View of Aleppo, December 2024, a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous governorate of Syria. Credit: UN OCHA
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 2024 – When some of the leaders in the Middle East and Asia are dethroned and driven into exile, the cynics jokingly ask: Is he politically dead or is he dead and buried?
The distinction between the two seems significant because the fluctuating political fortunes of some leaders– and their will to survive against heavy odds– have always defied Western logic.
In a bygone era, two of the authoritarian Middle Eastern leaders —Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar el-Gaddafi—were hunted down before being executed.
Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi Special Tribunal while Gaddafi was severely beaten up by rebel forces before being shot to death.
Still, some Arab rulers who were deposed but survived included Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012.
But there was one rare exception—in Asia.
Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was driven into exile—first, seeking refuge in the Maldives, then in Singapore and finally in Thailand. When he ran out of safe havens, or so the story goes, he returned to his home country –but not to his lost presidency.
In Asia, there were several other political leaders who were ousted from power and went into exile, including Nawaz Sharif, Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, Yingluck Shinawatra of Thailand and most recently Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh.
When the Taliban captured power back in 1996, one of its first political acts was to hang the Afghan President Mohammed Najibullah in Ariana Square in Kabul.
And, when it assumed power a second time, it ousted the US-backed government of Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, armed with a doctorate in anthropology from one of the most prestigious Ivy League educational institutions in the US: Columbia University.
In a Facebook posting, Ghani said he fled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) seeking safe haven because he “was going to be hanged” by the Taliban.
If that did happen, the Taliban would have earned the dubious distinction of being the only government in the world to hang two presidents. But mercifully, it did not.
Last week, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost his battle for survival against a 14-year-old civil war in his country, he went into exile in Russia, one of his strongest political and military allies.
At a press conference December 10, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said: “We saw (in Syria) a regime driven from power following decades of brutal repression, and after nearly 14 years of relentless conflict.”
Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost during this time, more than 100,000 people disappeared, and some 14 million were driven from their homes, often in the most atrocious circumstances, he said.
“I’ve met many of them over the years, witnessed their despair and trauma as they bore testimony to the most serious human rights violations committed against them, including torture and the use of chemical weapons,” declared Turk.
But Assad, now under Russian protection, is not expected to pay for any of his crimes against humanity.
Recounting his personal experience, Dr James E. Jennings, President of Conscience International and Executive Director of US Academics for Peace, told IPS: “I met Bashar al-Assad only once, at his grand palace in Damascus before the war, as head of a delegation of US Academics for Peace. We thought that young Bashar, Western educated and impeccably mannered, might lead Syria away from his father’s cruel repression.”
Assad, like Israel’s Netanyahu, already under indictment by the ICC, is responsible for the conduct of the war and could reasonably be tried for crimes against humanity. That would certainly serve the interests of justice, and might help restrain some of the last half-century of unending bloodshed across the Middle East, he pointed out.
But the reality is that international institutions, largely invented after WW II, have very little capability to implement judgments even if an individual is found guilty. Under the prevailing system of national governments, there is a certain amount of impunity for the head of a government acting for “reasons of state,” said Dr Jennings.
The rebels have no such protection until they become a government. The coalition from Idlib now in control in Damascus is headed by Islamists. At this point, by no stretch of imagination can the Ba’ath Party and Assad himself regain power. Russia, where Assad has fled for refuge, is unlikely to surrender him in any case, he said.
Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Director of Middle Eastern Studies, University of San Francisco, told IPS it would certainly appear that Assad and other top Syrian officials would be liable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Part of the delay, he said, has been the difficulty in accessing the necessary evidence, but that should be a lot easier now.
“There were hardly any real battles in those final days. Without Hezbollah ground support or Russian air support, Assad had to rely on unwilling conscripts who were not ready to fight and die to keep him in power”.
This was not a military defeat. It was a political collapse. A government is only as strong as its people’s willingness to recognize its legitimacy, said Zunes.
Asked whether Assad should be held accountable for his crimes, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said: “I think the violations of human rights in Syria have been well documented by various independent commissions. Anyone involved in the commissioning of these violations needs to be held to account, without a doubt.”
In a statement released December 10, Human Rights Watch said: Assad’s government committed countless atrocities, crimes against humanity, and other abuses during his 24-year presidency.
These include widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances and deaths in detention, use of chemical weapons, starvation as a weapon of war, and indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against civilians and civilian objects.
Non-state armed groups operating in Syria, including Hay’et Tahrir al Sham (HTS) and factions of the Syrian National Army that launched the offensive on November 27, are also responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes.
Lama Fakih, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch said: “The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government offers Syrians an unprecedented opportunity to chart a new future built on justice, accountability, and respect for human rights.”
For Syrians scattered across the globe, the dream of accountability for years of crimes and brutality is closer to becoming a reality. Whoever emerges as Syria’s new leadership should make a full and determined break from the repression and impunity of the past and establish a system that respects the human rights and dignity of all Syrians regardless of background or political views, Fakih said
“They should swiftly move to preserve and protect evidence of crimes and abuses by the former government and ensure fair, impartial justice going forward. Armed opposition groups should send a strong and unequivocal message to factions and fighters that unlawful attacks, including those targeting individuals based on perceived ties to the former government, will not be tolerated.
They should commit to ensuring the humane treatment of all individuals, including former government officials and soldiers, affiliated fighters, and loyalists.”
Elaborating further, Dr Jennings said the accusations against Assad are well-deserved, but the rebels are also to blame. Where were all the cries of outrage when the war in Syria was taking its long and incredibly bloody toll month after month, year after year, for almost 14 years?
Where and when will the proxy governments that supplied arms, money, and fighters for this hellish war be held to account? Should not the sponsors of the war be charged with war crimes too? he asked.
“Who funded the war? Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Who has been bombing sites in Syria with impunity for years? The US and Israel. Who is burdened with endless, hopeless tides of refugees? Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Jordan, and the European Union. Why have they not done more to assist the IDPs and refugees, of which there were a combined 13.2 million?”
One answer is that since it was a proxy war to begin with, with many countries and interests playing out on the battlefield, none of the participants really wanted it to end—or at least were content to let it continue, he argued.
“That Bashar ordered–or allowed—the campaign of repression against the protestors in 2011—a part of the “Arab Spring” protests at the beginning of the war, was in itself unforgivable. Killing and torturing young people for writing graffiti, imprisoning people by the thousands and throwing away the key is so inhumane that it cannot be whitewashed, and scarcely imagined”.
To borrow a phrase from earlier Middle Eastern diplomacy, Assad “Never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Repeatedly in the past 25 years he was urged to change course, to envision a different outcome than simply clinging to power for its own sake. He could not do it—or he chose not to—which amounts to the same thing, declared Dr Jennings.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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