Excerpts: Assad's father crushed Islamist uprising 30 years ago. UAE: no
trade, finance to Iran February 03, 2012
+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 3 Feb.’12:”Atrocities haunt Hama survivors 30 years
on”, Agence France PresseAgence France-Presse |
SUBJECT: Assad’s father’s crushed Islamist uprising 30 years ago”
QUOTES: “Hama,the worst atrocity in Syria’s modern history”
FULL TEXT:BEIRUT — Fawaz vividly recalls that cold rainy day 30 years ago
when Syria's then- president Hafez Al Assad launched a ruthless assault to
crush an Islamist uprising in the city of Hama, killing thousands.

"The troops entered my neighbourhood and gathered all males above the age of
15 in one of the town's squares," said the 49-year-old who now lives in
Saudi Arabia but still travels back to his hometown in central Syria.

"They showered us with insults, accusing us of being traitors and Israeli
agents... and then told us that everyone would be massacred."

Fawaz was lucky to survive but, according to rights groups, between 10,000
and 40,000 people perished during the subsequent 27-day military campaign on
Hama, the worst atrocity in Syria's modern history.

For survivors like Fawaz, this year's 30th anniversary of the massacre holds
special meaning amid an unprecedented revolt aimed at toppling the regime of
Assad's son and successor, President Bashar Assad.

The current regime's fierce crackdown on the uprising that began last March
has left more than 6,000 people dead, according to rights groups.

"What is happening today is the same heartless savagery," Fawaz told AFP in
a telephone interview, his voice quivering with emotion.

He said the horrors he witnessed three decades ago and the fear that gripped
him were still etched in his memory and had come flooding back amid the
current unrest sweeping his homeland.

"There were bloated bodies lying in the streets and set upon by stray dogs,"
he recalled.

"They forced a man to kneel and pressed his head to the ground and told us
to reveal the whereabouts of members of the Muslim Brotherhood or they would
kill him," he added.

"But we had no information to give them so they crushed his head by running
over it with a tank.

"They instilled so much fear that no one in Syria dared speak out [against
the regime] after that."

Fawaz said that like most of the town's 250,000 residents at the time, he
lost several family members, friends and neighbours during the monthlong
onslaught.

And yet the carnage went largely unnoticed by the outside world because of a
news blackout imposed by the regime, well before the era of the Internet and
mobile phones.

Many of the casualties had no relation with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abu Khaled, another survivor who was 16 at the time of the massacre,
remembers seeing security forces gun down the town's male population
indiscriminately.

"Before shooting them, they removed their watches and shoes," said Abu
Khaled, who now lives in Jordan.

He said he managed to escape by jumping on rooftops and then walked for
three days before reaching the town of Homs, south of Hama.

Leading the ground and aerial campaign at the time was Rifaat Al Assad, the
then-president's younger brother who now lives in exile in Britain. Hafez Al
Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son.

"The regime through this massacre sought to teach the whole country a
lesson," said Mohammad Sarmini, a native of Hama and member of the
opposition Syrian National Council seeking the ouster of the current regime.

"In the 1980s it was a battle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the
government, but today the regime is battling a nationwide revolt," he added.

Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, who covered the Hama massacre
in 1982, said it must be noted that Hafez Al Assad was responding to a
sustained uprising by the Brotherhood when he unleashed his forces on the
city.

"This is not something that happened out of the blue," he told AFP. "There
is no excuse for killing thousands of civilians, we are on the side of human
rights, but history must say that it was not just a one-sided story only.

"Many members of the [ruling] Baath Party and their families were murdered
... including the president's doctor."

For activists leading the current 10-month revolt, history is unlikely to
repeat itself. They say the Assad dynasty is not likely to survive the
current revolt which they hope will usher in a new era for the country.

"They are trying to make us relive the fear but we won't give in," said
prominent Syrian dissident Anwar Al Bunni. "Hama is a wound that will heal

+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 3 Feb.’12:”UAE, Qatar stop trade finance to Iran
over sanctions”, Reuters
SUBJECT: UAE: no trade, finance to Iran

QUOTE: “The central banks of UAE and Qatar have told lenders to stop
financing trade with Iran”

FULL TEXT:DUBAI — The central banks of UAE and Qatar have told lenders to
stop financing trade with Iran, bankers said on Thursday[2 Feb.], cutting
another source of credit for a country struggling under Western economic
sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme.

The Gulf has a long history of trade with Iran, especially in Dubai where
there is a large Iranian trading community, and Gulf banks had been expected
to fill a funding gap for the import of grains left by European lenders
banned from financing trade by EU sanctions.

"Banks in Dubai were asked by the UAE central bank to stop issuing letters
of credit to finance trade with Iran. Before the sanctions, the central bank
regularly checked on trading with Iran and wanted to know of all dealings
between the two countries," said a Dubai-based banker active in trade
financing.

"Banks can't do this anymore."

About 8,000 Iranian traders are registered in Dubai, and reexport trade
between Iran and the UAE totalled 19.5 billion dirhams ($5.32 billion) in
the first half of 2011, according to the latest figures from the United Arab
Emirates' customs authority.

Qatar's central bank also recently told banks to stop providing credit for
Iranian trade, according to a senior Doha-based banker.

Iran is struggling under the weight of sanctions. Its currency, the rial,
has depreciated, there has been a run on its banks and inflation is rising,
US intelligence chiefs have said.

The United States imposed the harshest sanctions so far on Iran, banning
transactions involving Iran's central bank, and the European Union has
banned the import, purchase or transport of Iranian oil, cutting off its
main foreign currency earner.

The 27-member bloc also agreed in January to freeze the assets of Iran's
central bank to try to persuade Iran to stop its nuclear programme, which
the West says is aimed at producing an atomic weapon.

Iran denies the charge.

The sanctions, which Western powers say are aimed only at the Iranian
administration, may be having unexpected consequences.

Shipments stop

Iran is heavily dependent on grain imports for animal feed, but some 10
ships have been unable to deliver grain to Iran for more than three weeks
after banks refused to process payments, or offer loans to, Iranian buyers.

On Thursday[2 Feb.], up to five of those vessels may have been diverted to
new destinations, ship tracking data showed.

The United Arab Emirates' central bank ordered financial institutions two
years ago to freeze Iran-linked accounts belonging to firms targeted by
United Nations sanctions.

In Bahrain, which has traditionally had more limited trade ties with Iran,
there have been no guidelines.

"Business with Iranians flourished in the past but Bahrain was never a
trading hub like Dubai," one senior banker said. "Financing export of goods
through the ports wasn't really a prime line of business."

Iranian trade with Dubai has flowed for decades, plied by wooden dhows
carrying household goods and basic commodities such as grain, rice and
sugar.

"Historically, grain came to Dubai from South America, mainly Argentina, the
USA and EU, mainly France and then reexported from Dubai to Iran," said the
Dubai-based banker.

"That was very good business for Dubai which acted as a trade hub."

============
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA