The virtually equivalent public and diplomatic discourse that unfolded against the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is at play against Damascus. In Geneva, the same so-called human rights groups are pressing for the censorship of the Syrian Arab Republic. In line with this, the Arab League has moved to supplant the Syrian government and handover its diplomatic recognition to a proxy Syrian opposition. It is also no mere coincidence that the Transitional Council in Libya became the first body to recognize the Syrian National Council as the legitimate government of Syria on October 10, 2011.
More than ever, international institutions and there partiality must be taken into serious question. The U.S. and its allies are replicating the same steps they took against Tripoli for Damascus. This includes calls for taking Syrian officials to the International Criminal Court and for a Turkish-imposed “humanitarian buffer zone” in northern Syria, which is the land equivalent of a no-fly zone.
What happened to Libya in Geneva at the United Nations?
One of the main sources for the allegations that Colonel Qaddafi was killing his own people was the Libyan Human Rights League (LLHR). The LLHR was pivotal in getting the U.N. Human Rights Commission to suspend Libya and for getting the U.N. Security Council in New York City to pass U.N. sanctions against Libya. This organization is also a member of the French-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) that is tied to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
On February 21, 2011 the LLHR got 70 other NGOs to send letters to the U.N. Secretary-General, President Obama, and Catherine Ashton demanding international action and intervention in Libya. The subsequent campaign against Libya was organized by U.N. Watch, a NGO that firmly works to protect and serve Israeli interests. Additionally, only 25 members of this coalition against Tripoli actually asserted that they were human rights organizations. On the basis of their letter and without any evidence or proof about the LLHR’s accusations that Qaddafi had killed 6000 Libyan civilians the U.N. Security Council was manipulated by Washington and its allies into creating a no-fly zone. The U.S. and NATO would use this as a pretext and cover for waging a war of aggression that would illegally end with regime change in Tripoli that would ultimately result in the murder of Muammar Qaddafi in the city of Sirte.
Rightly, the Indian Ambassador to the U.N. would actually point out that the U.N. was passing resolutions against Libya without any evidence and that this was a worrying development. Attempts are being made to do the same to Syria. Afterwards, when the LLHR and its head were challenged for proof about their allegations that Qaddafi was murdering his people, they failed to provide evidence and bluntly said there was no proof. Dr. Sliman Bouchuiguir, the head of the LLHR and a Swiss citizen, has actually admitted that it was Mahmoud Jibril that was the source of the accusations. Jibril would subsequently form the Benghazi-based Transitional Council and become its prime minister.
What is not known is that Mahmoud Jibril, a cabinet member of the Jamahiriya’s government, was Sliman Bouchuiguir’s friend for years. Five individuals, who would become ministers in the Transitional Council, were also members of the LLHR and also Bouchiguir’s friends. This includes Ali Tarhouni. This is a clear conflict of interest that no serious body would ignore. When Dr. Bouchiguir was asked how he got other NGOs to accept the LLHR’s claims, he explained in an interview that it was on the basis of his personal ties.
During the same period as these allegations, Aly Abuzaakouk and these individuals were also renegotiating Libya’s oil contracts under favourable terms for the U.S. and the E.U. for when the regime change would take place in Tripoli. Ali Tarhouni, a U.S. economics professor preaching economic neo-liberalism, would be given responsibilities over both the important energy and finance sectors in an oddly combined ministerial portfolio. This would appear as odd for a minister’s portfolio unless one understands what Tarhouni’s objectives were. He was essentially sent by Washington to open the doors of Libya for foreign plundering. Ali Tarhouni, as the minister responsible for both the oil and finance sectors, would immediately privatize Libya’s energy and financial sectors as his first act. This is while he and his conspirators would promise their supporters that Libya would transform into a new Dubai.
It was these unverified claims coupled with the media lies about sub-Saharan African mercenaries in Libya, which portrayed black-skinned Libyans as non-Libyan foreigners, and the false claims about Libyan military jets firing on unarmed civilian protesters that were used to frame Libya and open the door to war for NATO. Later, Bouchiguir would be rewarded for his part in the plot in Geneva by being appointed the new ambassador of Libya to Switzerland in Bern.
Supplanting the Syrian government with the Syrian National Council
Like Libya, the Arab League has set the framework for the unlawful recognition of the Syrian National Council. Libya was suspended by the Arab League before NATO launched its war and now Syria has too. The Arab League has, however, gone two steps further. The Arab League has opted to give Syria’s Arab League chair to the Syrian National Council. This time the Arab League has also blatantly and unashamedly violated its own charter. The decision needed unanimous consent to be ratified and legally binding, but was not. Aside from Syria, Lebanon and Yemen voted against the move. Iraq also abstained. Algeria and Sudan were also pressured by the U.S., E.U., and Arab Sheikhdoms into voting for the suspension of Syria.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission will now be used in an attempt to supplant the Syrian Arab Republic with the Syrian National Council, which is a clone of the Transitional Council that supplanted the Jamahiriya government of Libya. Again, U.N. Watch is leading the charge and organizing the NGOs in Geneva. It is doing this in league with the FIDH, NED, and several Syrian equivalents to the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR). This includes the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, which is tied to the FIDH.
The Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies and its leader, Dr. Radwan Ziadeh, are acting as equivalents to the LLHR. Ziadeh has even been present at the same forums as the leaders of the Transitional Council of Libya. Moreover, Bouchiguir has ties to Israeli interests through his thesis supervisor and doctoral work about preventing the Arabs from using oil as a bargaining chip. It appears that Dr. Ziadeh falls under the same track as a foreign agent. Ziadeh and his cohort have refused to answer if they will recognize Israel if they form the government of Syria. Because of their allegiances, they refuse to answer the question. They have avoided the subject of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and have shown Tel Aviv no hostility, whereas they have been very hostile towards Iran, Russia, and China.
What is going to happen is that the Syrian National Council is going to be illicitly, and in violation of international law, granted recognition as the government of Syria by the Arab petro-Sheikhdoms and Turkey. If the gambit is successful, the E.U. and U.S. will do the same at one point or another. Syrian embassies will be handed over to them or taken over by the Syrian National Council and the diplomatic war against Syria will intensify. In parallel, the mainstream media and human rights organizations will begin to clamour for intervention against Syria, while pressure is put on Iran, Russia, China, and others to abandon the Syrians…
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Sociologist and award-winning author. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal, Quebec. He specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. While on the ground in Libya during the NATO bombing campaign, he reported out of Tripoli for several media outlets. He sent key field dispatches from Libya for Global Research and was Special Correspondent for Pacifica’s syndicated investigative program Flashpoints, broadcast out of Berkeley, California. His writings have been published in more than ten languages.
