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Can a Moderate Kurd Unite Syrian
Revolution?
21.6.2012
By David Arnold - VOA News |
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The new president of the Syrian National Council,
Abdelbasset Sayda, a Kurd, speaks during a news
conference in Istanbul June 10, 2012. Photo: Reuters
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June
21, 2012
The Syrian National Council (SNC) announced
earlier this month the selection of Abdulbaset Sieda,
a little-known moderate Kurd from Uppsala, Sweden,
to - for the next three months - lead the opposition
group of mostly Syrian exiles in its effort to
dislodge the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Islamist-dominated council, the largest
coalition of political groupings opposed to the
Syrian regime, has been deemed unable by some to
provide effective support for the country’s
disparate opposition: the political activists who
daily risk their lives in street protest, the
pockets of Free Syrian Army armed resistance to the
regime, and the Kurds and other Syrian minorities
who are reluctant to join the uprising. Other exile
opposition groups, such as the National Coordination
Board for Democratic Change, are smaller and, unlike
the SNC, have not gained the endorsement of France,
Britain, the United States and other countries
supporting regime change in Damascus.
In replacing the controversial Paris-based academic,
Burhan Ghalioun, Sieda will lead a troubled
organization whose turn-around could determine the
future of the increasingly bloody 15-month-old
revolution, the success or failure of the attempt to
put an end to the Assad regime, and help replace it
with a democratic alternative.
Can Sieda lead a restructuring of the council to
increase its cohesion and efficacy? Can he create a
larger umbrella for Syrians representing the
disparate political, ethnic and religious interests
of the nation?
Sieda’s stated mission is to reshape the floundering
council to unify the membership, chart a course of
action, and to appeal to a broader base both within
Syria and international community. The task falls to
a Syrian intellectual expatriate who has remained in
the background of a young organization that has been
dominated by his predecessor, Ghalioun, and by
Islamists.
Where did the SNC’s new
leader come from?
In his first few days in office, Sieda has publicly
repeated most of the positions the council has
become known for: do not negotiate with Assad,
continue to request foreign intervention through the
establishment of a no-fly zone and a humanitarian
corridor to ultimately unseat Assad and replace his
dictatorship with a “democratic and pluralistic
state.”
Seida was born in a small town in Hasaka, Syria, a
rural Kurdish region in the northeast, surrounded by
Acadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Byzantine and Islamic
ruins. After receiving a doctorate in philosophy
from Damascus University he taught in Libya for
three years, then moved in 1994 with his wife and
children to Sweden, where about 125,000 Kurds -
mostly from Iraq - now live in exile. He teaches
philosophy at the University of Uppsala in Stockholm
and elsewhere in the capital.
”Since the creation of the Syrian National Council
11 months ago, Sieda has served on the small
executive committee until recently headed by
Ghalioun. The council describes him as a man of
integrity and independence.
His brief biography on the SNC web site indicates
that he serves on a preparation committee and in his
academic life has published many papers on Syrian
public affairs. SNC spokesperson Bassma Kodmani said
he has also written extensively on Kurdish issues.
Kodmani emphasized that Sieda is an independent and
does not represent any single party or political
interest on the 300-member council.
His selection to head the organization was made
among a handful of the council’s leaders at a June
9-10 meeting in Istanbul. As with many of their
decisions, the choice was based on what Kodmani
described as “consensus,” rather than a democratic
vote by the membership.
Will Syria’s minorities
follow Sieda’s lead?
The day he was chosen, Sieda told a reporter for the
Kurdish online newspaper, Rudaw, that he has invited
the Kurdish National Council (KNC) to join the
Syrian umbrella group. The KNC leadership expressed
some optimism that the two groups would work
together. KNC leadership praised Sieda for his
patriotism but added that success will be determined
by his effectiveness as “a bridge of communications
to improve relations.”
Kurdish issues loom large in that conversation.
Kodmani said the SNC opposed discrimination against
Kurds, supports citizenship for all Kurds, and
endorses compensation payments for some of the
grievances they have against the Assad regime. But
she said the SNC cannot endorse other demands such
as Kurdish autonomy or federalism without the
consensus of the council.
Syrian Kurds generally do not trust the SNC because
they see it as a political group created by and in
Turkey, says Ayub Nuri, the editor of Rudaw. “The
council he leads right now is not liked by many
Syrians: Arabs,www.ekurd.net
Christians, Kurds and the other Syrian minority
groups.”
Uniting these opposition groups will be a major
challenge, said Nuri. “They are deeply divided. They
don’t like each other. So anyone, no matter how
experienced or how loyal or how hard-working, will
have the challenge of satisfying all of these
different groups, which I think is impossible.”
Nuri also described the majority of Syria’s Kurds -
approximately 10 to 15 percent of Syria’s total
population of an estimated 22.5 million - as
disengaged from the revolution. Most are unemployed
and very poor. They tend to avoid violence because
their own struggle with the Assad regime in 2004
ended in the deaths of hundreds of Kurds. “Now, they
say the others should do it: ‘We are tired of
bloodshed and imprisonment.’”
Can Sieda restructure the Syrian National Council?
Critics of the SNC say future success will be
determined not by who is chosen to lead the
organization but whether the council is prepared for
a structural reorganization on many fronts.
The SNC’s Kodmani said reorganization is taking
place, but others are skeptical that significant
improvements will be made.
“These problems include issues of transparency,
decision-making, how finances are managed, and the
lack of a clear vision,” said Amr al-Azm, a Syrian
American who teaches archaeology at Shawnee State
University in Ohio. A Sunni whose father is a
recognized opposition figure and who remains in the
SNC, al-Azm was invited to the organizational
meetings of the group but declined to join.
“One of the key problems I have with the council is
that it is dominated by Islamists, not just members
of the Muslim Brotherhood,” said al-Azm. Others have
said that Ghalioun - who is a Christian - was put
forward by the Brotherhood to downplay their
Islamists image. Al-Azm said the Brotherhood
supported Sieda for the same reason.
Another member of the SNC, George Sabra - a
Christian with close links to Syria’s street
activists - was in the running for the leadership
position, said Al-Azm. But Sabra was perceived as a
threat to the status quo of the leadership, Al-Azm
said.
“The Muslim Brotherhood refused to let him take that
seat because he is independent-minded. He can make
decisions and I think that, in itself, may have
interfered with the current balance of power in the
SNC,” he said.
SNC’s short history
The short history of the SNC includes charges of the
failure of Ghalioun to consult the membership before
making important decisions, as well as the failure
of the executive to call for votes among the
membership. Three months ago, Gulf newspaper Al
Arabiya reported that three of the SNC’s founders -
a former judge, a human rights lawyer and opposition
leader Kamal al-Labwami - complained about Muslim
Brotherhood dominance, the council’s failure to arm
the rebels. Having charged the leadership with
corruption, they left the council. Two have since
returned.
“They lurch from crisis to crisis,” said al-Azm. “I
don’t see how expanding the SNC to include a few
more members of the minorities will fundamentally
address the core problems of the SNC, the issues of
transparency, leadership and a clear vision.”
Al-Azm is concerned that time is running out for the
SNC.
“There is no connection left anymore between the SNC
as a sort of political entity and the street which
has moved beyond and is not protesting and acting
totally independent of such a leadership.”
As the new leader of Syria’s opposition umbrella
group, Sieda now presides over a restructuring of
the Syrian National Council and a major outreach not
only to the nation’s minorities suspicious of the
SNC, but to thousands of Syrian activists and
fighters in Homs, Hama, Idlib and other centers of
revolution. The SNC’s goal remains to refashion the
rebel force that could turn an escalating war into a
successful toppling of what much of the world
perceives as a brutal dictatorship and to become
midwife to a new government in Syria. And Sieda has
only three months before the executive committee
selects his successor.
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