Thread: Breaking News. SYRIA: Arab League Head of Mission Refutes Western Media Propaganda

Breaking News. SYRIA: Arab League Head of Mission Refutes Western Media Propaganda.

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, December 28, 2011

The head of the Arab League monitoring group in Syria, Sudan's General Mustafa Dabi, has made "contradictory statements" on the human rights situation in Syria, which no doubt will eventually be erased from the record as not in keeping with the official propaganda line.

`The situation seemed reassuring so far," he said on Wednesday after his team's foray into the city of one million people, the epicenter of anti-Assad upheaval inspired by the fall of several other Arab autocrats in uprisings this year.

"Yesterday was quiet and there were no clashes. We did not see tanks but we did see some armored vehicles. But remember this was only the first day and it will need investigation. We have 20 people who will be there for a long time." (Reuters, December 29, 2011)

The Reuters report (see below) first acknowledges the statement of the head of mission of the Arab League and then proceeds to discredit General Dabi's position, which visibly does not coincide with the "official line" parroted by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Reuters report tacitly suggests that General Dabi "had orders" to favor the Assad government in defiance of "the international community".

"Homs residents were dissatisfied with the monitors' visit. "I felt they didn't really acknowledge what they'd seen--maybe they had orders not to show sympathy. But they didn't seem enthusiastic about hearing people tell their stories," said Baba Amr resident and activist Omar.
The Arab league mission was ordered by Washington to provide "an independent monitoring of the [Syrian government's] crackdown".

What is revealing, however, is that this AL mission on the ground, which was intended to provide a justification for a "humanitarian" intervention by NATO, refutes the reports of the London based "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" which in the course of the last few months has been feeding lies and fabrications into the Western news chain.

The Syrian Observatory is in permanent liaison with the British Foreign Office "receiving the entirety of their reports via "phone" & YouTube videos from Syria, [and] working in coordination with both US-funded NGOs and the British Foreign Minister [Willian Hague]" (See Tony Cartalucci, Spinning the News from "Reliable" NGO Sources: London-based "Syrian Observatory" Consorting Directly With British Government , Global Research, December 27, 2011)

The Arab League head of mission General Dabi has acknowledged the existence of armed gunmen which points to the existence of an armed insurrection.

"Syria's Addounia television quoted Dabi as saying "Yes...we saw gunmen in the city of Homs." It gave no further details."

Foreign based "Syrian opposition groups" which supported the AL mission are now "deeply critical of the mission, saying it will simply give Assad cover for his crackdown."

A campaign is already underway to discredit General Dabi, who has the support of the Arab League: "I think a Sudanese general would be one of the least likely people in the world to acknowledge these findings even if they are right there before him... It doesn't make any sense." (Sky News, December 28, 2011)

ANNEX: REUTERS REPORT

"Nothing frightening" seen in Syria protest hotbed: monitor.
December 28, 2011

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Arab League monitors checking if Syria is ending a military crackdown on popular unrest said they saw "nothing frightening" in an initial visit to the protest hotbed of Homs, although a longer investigation would be needed.

Given the brief and limited nature of the monitors' tour on Tuesday, the comment by their chief may alarm opposition activists who fear the mission could end up cloaking Damascus in respectability, whitewashing President Bashar al-Assad's record.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed 15 people across the country Tuesday, six of them in Homs. It said 34 were killed the day before.

"Some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening," Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, chief of the monitoring contingent, told Reuters by telephone from Damascus.

"The situation seemed reassuring so far," he said on Wednesday after his team's foray into the city of one million people, the epicenter of anti-Assad upheaval inspired by the fall of several other Arab autocrats in uprisings this year.

"Yesterday was quiet and there were no clashes. We did not see tanks but we did see some armored vehicles. But remember this was only the first day and it will need investigation. We have 20 people who will be there for a long time."

Syria's Addounia television quoted Dabi as saying "Yes...we saw gunmen in the city of Homs." It gave no further details.

Monitors were to pay a second visit to Homs Wednesday and also go for the first time to the city of Hama, another hotspot of unrest, the Idlib region on the northwest border with Turkey where anti-Assad insurgents have battled security forces, and Deraa in the south, the cradle of the nine-month-old revolt.

Activists say about a third of the estimated 5,000 people killed in unrest in Syria since March died in Homs. Dozens have been killed in the past week alone and thousands arrested in the months before the 22-state Arab League was invited in.

Assad says he is fighting an insurgency by armed terrorists who have killed 2,000 soldiers and police.

State television Wednesday flashed news that Syria has freed 755 people detained in the unrest "whose hands were not stained with Syrian blood." Releasing detainees is part of Assad's pact with the Arab League to defuse the crisis.

But there are still 15,000 Syrians in detention, according to Amnesty International.
Dabi led the first group of monitors to Homs escorted by Syrian authorities. They were shown destruction in the district of Baba Amr, where tanks fired into residential areas the day before, according to amateur video recorded by activists.

Video reports, which cannot be independently verified, have shown parts of Homs looking like a war zone. Constant machinegun and sniper fire is audible and corpses are mangled by blasts.
International journalists are mostly barred from Syria, making it difficult to confirm accounts from conflict zones.

HOMS RESIDENTS UNIMPRESSED WITH MONITORS

Homs residents were dissatisfied with the monitors' visit.

"I felt they didn't really acknowledge what they'd seen--maybe they had orders not to show sympathy. But they didn't seem enthusiastic about hearing people tell their stories," said Baba Amr resident and activist Omar.

"We felt like we were shouting into a void. We placed our hopes in the entire Arab League. But these monitors don't seem to understand how the regime works, they don't seem interested in the suffering and death people have faced."

Activists said they showed monitors buildings riddled with bullets and mortar rounds and pointed out what they said were tanks but only had two hours to give them a tour. Dabi said his team did not see tanks but they did see some armored vehicles.

The monitors represent the first international intervention on the ground in Syria since the revolt began. Protesters hope what they report will nudge the world into action against Assad.

But the very choice of the Sudanese general to head the League mission has dismayed activists, who note Sudan's own defiance of a war crimes tribunal over the Darfur conflict.

The Arab League says Dabi has military and diplomatic expertise needed to lead its unprecedented intervention in the internal crisis of a member state.

But international human rights activists critical of Sudan's government say it is all but impossible to imagine a Sudanese general involved in Darfur ever recommending intervention to halt human rights abuses in a fellow Arab country.

WASHINGTON WEIGHS IN

The State Department condemned an escalation of violence in Homs before the monitors' deployment.
"We have seen horrific pictures of indiscriminate fire, including by heavy tank guns, and heard reports of dozens of deaths, thousands of arrests, as well as beatings of peaceful protesters," spokesman Mark Toner said.

If monitors were impeded "the international community will consider other means," Toner said.
Russia also urged that the monitors be given unfettered access to people and places worst affected by Assad's crackdown.

Emboldened by the observers' first visit, about 70,000 Homs protesters marched toward the city center Tuesday, where security forces fired shots and teargas at them, activists said.

The army pulled some tanks out before the monitors arrived, in what the activists called a ploy to show the city was calm.

"We want international protection!" residents shouted at the monitors in a video posted on YouTube.
Armed insurgency seems to be overtaking peaceful protest. Many fear full-blown fighting between Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, driving the protest movement, and minorities loyal to the government, particularly Assad's Alawite sect.

Western powers have shown no desire to intervene militarily in a volatile region of Middle East conflict. The U.N. Security Council is split, with Russia and China against interference.

Assad's opponents appear split on aims and tactics. He has strong support in major areas, including Damascus and the second city Aleppo, and maintains an anti-Israel alliance with Iran.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Copyright Reuters, 2011.

Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28379

VIDEO: US-NATO Sponsored Armed Insurrection in Syria. Arab League Mission Refutes Media Reports

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, December 29, 2011

The chief of the monitoring team Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi has described the situation in the central city as reassuring. Dabi, however, says more investigations are required. The observers also plan to visit the nearby city of Hama as well as the northwestern province of Idlib and Deraa province in the south.

Meantime, Syrian authorities say they have released 755 people detained during the unrest. Releasing prisoners is part of the government's pact with the Arab League to defuse the crisis. The UN says more than 5 thousand people have been killed in the 9 month violence. Damascus says 2 thousand security forces are among the victims. It blames the deaths on foreign-backed armed gangs.



http://www.presstv.ir/detail/218224.html

Press TV has conducted an interview with Professor Michel Chossudovsky, director of the Center for Research on Globalization in Montreal, to further explore the issue. Following is the transcription of the interview:

Press TV: The chief Arab League monitor in Syria says he has seen "nothing frightening" on a first visit to the flashpoint city of Homs. The remark has taken some Western and regional countries by surprise with France calling the remarks "premature". What do you think of this development and the reactions it has received, especially by Paris?

Chossudovsky: I think that General Dabi's statements confirm what many independent reports have been saying for months in that the situation in Syria is characterised by an armed insurrection and foreign interference in the affairs of a sovereign state namely Syria and that the situation on the ground which the mission has observed does not correspond to what the media has been feeding us in the last few months --I am talking about the Western media-- largely based on information from the Syria Observatory in London which we know is supported by the Western military alliance and which is in permanent liaison with the British Foreign Office.

I have been following the situation in Syria from the outset. I was in Syria in the month of February; I left in early March and I can assure you that we are dealing with is an armed insurrection: armed gunmen supported by Turkey and NATO, which have infiltrated the protest movement and which are in large part responsible for creating this crisis in Syria. All of which is there to justify a subsequent "humanitarian intervention" by NATO forces.

The Arab League was sent in with the mission to actually support the Western military alliance and it just so happens that their findings contradict their US sponored mandate.

So that up until now the Arab League was supported by the US State Department; and Now they are saying No to the Arab League mission because because they have expressed a different viewpoint and they are not toeing the line on what the media has been telling us. They [the international community] are now saying that General Dabi is not reliable and in fact, the campaign is already under way to discredit General Dabi who has incidentally the support of the Arab League.

Press TV: When you talk about, first of all, the Arab League going there in which their mission was to support what you said were these armed insurrections that are supported by Turkey and NATO in terms of infiltrating the protests, what is going to be the outcome now that they have come out contradicting that?

I mean, what is going to be the reaction by the US, by France, by NATO countries involved including Turkey? Are they going to continue with infiltrating these protests and of course the flow of arms as another thing that, in particular, Turkey has been accused of flowing through into Syria?

Chossudovsky: First of all, the foreign based Syrian opposition groups initially supported the Arab League mission and in fact, they were pushing for this Arab League mission and now because the Arab League mission with 150 observers and 20 people who are going to stay on in Syria, have come up with a much more critical assessment of what is happening, they are now saying that they do not trust the Arab League mission and they say [they are] 'deeply critical of the mission', saying it will simply "give Al-Assad cover for his crackdown".

There has been a turn around as far as the international community is concerned. First, they support the Arab League because they were expecting that the Arab League mission would parrot the official statements of Hillary Clinton which are fabricated and now they are saying "we have reservations" concerning General Dabi because he is from Sudan. But of course Sudan is a country which is also in defiance of US foreign policy.

I think what is important is that we have a team of people in the Arab League mission who are doing their job. I suspect that what France and the other Western powers will do is to try to discredit General Dabi, divide the team, publish reports of those which are pro-western and denigrate the assessment which might come from a more objective appraisal of what is happening on on the ground inside Syria.

Press TV: Quickly if you can Professor Chossudovsky, you talked about how there is going to be discredit attributed to Arab League's General Dabi, in particular; but what about discrediting what you have said have been fabrications for example on the part of the US and what you referred to as Secretary Clinton there? I mean, where does the discredit towards them? Why isn't that being highlighted and that they can come out and in the meantime for example discredit the Arab League once these results become more permanent in terms of the revelations?

Chossudovsky: What I found rather incredible --I mean I have been listening to the reports coming out on the news here in North America-- is that they have gone to arm length to discredit the Arab League mission which in effect was sent in by Washington.

I mean, it wasn't the Arab League that decided on sending in that mission. Washington instructed the Arab League. First of all, they wanted to exclude Syria from the Arab League which they pressured the Arab League to do and now they have this Arab League mission which they initiated and the Arab League mission has come out with contradicting statements which in fact suggests that the Arab League --at least the head of the mission-- is saying the truth.

We have known for months and months that what has been described by the Western media is sheer fabrication. I started investigating the events in Daraa in mid-March and the first observation, confirmed by Lebanese and Israeli news reports, was that the number of police who had been killed in the course of the first days was greater than the numbers of so-called protesters and it was also acknowledged acknowledged that there was an influx of Salafists and other terrorist groups supported by foreign powers into Syria, in Daraa which is a small city close to the Jordanian border.

And so then subsequently this whole process became much more serious extending to other cities. There is a foreign supported insurrection inside Syria.

I do not know what the Arab League mission's conclusions will be, I am sure it will be pressured, heavily pressured, by the major powers, the United States, France, Britain to toe the line and present a report which supports the official position of the Western military alliance against Syria rather than a balanced and objective assessment.

So it is going to be very interesting in the weeks ahead to see how this mission actually proceeds. But I certainly think at this stage that this is in a sense positive because it is an independent voice which is now saying "no" to the fabrications which have been upheld in the media, the unsubstantiated reports concerning casualties, but primarily concerning the actual causes of this crisis and the nature of foreign interference in the affairs of sovereign state, namely Syria.

Global Research Articles by Michel Chossudovsky

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