Day: November 12, 2012
The next great hope
It is easy to applaud the formation of the “National Coalition of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition” in Doha yesterday. It claims to unite 90% of the civilian and military opposition to Bashar al Asad, including America’s last great hope, the Syrian National Council. Particularly important is its claim to represent both military and civilians inside Syria. If this turns out to be the case, it will soon gain credibility as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, perhaps even occupying Damascus’ seat at the Arab League.
But the Coalition is only the beginning. It is essentially a representative body. The failures of the Syrian opposition so far have been executive, not legislative. The newly named leader of the Coalition is Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib Al-Hasani, a former Imam of the Grand Umayyad mosque in Damascus:
This semi-slick Youtube video tells us something of al-Khatib’s relatively moderate Islamist views, but little of his executive abilities.
That is the vital ingredient now. What the Syrian opposition needs is a relatively small executive group that can take charge of political, military and humanitarian strategy, gaining credibility with donors by moving resources to where that strategy dictates and limiting extraneous efforts. The key people appear to be secularist Riad Seif, who is credited with laying the groundwork for the Doha success, and human rights activist Suhair Atassi, who were elected vice presidents of the National Coalition, while Syrian National Council member Mustafa Sabbagh was elected the Secretary General.
The U.S. government, while hailing creation of the National Coalition, still seems unready to provide direct military support and is committed to a secularist vision of Syria outlined in documents prepared last summer. How this will dovetail with Qatari and Saudi military support is not clear, since they are unlikely to be as committed to a secular outcome. Nor is it clear whether the new entity will be prepared to negotiate with the regime before Asad steps down, something Syrians inside the country have been more inclined to consider doing than those outside Syria.
Still, the National Coalition is the next great hope. Would that it will work better than the last one.
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No patriot
I enjoyed a pleasant Sunday afternoon walk through Pristina yesterday. Its alleys are crowded. But it also boasts vistas. Variety is one of the things that makes a place interesting. And with variety comes the unexpected, both good and bad.
Normally I wouldn’t comment on what amounts to an individual criminal act. The bad is inevitable. But the wounding Saturday evening of a Serb traveling south of the Ibar river just a few miles from where I am spending a couple of days merits a blog post, because it has broader significance.
The country I am enjoying on my third visit this year is a peaceful one that has established institutions rating a positive EU report suggesting it is ready to negotiate a Stabilization and Association Agreement. This is a big deal, not only for the benefits that will accrue to Kosovo once the agreement is signed but also for the seal of approval “contractual relations” (i.e. signing an agreement) with the EU will give to Pristina’s still young institutions, which are now more or less at the half-way point of recognition as sovereign by other UN member states.
The safety of Serbs is one of the key ingredients in determining EU attitudes on contractual relations. Brussels wants to know that the Pristina institutions are committed to protecting everyone who lives in or visits the territory under their control, without regard to ethnicity.
Of course 100% security is not possible, and I’ll admit that I am a bit surprised that a former Serb police chief felt free to travel after dark in Kosovo. And there is of course no knowing the ethnicity of his attacker, who was reportedly masked. We’ll have to await the results of the police investigation.
But that is just the point. There should be a serious police investigation and some results, which are far too infrequent in such cases in Kosovo. Too many crimes against Serbs and other minorities go unsolved.
Whoever perpetrated the attack Saturday evening is putting at risk Kosovo’s claim to be ready to negotiate an important first step in its eventual accession to the EU. I don’t know the person’s identity or ethnicity, but this much I do know: he is no Kosovo patriot.
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