DAMASCUS - The findings of the United
Nations-sanctioned Mehlis commission have ripped
like a thunderstorm through Syria and Lebanon.
When parts of the 53-page report began to
emerge at about midnight (Damascus time) on
October 20-21, everybody turned on Arabic
satellite TV. People were waiting to hear a clear
sentence saying: "Syrian Mr X pressed the explode
button on February 14, 2005, killing former
Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, under
orders from Damascus."
Such an explicit
statement was not made. A threat, rather than an
accusation, was fired at Damascus in the Mehlis
report, making it clear that it could not find
concrete evidence against Syria. Had the
investigation obtained something tangible to
incriminate the Syrians, by
name, it would not have failed to include it in
the findings.
Hariri, a billionaire
politician, and 22 others were killed in a car
bombing in the Lebanese capital of Beirut in
February. The incident led to calls for the
withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence
agents who had been in Lebanon since the early
stages of the country's civil war (1975-1980).
Despite suggesting the possible
involvement of Syrian officials in the
assassination plot, the authors of the report
acknowledge that their findings are not
conclusive. "The commission has checked and
examined this evidence to the best of its
knowledge," they wrote in the preface. "Until the
investigation is complete, all new leads and
evidence are fully analyzed, and an independent
and impartial prosecution mechanism is set up, one
cannot know the complete story of what happened."
Syria has to deal with another report this
week, by UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. It accuses
Syria of continuing "to maintain its direct
military control of Lebanon through its agents in
the Lebanese presidential palace, the army and
intelligence organizations", according to the
Israeli Haaretz newspaper.
Syria also
continues to supply the Shi'ite guerrilla group,
Hezbollah, and Palestinian militants based in
Lebanon with weapons, the report allegedly says.
Roed-Larsen's assignment is to oversee
implementation of UN Resolution 1559, under which
Syria withdrew its forces from Lebanon after
almost 29 years of occupation. The resolution also
calls for the disbanding of all armed factions in
Lebanon, including Hezbollah and Palestinian
groups.
"The findings [of the Mehlis
report] require strong follow-up from the Security
Council," US ambassador John Bolton said. He did
not use the word "sanctions", but made it clear
that in response to the investigators' findings,
Washington was looking at "a range of options".
To follow up on both reports, the US and
other countries have been discussing language for
two resolutions on Syria that are likely to be
introduced to the UN this week. Sanctions against
Syria are also under consideration.
The
Syrian general and Mr X Syria fell out with
Hariri the minute it brought President Emile
Lahhoud to power in Lebanon in 1998. Had it
empowered Hariri at Lahhoud's expense, it could
easily have kept him a loyal friend of Syria.
Yet the Syrians, fearing Hariri's
international standing, alliance with the French,
and financial influence, concluded that Hariri
would be a headache. In the Mehlis report, section
95 deals with how General Rustom Ghazali, the head
of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, arrogantly
dealt with Syria's "Hariri problem" with a
Lebanese official named Mr X, generally believed
to be Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament who
is Syria's number-one man in Lebanon.
The
taped phone conversation took place on July 19,
2004. Ghazali recounted a complaint by Lahhoud,
who said that he could no longer rule Lebanon with
Hariri. The Lebanese Mr X asks Ghazali if Syria
could appoint a new government, and Ghazali
replies: "Yes, we can appoint one. What could be
the problem? We could name Boutros Harb." Harb is
a Christian, and what Ghazali meant was that the
Syrians could break the rules in Lebanon and name
a Christian as prime minister, although the
premiership historically goes to a Sunni Muslim.
Although determined to wreck Hariri,
Ghazali does not tell Mr X that he wants to kill
him. He makes no reference to murder. He only
tells Mr X that he should get people to
demonstrate against Hariri, specifically in
Solidaire (the part of downtown Beirut that he had
built) and Qraytem, where the Hariri Palace is
located.
He tells the Lebanese official to
let the demonstrations carry on "until he is
forced to resign like a dog". He even refuses a
suggestion to send Hariri a message to resign,
saying that it would be used against Syria by
Hariri with his "American and French masters" and
that the prime minister would say that "they"
forced him to resign.
By saying all of
this, Ghazali shows great disrespect for the
Lebanese and intense hatred for Hariri. The
important outcome of the conversation is that he
did not order Hariri's destruction by a massive
explosion. He wanted to get rid of him
politically. He did not say, "Let us blow Rafik
Hariri to pieces."
The report adds
(section 105) that the former member of
parliament, Nassir Qandil, who is a Syrian stooge,
"was tasked to implement a campaign aimed at
ruining Mr Hariri's reputation on a religious and
media level", probably as part of Ghazali's plan
to ruin him politically and make him "the laughing
stock and be pointed at as the person who ruined
and indebted the country".
At any rate, on
the day after the conversation took place between
Ghazali and Mr X, the late Hariri came out and
declared from Beirut that "he would not step down"
because of recent political movements directed
against him. He said: "These campaigns are not new
and have been going on for the past 12 years. They
will not be behind my decision to step aside."
The controversial Assad-Hariri
meeting Then came the famed meeting between
President Bashar Assad and Hariri on August 26,
2004. The Mehlis report based its findings on this
meeting on the testimony of eight interviewed
officials, none of whom were present at the
Assad-Hariri summit in Damascus (section 27).
Reportedly, Marwan Hamadeh, Bassem
al-Sabae, Ghazi al-Aridi and Walid Jumblatt (all
former ministers under Hariri) had met at
Jumblatt's place in Beirut awaiting Hariri to
return from Syria. He had gone to Damascus to
voice his opposition to the extension of Lahhoud's
mandate.
He came back at 1 pm, meaning
that his meeting had been brief. Each of the
Lebanese officials told Mehlis that Hariri was
tense, and one described him as "sweating". All of
them said that Hariri described his meeting with
Assad in very bad terms, saying that the Syrian
president had threatened "to break Lebanon on your
head and Jumblatt's" if "[French President]
Jacques Chirac puts me out of Lebanon".
Hariri reportedly said that Assad told
him, "This is not about Emile Lahhoud, it is about
Bashar al-Assad." He also threatened that if
Jumblatt had Druze in Lebanon, then he had Druze
in Syria and that he (Assad) "is ready to do
anything" to get his way in Lebanon.
An
extra Lebanese witness is Gibran Tweini, a
parliamentarian and publisher of the mass
circulation daily an-Nahhar. More radical in his
stance toward Syria, but at the same time more
loyal to his convictions than someone such as
Jumblatt, who had been a Syrian stooge in the
1990s, Tweini confirmed that Hariri told him in
late 2004 that he had been threatened by Assad.
The Syrian president, according to Tweini,
had "threatened to blow up" Hariri, along with
members of his family. All these statements were
confirmed and repeated by Saad Hariri, the eldest
son and heir of the slain premier.
The
report gives a lot of weight to these findings,
without noteing that all of these men were some of
the loudest anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon. By
logic, their words could be biased, since they
were likely searching for an opportunity to
incriminate Syria.
It is difficult to
believe that Hariri would have confessed such a
statement to Tweini, who was neither a close
friend nor a member of the Hariri bloc. The
Syrians who talked about this meeting were Foreign
Minister Farouk al-Shara and General Ghazali.
The Syrian minister denied that violent
language had been used, and so did the general,
who added that when he met Hariri right after the
prime minister had returned from his meeting with
Assad, "Hariri looked relaxed." He said that
Hariri had told him that the meeting had been
"cordial and brief".
Then comes the phone
conversation between Hariri and Walid al-Moualim,
the deputy prime minister of Syria, on February 1
this year. They discussed the extension of
Lahhoud's mandate, and the conversation was tapped
and given to Mehlis. In it, Hariri tells Moualim:
"He [President Assad] sent for me and told me:
'You always say that you are with Syria. Now the
time has come for you to prove whether you meant
what you said or otherwise.' He did not ask my
opinion. He said: 'I have decided.' He did not
address me as prime minister or as Rafik or
anything of that kind. He just said: 'I have
decided.' I was totally frustrated, at a loss.
That was the worst day of my life. He did not tell
me that he wished to extend Lahhoud's mandate. All
he said was, 'I have decided to do this. Don't
answer me, think and come back to me."
This is the only recorded evidence by
Hariri on the Assad-Hariri meeting. It certainly
does not confirm the story that Assad threatened
to kill Hariri, as relayed by his son and
Jumblatt. It shows that Assad ordered Hariri over
Lahhoud. He did not threaten him.
Planning to commit murder? At
the time of the reported conversation between
Ghazali and Mr X, the Mehlis report adds, a
decision was taken in Damascus to kill the
Lebanese premier. The decision was made in July
2004 and planned until December 2004. The meeting
in which the decision to kill was taken was
reportedly held in the Syrian capital between
Syrian and Lebanese officials, first at the
Meridian Hotel and then at the presidential palace
(section 96).
This information is gathered
from a Syrian witness, who was not identified, who
used to work with Syrian intelligence in Lebanon.
Again, had this information been backed with
evidence, such as recorded talks, pictures, more
than one witness, then one could not but believe
it.
But the only basis for such an
accusation is the testimony of the unnamed Syrian
witness. This raises several questions: How would
an average agent in the Syrian intelligence
service know of such a supposedly high-level
meeting? And in planning such a crime, couldn't
these Syrian officials have chosen a more
concealed and less public place than the Meridian?
Afterall, such a crime requires great
secrecy, and not only is the Meridian Hotel tapped
(as everybody in Syria knows), but it is also
filled with undercover agents of different
intelligence agencies disguised as waiters.
And likewise, had the palace been
involved, the least the organizers could have done
is conduct meetings as far away as possible from
the presidential palace to prevent suspicion and
the slightest chance of a leak.
Finally,
how would the Syrian witness know so much about
these meetings if he were not a member of the very
closed crime circle (which Mehlis claims he is
not). Surely, such a delicate crime was not public
knowledge that an officer in the Syrian
intelligence in Lebanon "stumbled" across.
The Syrian side is that this unnamed
witness was bribed into incriminating Syria,
either by some Lebanese politician, or by Rifaat
Assad, the dissident uncle of President Assad, who
longs for power.
These Syrian claims have
been backed by the prestigious German political
magazine, Der Spiegel. It said that one of the
witnesses, Zuhayr al-Saddik, on whom the Mehlis
report relied heavily for its findings, was a
dubious person who had a criminal record in Syria
and therefore could not be trusted or believed.
The magazine raised serious doubts about
Saddik's statements and surprise that the Mehlis
report attached so much weight to them. The report
adds that Saddik had been paid to incriminate
Syria, and that he had contacted one of his
siblings from Paris after giving his testimony
last summer, saying: "I have become a
millionaire."
The Syrians are now saying
that Saddik is an imposter, claiming that the
Mehlis report should verify if the witness made
correct statements before publishing them as
facts. Indeed, the report even says, "At the
present stage of investigation, a certain amount
of information given by Mr Saddik cannot be
confirmed through other evidence."
If,
after months of investigation, Mehlis could not
confirm what Saddik said, why was it in the
report? Probably, from a legal point of view, it
was just to show what the witnesses said (which is
professional), but the manner in which Saddik's
testimonies are written brings the world to
believe that Saddik has high credibility. People
wanting to interpret the report politically can
use Saddik's statements against Syria, similar to
how former Iraqi officials who had fled to the US
in the 1990s came out to "confirm" that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
This unnamed Syrian witness said that a
senior Syrian officer told him in January this
year that Hariri was a problem for Syria. One
month later, this same officer said that there
would be "an earthquake" in Lebanon that would
re-write Lebanese history (section 97).
This statement, from a legal point of
view, is ridiculous. Two unknown people are
talking in ambiguities. How can Syria respond to
such an accusation if it does not know the name of
the witness or of the officer? Had the report
said: Syrian officer X told witness Y said that an
"earthquake" would happen in Lebanon, then Syria
would have no choice but to question and arrest Mr
Y if his answers were unsatisfactory. By not
mentioning names, the report gives the Syrians
very limited room to respond or be proactive.
This same witness says that he had visited
several military bases in Lebanon and at one base
he had seen "a Mitsubishi van" and not "the
Mitsubishi van" that was used to carry the
explosives to kill Hariri on February 14 (section
98).
He saw this van on February 11, 12
and 13. He adds that at one point he was at a
Syrian camp in the resort of Zabadani, near
Damascus, and saw the same van being loaded with
explosives in the presence of Ahmad Abu Addas, the
man who claimed responsibility for the Hariri
murder, then disappeared on February 14 (section
110).
The Syrians claim that the camp was
used for education purposes. The Mehlis report
says that irregular activity was recorded there on
September 5-9 this year, to change its features to
make it seem educational, whereas in reality it
was a military base when the explosives were
planted in the Mitsubishi van nine months earlier.
And why was the van loaded with explosives
so publicly? The least the Syrians would have done
is load it in secrecy. And they would not have
permitted an outsider, such as the Syrian witness,
who is not a camp official, to view the act and
run the risk of him remembering it.
Ahmad
Abu Addas showed up in a taped broadcast on
al-Jazeera TV hours after the assassination,
claiming that he had killed Hariri because the
Lebanese premier had been an infidel. Everybody
speculated at the time that the video was rubbish,
planted by the real murderers to conceal their
identity, muddle investigations and link the
murder to al-Qaeda-style terrorism.
The
witness claims that Abu Addas had no role to play
in the crime, but was just used as a decoy by the
Syrians. Then he contradicts himself and says that
Abu Addas was there when the explosives were
planted in the Mitsubishi. The witness claims Abu
Addas recorded the tape claiming responsibility
for the assassination in Damascus, weeks before
the assassination, while held at gunpoint by Assef
Shawkat, then the deputy director of Syrian
Intelligence, who was promoted to director on
February 14, the day Hariri was killed (section
178).
Yet if he was a decoy only used for
the video, how is it that he was around when the
bombs were being planted? With regard to Abu Addas
being threatened by Shawkat, the Syrians
immediately remarked that there was no evidence
that Shawkat threatened Abu Addas because Shawkat
denied this and Abu Addas is reportedly dead.
The witness adds that 15 minutes before
the murder he received a phone call from a Syrian
official, telling him to flee the scene
immediately. If the witness knew the location and
timing of the crime, why was he in the vicinity of
the St George Hotel on February 14? Why didn't he
name the official who told him to flee the scene?
Had he done that, the Mehlis report could have
demanded that Syria bring him to a court of
justice, and if Syria failed to comply, Mehlis
could have unleashed hell on Damascus at the
Security Council.
Two versions of the
report Another witness met with Mustapha
Hamdan, the head of the Lebanese Republican Guard
and close to Lahhoud and the Syrians. This witness
claims that Hamdan said that they were fed up with
Hariri and wanted "to send him on a trip. Bye-bye
Hariri!" (section 103).
The witness
continues, saying that the decision to kill Hariri
was taken by the Lebanese generals, Jamil
al-Sayyed, Mustapha Hamdan, Ali al-Hajj and
Raymond Azar. They planned the move with Ahmad
Jibril, the Palestinian renegade and veteran
resistance leader based in Damascus, and top
Syrian security officials, including Assad's
brother Maher, his brother-in-law Assef, along
with General Hasan Khalil, the director of Syrian
intelligence, and Bahjat Sulayman, the director of
internal security in Syria.
Khalil retired
from office in February this year, while Sulayman
was retired by Assad in June. These Syrian names
were all included in the initial report handed to
US Secretary General Kofi Annan on October 20, but
deleted by Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor
from whom the report takes it name, in the version
given to the media.
Mehlis explained this
by saying that he did not have any evidence
incriminating any of these people and their names
were just mentioned by the unidentified Syrian
"witness". Another important part of the original
report handed to Annan was a reference to how the
investigation had been influenced and manipulated
at times by politicians in Lebanon.
This
statement, which has been ignored by the media,
damages Mehlis's credibility and benefits the
Syrians. To quote the actual text of the document
that was omitted in the circulated copy: "Certain
Lebanese media had the unfortunate and constant
tendency to spread rumors, nurture speculation,
offer information as facts without prior checking
and at times use materials obtained under dubious
circumstances, from sources that had been briefed
by the commission, thereby creating distress and
anxiety among the public at large and hindering
the commission's work when the focus should have
been mostly on security issues." The additional
omitted phrase reads: "A number of Lebanese
political figures added to the climate of
insecurity and suspicion, by leaking info to the
press or by revealing sensitive date without the
prior consent of the commission."
Syria's response and world
opinion Syria has responded to the report
through a news conference by Riyad al-Dawoudi, the
legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
They chose Dawoudi because he is calm,
independent, a respected attorney and more
credible than most officials in Syria.
He
said that the Mehlis report had been "influenced
by the political atmosphere that prevailed in
Lebanon". He added that the report had relied on
"pre-set ideas to reach conclusions that are of a
political nature and that point to Syria as a
suspect with no evidence". He expressed deep
regret that Mehlis had relied on the witness of
people who were known for their anti-Syrian stance
and "ignores" the witness of Syrian officials.
From Washington, Syrian ambassador Imad
Mustapha added, "The report is full of political
rumors, gossip and hearsay, and it has not a
single shred of evidence that will be accepted by
any court of law. We are so disappointed with it."
He, too, added that the report was political
rather than professional, prompting Bolton to say
that this remark was "ridiculous".
Bolton
added that the report "speaks for itself" and is
backed by "substantial evidence". Stronger words
were used by US President George W Bush and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Bush said
that Mehlis's findings were "deeply disturbing"
and added that "the report strongly suggests the
politically motivated assassination could not have
taken place without Syrian involvement". Rice
demanded "accountability" for the Syrians and
said, "We cannot have the specter of one state's
apparatus having participated or having been
involved in the assassination of the former prime
minister ... of another state." British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw condemned Syrian "arrogance",
and the EU added: "Syria will harm its own
interests if it does not fully cooperate with the
inquiry." For its part, France described the
report as "professional". The Mehlis report makes
a strong political message, although it sends
contradictory signals to the Syrians. It does not
say that they are 100% involved in the
assassination, nor does it name the Syrian who
"pulled the trigger". It creates a lot of theories
about Syrian involvement, but does not confirm a
single one.
The report reads, "There is
probable cause to believe that the decision to
assassinate former prime minister Rafik Hariri
could not have been taken without the approval of
top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not
have been further organized without the collusion
of their counterparts in the Lebanese security
services."
It does not say that the
decision was taken with the approval of
top-ranked Syrian security officials. Legally
there is a big difference.
The report
referred to many "witnesses", but did not mention
the names of any of them, with the apparent
intention of frightening the Syrians with a
message: We know a lot - if you don't cooperate
further, we will become more aggressive. Had it
been up to Mehlis, even the name of Saddik would
not have been leaked to the press.
In
essence, the report is the last US and
international warning to the Syrians. Phase two is
likely to be another report in mid-December saying
that "Syrian Mr X killed Hariri".
That is,
unless the Syrians respond to all US
demands in the Middle East, prime among them
becoming a US watchdog in Iraq, helping disarm
Hezbollah, distancing itself from Lebanon, and
generally cooperating in the "war on terror".
To give some reassurance to the Syrians
that the decision to wage war against Damascus has
not yet been reached, the report concludes, "The
commission is of course of the view that all
people, including those charged with serious
crimes, should be considered innocent until proven
guilty following a fair trail." It adds, "If the
investigation is to be completed, it is essential
that the government of Syria fully cooperate with
the investigating authorities, including allowing
for interviews to be held outside Syria and for
interviewees not [to] be accompanied by Syrian
officials."
If anything, the report
confirms one fact: regardless of its
professionalism and whether it has concrete
evidence against Damascus, it is a hard blow
against Syria. It is the strongest and most
aggressive international document targeting Syria
since the Sykes-Picot Agreement was drafted in
1916 [1] and the French Mandate was imposed on
Syria in 1920.
The Syrians should stop
directing their efforts at saying that the report
is political. Everybody knows it is, and everybody
knows that there is strong support in parts of the
West for Syria to be targeted and weakened,
regardless of guilt or innocence. Syria, by this
rationale, is going to be punished for its
excesses in Lebanon, its decision to oppose the
war on Iraq, for its support the insurgency and
the resistance in Palestine.
Syria fits
perfectly into the culprit's cage because it is no
longer an internationally strong country. Syrian
commentators and officials have been shouting
"foul play". But does anybody in Syria have the
slightest clue on how to work through the problem?
One way is through maximum cooperation
with the UN and the US. One idea would be to
broadcast and publicize the interviews made by
Mehlis in Damascus. Another would be to allow
Mehlis to interview more Syrians in Europe. The
Syrians must realize that they are at their
weakest point in decades. It simply is not their
day in history.
Syria will have to swim
with the current, no matter where it takes it,
until it reaches shore or a tree to cling to.
Mehlis wants to interview certain officials
outside of Syria. So be it. He wants Syria to
offer maximum cooperation. Let it be. He wants
Syria to hand over any Syrian officials involved
in the murder.
The Syrians must also
cooperate with Washington on Iraq. They must make
new allies in the international community to lobby
on their behalf at international forums such as
the UN, and with the US.
They must digest
the new reality, that they are now out of Lebanon
and that times have changed. In 1920, the Syrians
protested the imposition of a French Mandate on
Syria. When their objections amounted to nothing
and the mandate was approved by the League of
Nations, the Syrians accepted their fate, knowing
that a great injustice was being done to them but
realizing that they were powerless to stop it.
They lay low for some time, then began
working with the mandate, waiting until
circumstances allowed them to rise and write the
mandate into history.
The Syrians this
time are not as weak as they were in 1920. They
have the ability to change things and patch up
with the international community. The keywords for
Syria today are "cooperation" and "wisdom". If the
Syrians achieve both, then they can write the
Mehlis report into history as well.
But
the thousands of protestors chanting anti-American
slogans in the capital on Monday could make this
course of action difficult: the authorities are
believed to have encouraged the demonstrations,
and schools allowed pupils to join in.
Note [1] The Sykes-Picot
agreement was a secret understanding concluded in
May 1916, during World War I, between Great
Britain and France, with the assent of Russia, for
the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The
agreement led to the division of Turkish-held
Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine into various
French and British-administered areas. The
agreement took its name from its negotiators, Sir
Mark Sykes of Britain and Georges Picot of France.
France gained control over modern Syria and
Lebanon.
Sami Moubayed is a
Syrian political analyst.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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