<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<small><small><font size="4"><small><small><u><b><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.almanartv.com.lb/english/catpage.php?frid=41"
target="_blank">http://www.almanartv.com.lb/english/catpage.php?frid=41</a></b></u></small></small></font></small></small><br>
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"></span></b><b><span
style="font-size: 17.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif"; color: rgb(192, 0, 0);">Shedding
crocodile tears
while <br>
collaborating with US-led sanctions <br>
</span></b><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"><br>
</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino","serif";">Are the Arab
League
and Organization of Islamic Cooperation targeting Syria’s <br>
civilian population?</span><b><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"><br>
</span></b><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"><br>
<i>Franklin Lamb<br>
</i><br>
Damascus -- One powerful image from Damascus that has become seared <br>
into this observers mind these days is when I walk by a Western Union <br>
office. Most of them remain open despite the brutal US-led sanctions
which in <br>
their pervasive effects target almost entirely the civilian population.
<br>
But all Western Union offices were closed last Thursday and Friday due
to <br>
heavy snowfall, some say the deepest here for more than a quarter
century. <br>
Still, some Syrians braved the extreme cold and could be seen huddled
outside <br>
some branches, evidently in vain hope that they might open and their <br>
families might eat.<br>
<br>
One of the few economic lifelines not yet cut by the ever strangling, <br>
profoundly immoral and illegal US-led sanctions with their throat-hold <br>
tightening around the civilian population in Syria in order to achieve
regime <br>
change, “WU” as it’s known, has become, for some, literally a
lifesaver. <br>
This is because its money transfer service is still allowing family and
friends
<br>
from abroad to send in assistance to Syria for their desperate families
caught <br>
up in this regional contest between Resistance and a return to Western <br>
hegemony.<br>
<br>
Peering in the window or stepping inside a Western Union outlet in <br>
Damascus, reminds this observer of scenes from the floor of the New
York <br>
Stock Exchange or a European bourse wherein traders wave pieces of
paper <br>
or other objects trying to get the attention of someone. But in Syria
those <br>
trying to submit their ten digit Money Control Transfer Number (MTCN) <br>
numbers and ID’s in order to collect cash, are not wearing clothes from
the <br>
fashion houses. Rather, given the frigid temperatures and lack of mazot
<br>
(heating oil that 90% of the population here relies on for heat) they
are
tightly <br>
bundled. Women and kids generally wrapped tight in thick head scarves.<br>
<br>
Last week this observer went into the Western Union office in central <br>
Damascus to collect some cash sent from Canada for a family that had <br>
managed to escape from Aleppo. The place was packed but orderly. I
smiled <br>
to myself as I thought about my own country when sometimes during a <br>
Black Friday type sale, the scene of waiting in queue collapses into
yelling, <br>
insults, fights, throwing objects, threats, all to save a few dollars
or get
one's <br>
hands on the, soon to be trashed, "must have" sale item.<br>
<br>
The stressed but committed staff behind the WU counter could not give <br>
assurance how long I would have to wait but graciously did agree to
take my <br>
passport and I could return later. On arriving after about three hours,
my <br>
MCTN # had just been processed and I was in and out fast. I can’t
imagine <br>
that I will see a yellow and black Western Union sign ever again
without <br>
thinking about US sanctions targeting the Syrian civilian population.<br>
<br>
An historical irony is that it was a Syrian gentlemen, Mr. Hiram
Sibley, one <br>
of the thousands of Syrians who emigrated to the United States in the <br>
mid-19th Century (the first and largest Arab migration then and since
came <br>
from Syria) who in 1851 established the New York and Mississippi Valley
<br>
Printing Telegraph Company with the goal of creating one great
telegraph <br>
system with unified and efficient operations. Four years later Western
Union <br>
was born and became an American icon and thirty three years on it had <br>
become one of the top ten companies listed on the New York Stock
Exchange <br>
the day it opened in 1888.<br>
<br>
The reason Western Union is able to avoid the US-led sanctions that
include <br>
medicines and food (White House claims to the contrary
notwithstanding), <br>
is quite simply that the US Treasury Department cannot easily face the <br>
domestic American political fallout from curtailing Western Union
anywhere.</span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; line-height: normal;"><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"><br>
According to a July 2012 US Senate Banking Committee memo, were
Treasury <br>
to be seen as tampering with Western Union’s $7 billion annual
revenues, <br>
there would be a significant problem. Already there are growing
complaints <br>
from US businesses flooding the White House & Congress claiming
that <br>
sanctions imposed on Syria are costing American businesses hundreds of <br>
millions of dollars in lost profits -- even more regarding US sanctions
on
Iran. <br>
So to date the Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC) at Treasury
has kept <br>
its hands off Western Union and this is good for Syrian civilians.<br>
<br>
For these reasons a thin lifeline -- a reed really -- exists for many
in Syria <br>
with families and friends abroad able to use WU’s “Money in Minutes” to
<br>
help them. It’s a relatively small factor in the larger Syrian crisis
but it
does <br>
help many.<br>
<br>
Much more significant than Western Union remaining open, and the
subject <br>
of much current criticism here, is the lack of assistance to Syria’s
severely <br>
sanctioned civilian population from the Arab League and the
Organization of <br>
Islamic Cooperation, neither of which lack officials who are wringing
their <br>
hands in public these days, in mock anguish it is claimed, over their
brothers <br>
and co-religionists “victimization.”<br>
<br>
Claiming solidarity with the Syrian people, on 11/12/2011 the Arab
League <br>
suspended the membership of Syria (Lebanon and Yemen voted no and Iraq <br>
abstained) and cancelled its monitoring mission in Syria on 1/28/12.
The <br>
Organization of Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria's membership on <br>
5/15/12 at a summit of Muslim leaders in Mecca. Saudi Arabia, the
summit's <br>
host, has led all Arab League and OIC calls for the Syrian rebel
opposition <br>
to be armed, which Foreign Minister Saud al-Fasial described in
February <br>
and since as "an excellent idea."</span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"><br>
<br>
By their actions, the OIC and the Arab League are themselves
sanctioning <br>
the Syrian people in brutal forms and doing nothing to object to the
immoral <br>
and illegal aspects of the American sanctions. Both organizations stand
<br>
accused of abandoning their charters in order to maintain profitable
relations <br>
with NATO countries as they funnel large sums of money and weapons <br>
to various militias inside Syria. It is their “agents,” the jihadist
groups,
who <br>
have turned on the Syrian civilian population increasingly resorting to
theft, <br>
kidnapping for ransom, rape, sale of children and killing hundreds
according <br>
to UN agencies.<br>
<br>
In one poignant interview near Omayyad Square the other day, a solemn,
long <br>
bearded Sunni Sheik told this observer that the American sanctions are
also <br>
directly targeting Islam because the sanctions constitute an attack on
Islamic <br>
values. When pressed for specifics, he reluctantly replied, </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt; line-height: normal;"><i><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";">“Because
your countries sanctions are impoverishing our people and forcing <br>
our Muslim women into prostitution. These sanctions are also flooding
the <br>
streets with Muslim beggars, both adults and children. I am sure you
have <br>
seen them, here in Damascus, across Syria and in bordering countries.
But <br>
the claimed protectors of our holy sites are silent and shed only
insincere <br>
tears in public. But if they resisted these sanctions they could defeat
them. <br>
What is required in a 1970’s type Arab boycott of American and western <br>
companies until these anti-Muslim sanctions are lifted.”</span></i><i><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"><br>
<br>
</span></i><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";">The
honorable gentleman has a point.<br>
<br>
The Arab League’s recent ministerial-level meeting held in Cairo was
called <br>
to focus on the Syrian refugees file. But the rather pathetic quick one
day <br>
deliberations ignored the causes of the suffering of the civilian
population <br>
as well as the fact that most of the 22 countries comprising the Arab
League <br>
have been a main cause behind the displacement of the Syrian civilian <br>
population. Both the AL and the OIC stand accused here in Syria of <br>
participation in the sanctions which are decimating the Syrian people's
<br>
livelihood. Some AL and OIC officials are shedding crocodile tears
about <br>
the miserable living conditions of the Syrian refugees “in spite of
spending <br>
millions on recruiting mercenaries and <i>salifi-takfiries</i>,
training them
and <br>
purchasing weapons for the terrorists,” the Sheik explained.<br>
<br>
One frustrated American NGO director, affiliated loosely with the World
Food <br>
Program, expressed her frustration: “If these organizations (AL and
OIC) <br>
wanted to aid Syrian refugees they should stop supplying the gunmen
with <br>
weapons and money and stop inciting sedition in Syria.”<br>
<br>
The Arab League Secretary General, Nabil al-Arabi, still does not get
it.<br>
<br>
He used last week’s Arab League session to insist on foreign
intervention <br>
and regime change, renewing the AL demand that the UN Security Council <br>
deploy international forces in Syria.<br>
<br>
The Lebanese Foreign Minister, Adnan Mansour, offered his views of <br>
the Syrian refugee’s displacement. Notable causations, he claimed, are
the <br>
flow of weapons and money into Syria, the entry of foreign gunmen and
not <br>
joining a political dialogue. To his credit, Mansour called on the AL
and <br>
OIC to </span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: "Palatino","serif";">“shoulder
their
responsibilities towards the refugees through ensuring <br>
their humanitarian, medical, livelihood, educational and services <br>
requirements in order to ease their daily suffering.”</span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span><span
style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Palatino","serif";"><br>
<br>
As for the Kuwaiti Minister, he considered that the US-led sanctions
were <br>
not a problem but rather that the suffering of the Syrian people was
caused <br>
by the failure of the UN Security Council to meet the demands of the AL
for <br>
immediate military intervention in Syria. He also insisted that Kuwait
has <br>
mobilized all its resources to ensure that financial and relief
resources <br>
alleviated the suffering of the Syrian refugees.<br>
<br>
To date, the Syrian refugees, victims of US led and AL-OIC complicity,
have <br>
not received any of the assistance Kuwait, the Arab League or the <br>
Organization of the Islamic Conference has promised. Rather, these <br>
organizations appear to be propping up the US-led sanctions.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, according to officials, Syria's government has just
authorized <br>
the UN World Food Program to extend its reach in the country where <br>
2.5 million people are suffering from hunger. Ertharin Cousin,
spokeswoman <br>
of the WFP, announced on Tuesday<span style="color: red;"> </span>that
Syria is
allowing the organization to <br>
work with local aid groups to reach more of those in need. To boost the
<br>
number of people receiving emergency assistance, the Syrian government
last <br>
week drew up a list of 110 local NGOs authorized to participate in the
aid <br>
effort. <br>
<br>
WFP is working closely with the Syrian Arab Republic Red Crescent <br>
Society (SARCS) which, thanks to more than 9000 volunteers, are
operating <br>
the following facilities to serve every Syrian and Palestinian without <br>
consideration of sect or political views: Damascus 15, Damascus
countryside <br>
68, Suwayda 2, Homs 71, Idelb 2, Aleppo 185, al-Raqqah 52, al-Hasakah
52, <br>
Dayr al-Zawr 4, and Quneitra 12.<br>
<br>
Unlike the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, <br>
SARCS, the World Food Program, and more than 40 other NGO’s can be <br>
observed any day of the week confronting and attempting to ameliorate<span
style="color: red;"> </span>the <br>
profoundly immoral and illegal US-led sanctions -- manifold actions,
not <br>
crocodile tears -- in aid of the civilian population of Syria.</span></p>
<p><i><span
style="font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Palatino","serif";">Franklin
Lamb is doing research in
Syria and is reachable c/o <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:fplamb@gmail.com" target="_blank">fplamb@gmail.com</a></span></i><i><span
style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></i></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></i></p>
<br clear="all">
<br>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">
<div><font size="4"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><b><br>
<br>
</b></span></font><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>