming to win 99% or more of the
vote. "One could imagine what an immediate and dramatic effect on
the Syrian public such a leap in the direction of truth--albeit only
part-truth--would have had," Syrian analyst Subhi Hadidi solemnly
wrote after the results were announced. "One will have to conclude
not only that Bashar is the son and creation of the past, but that he
has started to drag the past into the present."3

Since his father's death, Bashar has been portrayed by the press as an
open-minded, Western-educated, internet-savvy reformer, poised to
tear down the walls of one of the most isolated, economically
backward, authoritarian states in the world. Notwithstanding the fierce
criticism of Hadidi and others, Bashar may well have precisely these
intentions, but bringing about reforms while operating within an
autocratic political system is a complicated task. At every step along
the path toward political and economic liberalization, the necessity of
ensuring his regime's survival will trump all other considerations.

This has been particularly evident in Bashar's so-called
"anti-corruption" campaign. He cannot escape the confines of Syria's
authoritarian system simply by replacing members of the "Old Guard"
with reform-minded technocrats, for this would risk the downfall of the
system itself. In order to square this circle, Bashar has had to leave
some members of the Old Guard in place, while gradually shifting real
power, not to technocrats, but to a "New Guard" of military officers
who are competent enough (and ruthless enough) to make sure that
the system prevails long enough to be reformed. Since Bashar himself
has so little experience running the system, members of the New
Guard have been given a great deal of autonomy.

An excellent illustration of this is the dramatic chain
of events that led to the exile of former
chief-of-staff Hikmat Shihabi in June and his
return to Syria last month. In early June, as the late
Syrian President Hafez Assad lay on his deathbed,
the daily Al-Hayat published leaks by "official"
Syrian sources indicating that Shihabi would soon
be indicted on corruption charges.4 Shihabi, who
was in Beirut at the time, promptly boarded a plane
and took off for exile in California. At the time, it
was assumed that Shihabi was simply the latest
target in Bashar's anti-corruption drive. Last month, however,
Shihabi suddenly returned to Syria and officially met with Bashar at
the presidential palace in Damascus. Most observers assumed that the
new Syrian president had changed his mind for some reason and
decided to "rehabilitate" Shihabi.

However, according to informed sources, Bashar had nothing to do
with Shihabi's departure in the first place. The entire scheme to
facilitate Shihabi's exit by making the leaks to Al-Hayat was
undertaken independently by Bahjat Suleiman, the head of internal
affairs at the General Security Directorate and one of Bashar's closest
advisors. Suleiman, like many other members of the minority Alawite
establishment, apparently feared that Shihabi (a Sunni Muslim) might
cause trouble after the Syrian president's death. In any case, a source
close to former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri (a close friend of
Shihabi who saw him off at the airport) told MEIB that Bashar
discovered the plot and phoned Hariri to explain, but by then the
plane had already taken off. Only after repeated assurances during
the next month did Shihabi agree to return.

Whether Bashar is fully in control of the regime is, of course, difficult
to determine with certainty, but it is clear that his security chiefs
exercise much more autonomy and independent initiative than their
counterparts did under the late Hafez Assad and that their primary
concern is the preservation of the regime. Bashar's desire to reform
the system from within will continually be held in check by their risk
assessments.

The style and pace of economic reform are subject to similar
considerations. For example, the announcement last month that a
consortium of Syrian and Saudi investors had received approval to
build a $40 million dollar five-star hotel in the country seems like
welcome news, but it is being built in a predominantly Alawite area of
the Latakia province--the laborers who are hired to build it will be
predominantly Alawite, the appreciation in real estate prices will
benefit Alawite landowners, and revenue generated from increased
tourism in the area will mainly enrich Alawite businessmen.

All other things being equal, the flow of private investment into the
country will be channeled in ways that shore up the regime, rather
than benefit the population at large. The decision last month to allow
Lebanese banks to open branches in Syria reflects the same
prerogative--the regime's continuing military and political control over
capital-rich Lebanon (which has $30 billion in bank deposits,
compared to $5.5 billion in Syria), will allow it to control who these
banks lend their money to.

The July 7 decree by Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa Miru lifting
the 30-year ban on private automobile imports is another small step
toward a more open economy, but the limitations are revealing.
Foreign companies are still not allowed to directly enter the Syrian
market, but must contract with local agents (who, no doubt, will be
close to the regime). The law also excludes diesel-powered vehicles
and used cars that are over two years old, the sale of which will
continue to be monopolized by a state agency.5

Just as the state-centered economy of the late president Assad was
geared to benefit the Alawite community in general and a select strata
of commercial elites in particular, the benefits of Bashar's limited drive
toward economic liberalization are likely to accrue disproportionately
to the same constituents.

1 Al-Quds al-Arabi (London), 3 August 2000.
2 Al-Safir (Beirut), 12 July 2000.
3 Al-Quds al-Arabi (London), 25 July 2000. Translation by Mideast Mirror.
4 Al-Hayat (London), 6 June 2000.
5 Al-Hayat (London), 8 July 2000.

© 2000 Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. All rights reserved.

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