Bashir Assad

Friday February 23, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 23, 2018

Families struggle to survive in Eastern Ghouta, under siege

A four-day-long bombardment by Syrian government forces is reported to have killed more than 300 civilians in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area. Here, people living there tell their stories.

February 20, 2014

The enclave – home to an estimated 393,000 people – has been under siege since 2013. But pro-government media say a major military operation might soon begin to clear rebel factions from their last major stronghold near the capital Damascus.

The relentless air and artillery strikes are leaving civilians, particularly women and children, in a state of fear and forcing them to seek shelter underground, where they are largely deprived of food and sanitation.

“We are living in a basement, underneath a half-destroyed house,” Asia, a 28-year-old student and mother-of-three whose husband was killed in an attack while he was on his way to work, told the BBC. 

“My daughter is sick. Her hair is falling out because she is so afraid.” 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, says the government and its allies have carried out more than 1,290 air strikes on the Eastern Ghouta and fired 6,190 rockets and shells at the region since mid-November, when hostilities between government and rebel forces escalated. 

Between Sunday and Wednesday alone there were reportedly about 420 air strikes, and 140 barrel bombs were dropped by helicopters.

UN war crimes experts are also investigating several reports of rockets allegedly containing chlorine being fired at the Eastern Ghouta this year.

The recent surge in casualties means that more than 1,070 civilians, including several hundred children and women, have been killed and 3,900 injured in the past three months, according to the Syrian Observatory. (Source: BBC News) 

Wednesday July 25, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday July 25, 2012

WMD fear heightens as Assad regime’s authority deteriorates

The spectre is looming larger of a desperate Syrian regime resorting to chemical weapons in order to survive the growing armed assault against it.

In a statement read out Monday on Syrian state television, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi attempted to reassure people that “no chemical or biological weapons will ever be used … during the crisis in Syria no matter what the developments inside Syria.”

However, addressing Syrian journalists, Mr. Makdissi added: “All of these types of weapons are in storage and under security and the direct supervision of the Syrian armed forces and will never be used unless Syria is exposed to external aggression.”

Not only was this the first time Syria ever had publicly acknowledged it possesses such weapons of mass destruction, but the statement also made clear the regime of Bashar al-Assad is willing to use them if “exposed to external aggression.”

Such a threat wouldn’t necessarily come from another country invading Syria, says Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Israel. Rather, “external aggression is exactly how the regime describes the current uprising” being carried out by “terrorists” and “foreign interests.”

“The good news,” says Mr. Rubin, author of The Truth About Syria, “is that the regime still is in control of the stockpiles and has been doing a good job of securing them.”

The chemical weapons, such as Sarin, a nerve gas developed in Nazi Germany and used in the 1995 terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway, and VX, an even more deadly nerve agent, as well as mustard gas of the sort employed in the First World War, are believed to be secured in two or three well-guarded compounds in the centre of the country. (Source: CBC News)

 

Tuesday May 29, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday May 29, 2012

Annan warns Syria of grave concern

Peace envoy Kofi Annan expressed “grave concern” to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday and Western nations threw out its envoys to protest against a massacre of 108 civilians, many of them children, in the town of Houla.

France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia said they were expelling the Syrian envoys from their capitals in a move that was coordinated with the United States and underlined Assad’s diplomatic isolation.

The killings in Houla drew a chorus of powerful condemnation from around the world, with the United Nations saying entire families had been shot dead in their homes.

“Bashar al-Assad is the murderer of his people,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Le Monde. “He must relinquish power. The sooner the better.” His Australian counterpart Bob Carr said: “This massacre of more than 100 men, women and children in Houla was a hideous and brutal crime.”

Assad’s government late on Monday denied having anything to do with the deaths, or even having heavy weapons in the area.

Western countries that have called for Assad to step down were hoping that the Houla killings would tip global opinion, notably that of Syria’s main protector Russia, towards more effective action against Damascus.

Annan drew up a peace plan backed by the United Nations and the Arab League to steer a way out of the 14-month-old uprising against Assad. But six weeks after it was agreed by Damascus and the rebels, the bloodshed has barely slowed.

Annan told Assad of the “grave concern of the international community about the violence in Syria, including in particular the recent events in Houla”, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement after two hours of talks in Damascus. (Source: Reuters) 

 

Thursday April 12, 2012

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday April 12, 2012

Mac should set the standard on openness

Universities play an important role in the fabric of democratic societies.

They are guardians of academic freedom, and carry the responsibility of instilling into their students important ideas and enduring values of our society.

A couple of those ideas are the openness and accountability of public institutions in a democracy and the right of the public to know how its money is being spent.

In that context, McMaster University’s determined struggle to keep secret the details of the financial affairs of former president Peter George is particularly disappointing. The approach to accountability, transparency and disclosure displayed over a course of years leaves the university with a black eye of its own making.

This isn’t just about McMaster. In an era of increasing public demand for open data, the lack of openness displayed is far too common among leading public institutions spending public money and acting on our behalf. We have seen it with the province’s Ornge scandal, with the city’s debate about open police budgets, with executive salaries at Ontario Hydro, and more.

As detailed in Wednesday’s Spectator, this newspaper engaged in a six-year struggle with the university over the release of documents. Every step of the way, the university has fought the release, sought to prevent the former president’s contract and his expenses from being disclosed.

Universities were made subject to freedom of information laws in June of 2006. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)