Tag: Syria

France Deems Turkish Ambitions in Libya ‘Unacceptable’

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On June 10, a Greek navy ship approached a Turkish cargo vessel in the high seas off the coast of Libya. The European ship, tasked with upholding the Libyan arms embargo, approached the vessel and sent a message requesting to board and inspect the suspicious cargo ship. This is a standard procedure that regulatory ships have repeated 75 times in recent months, but this time it yielded unprecedented results.

The cargo freighter did not respond; instead a Turkish warship appeared that told the Greeks to back off. With no mandate to forcibly board the freight ship, the Greek naval ship was forced to retreat without any inspection. French President Emmanuel Macron called the act “unacceptable” as the event adds fuel to an escalating diplomatic row between France and Turkey.

UN mandate

An EU spokesman on June 11 was reluctant to give details about the events, instead referring to the head of “Operation Irini” in Rome, which hosts the task force monitoring the Libyan arms embargo.

The renewed focus on the repeated breaches of the UN embargo on the supply of arms to Libya had earlier resulted in UN Resolution 2526, which mandates a naval force with daily inspections of vessels approaching and departing the Libyan coast.

The task force aims to stop the flow of arms in exchange for Libyan oil by inspecting naval trade, with the results of these inspections going to a UN panel of experts tasked with evaluating the situation. While the arms embargo faces no opposition in diplomatic circles, in practice most foreign actors involved in the chaotic conflict breach it daily.

French response

With a fresh round of peace negotiations approaching, military operations on the ground are accelerating as both sides hope to make “gains” which they can then use in negotiations. Macron had earlier highlighted Turkish “broken promises” as the new GNA gains appear to be the result of a large-scale Turkish intervention that has introduced new aerial capabilities for the Tripoli government through the use of drones.

News confirmed the horror of the Libyan conflict yet again on June 12, when UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres expressed deep shock over the discovery of mass graves in the country. But the Turkish intervention last week that prevented UN inspection of one of its vessels presents a new escalation according to the French.

“The Turks are behaving in an unacceptable manner and are exploiting NATO. France cannot just stand by,” a French official stated, while another added that France had concerns over the “even more aggressive and insistent stance from Turkey, with seven Turkish ships deployed off the Libyan coast and violations of the arms embargo.”

Further chaos

France nominally supports both sides in the conflict. As part of the UN, it recognizes the Tripoli GNA government, but France also supports Libya’s eastern LNA faction led by leader Khalifa Haftar. Macron hosted Haftar at the Elise Palace in March and has attempted to mediate a cease-fire, but with Haftar’s forces in retreat after several GNA victories, the conflict has changed.

As the GNA advances, it has brushed aside calls for a cease-fire, as the LNA did when they were at their strongest. The inconclusive back-and-forth between the two factions has led to a radical escalation of foreign troops, mercenaries, and weaponry, all in a clear breach of the embargo.

The chaotic conflict has turned Libya into a lawless state where already desperate refugees hoping to reach Europe face exploitation and die by the dozens in Libyan slave markets and refugee camps or drown in the Mediterranean Sea.

What was initially a civil war fought by Libyan militias using civilian cars and light arms has devolved into a proxy war featuring Naval frigates, fighter jets, anti-air batteries, and drones. What was once an internal conflict over the future of the country has become a sandbox for a proxy-war between foreign nations, where the Libyans themselves have little to do with an eventual resolution.

Syrians Brace for Looming Sanctions

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On June 17, the ‘Caesar Act’ will come into effect in the United States, with potentially devastating consequences for Syria’s economy. The act consists of a broad package of sanctions that would, in effect, make it illegal for most countries to do business with Syrian enterprises.

The Caeser act shares the pseudonym of a Syrian military photographer who smuggled thousands of photographs of Syrian torture out of the country, revealing the brutality of the Syrian regime’s practices against detainees.

However, the package of sanctions could have far-reaching consequences for Syria. The war-torn country’s economy is already suffering from hyperinflation that has caused food prices to rise by 50% in a single month.

“Prices of goods in Syria, including locally produced ones, are rising with the exchange rate,” Elizabeth Tsurkov, of the Foreign Policy Research Institute told the Guardian. “The inflation is so rapid that prices in the morning would be lower than in the evening,” she explained.

Looming sanctions

The already dire situation in Syria is about to get worse since the Caesar Act will effectively penalize any country that does business with any company in Syria.

While existing EU and US sanctions already target senior regime officials and aligned business interests, the US sanctions set to trigger on June 17 will target any country that trades with Syrian entities, effectively targeting Syria’s few remaining trade-partners in neighboring countries and with businesses in Europe and the Gulf states.

The largest impact of the sanctions will be felt both in Damascus and Beirut, as trade with Lebanon has been one of the few remaining lifelines on which Syria’s fragile economy depended. Both Lebanon and Syria are facing spiraling currency crises and  the US sanctions aim to exacerbate these troubles in order to weaken Iranian influence in the two countries.

Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon’s government and Iranian support for both countries have long been a thorn in the side of the US military and the US now aims to break business ties between the two countries and plunge both into a dire economic crisis.

Victims

However, the victims of sanctions are rarely the elite that they nominally target. Rising prices of basic essentials and food scarcity are inevitable, but the regime’s leadership will always have enough to eat. The sanctions hope to make the economic situation in Syria and Lebanon so dire that the starving people will rise up and hold the governments responsible.

In over a century of sanctions, they have never actually produced this result. Sanctions on apartheid south-Africa actually further impoverished the black population, according to the then prime-minister de Klerk. Cuba has been under crushing US sanctions since it’s communist revolution, but the sanctions actually allow the regime to blame the US for any economic issues.

In Syria, an already devastated country with its infrastructure in ruins is facing an economic crisis even without the new sanctions. Rising bread prices have sparked protests which were met with counter-protests by government supporters, who directly highlighted Western sanctions as the reason for the economic troubles.

Following a nine-year conflict, Syria has few resources left to rebuild. The US now attempts to once again spark a popular uprising and reduce the influence of Iran and Hezbollah. But, after the first uprising was crushed with little to no official western backing, how are Syrians supposed to topple al-Assad now?

Syria’s Ailing Economy Draws Protesters Back to the Streets

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Syria is in the grips of a deepening economic crisis, fuelled by US and European sanctions, plus neighboring Lebanon’s dramatic financial decline and associated currency crash.  

The Syrian pound followed its Lebanese counterpart this week and crashed spectacularly, sending the cost of living through the roof and sparking fears amongst ordinary Syrians of an impending famine.  

Syrian Pound in trouble  

The Syrian pound traded at 47 pounds to the dollar prior to the country’s bloody civil war, but has now hit 3,000 pounds to the dollar. The currency had been on an even-paced decline until last week. From Saturday to Monday the parallel exchange rate skyrocketed from 2,300 to 3,000 pounds to the dollar where it was still hovering on Wednesday.  

The head of Lebanon’s money-changing syndicate, Mahmoud Murad, said the plunging Syrian and Lebanese currencies are “surprising and incomprehensible,” but the two economies are intrinsically linked. “They are twins,” he explained to Arab News on June 11.  

“What affects the Lebanese pound affects the Syrian pound, and vice versa. The dollar exchange rate in Syria suddenly jumped to 3,500 pounds before unexpectedly dropping to between 2,600 and 2,700 pounds.  

“We do not know why. Has someone poured US dollars into the Syrian market to cause this drop? Where did these dollars come from? It is strange,” Murad said.  

As of this week, the Syrian pound has lost 80% of its value in the last 12 months alone. The worrying trend is concerning all levels of society, pushing some Syrians back to the streets for the first time since the 2011 Arab Spring protests that descended into civil war. 

Protests entered their fourth day on Wednesday, and have spread to the majority Druze city of Suweida. Demonstrators started with economic slogans, but in Suweida, which has largely been exempt from the conflict, openly called for Al Assad’s downfall. 

“Protesters called for freedom and toppling of the regime as a result of popular anger over the deteriorating economic, social, security and political situation,” Syrian activist Noura al Basha told Reuters on Thursday. 

Soaring Cost of Living 

The sudden currency crash has sent the price of basics like bread through the roof, pushing more Syrians into poverty and hunger.  

“Prices are through the roof. Every day… it’s more expensive than the day before,” Damascus mother of five Lamees al-Sheikh told the French Press Agency (AFP).

“I’m scared one day I’ll… come back home empty handed.” 

Business owners are also worried by the fast-developing situation, and say that even after raising prices, they cannot make money.

“There is one exchange rate in the morning, and another one in the afternoon,” said grocery store owner Rashed Umari from Qamishli in the north. “Everything we sell is at a loss.” 

Meanwhile, Al Assad replaced Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis Thursday, according to state media. Al Assad is yet to provide an explanation for Khamis’ downfall, but the move indicates the growing civil unrest and economic problems are also being felt in the upper echelons of Syrian politics. Given the interlinked nature of the Syrian and Lebanese economies and ongoing sanction pressure, it is unclear how Al Assad can reboot Syria’s ailing economy and how the war-weary Syrians will respond to the unfolding situation.

Read also: Despairing Domestic Workers Dumped at Ethiopian Consulate in Lebanon

Syrian Palace Intrigue Over Stolen Fortune Continues to Devolve

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The dirty laundry of Syria’s governing Assad family is airing publicly as the family attempts to gain control over an opaque fortune held by one side of the family. For decades the Makhloufs, the family of Bashar al-Assad’s mother, used their network of international businesses and government connections to channel a slice of Syria’s oil revenue into foreign bank accounts.

The bargain benefited the Makhlouf family while providing the Assads with financial firepower outside general taxation. But the relationship between the two branches of the same family started to fracture during the Syrian civil war, which required Russian military assistance to regain control over the population at a price.

Post-war tensions

If the conflict’s aftermath, Russia and Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma have become increasingly influential in palace intrigue that would make for an interesting television drama. Russia benefits from a concentration of power around the Assads, who owe Russia for their intervention. Asma al-Assad competes with the Makhloufs for influence over the Alawites, an important political bloc that is the bedrock of Assad’s power.

Rami Makhlouf, the cousin of Bashar al-Assad, has become the focal point in the family rift. He followed in his father, Mohammed Makhlouf’s footsteps and used his family’s connections to accumulate tremendous wealth while backing the Assads with financial support and influence over the Alawites.

The mutually beneficial relationship between Rami Makhlouf’s business empire and al-Assad’s grip on power has now fractured to the point where both sides are making public moves. The conflict is revealing much about a structural kleptocracy where state and business overlap and intertwine.

Stand-off

The latest chapter in the palace drama has come in the way of a travel ban for Rami Makhlouf and an order for the Syrian stock market to ban trading in Makhlouf’s telecom business. In response, Rami Makhlouf “donated” his assets to a charity, one that he founded and controls.

Rami Makhlouf’s function as a “money man” for the Assad family appears to have come to an end, but the trouble with opaque hidden fortunes is that they are difficult to retrieve. Much of the money that the Assads channeled into foreign banks was routed by the Makhlouf family and it appears they now are the only ones that can provide access to the vast treasure of stolen Syrian wealth.

With the two family branches at a stand-off, more explosive developments and revelations will surely soon become public.

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