Sunday Times 2
When ousted leaders seek safe havens to escape jail time and hangman’s noose
View(s):By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – When some of the leaders in the Middle East and Asia are dethroned and driven into exile, the cynics jokingly ask: Is he politically dead or is he dead and buried?
The distinction between the two seems significant because the fluctuating political fortunes of some leaders—and their will to survive against heavy odds—have always defied Western logic.
In a bygone era, two of the authoritarian Middle Eastern leaders—Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi—were hunted down before being executed.
Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi Special Tribunal while Gaddafi was severely beaten up by rebel forces before being shot to death.
Still, some Arab rulers who were deposed but survived included Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012.
But there was one rare exception—in Asia.
Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was driven into exile—first, seeking refuge in the Maldives, then in Singapore and finally in Thailand. When he ran out of safe havens, or so the story goes, he returned to his home country—but not to his lost presidency.
In Asia, there were several other political leaders who were ousted from power and went into exile, including Nawaz Sharif, Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, Yingluck Shinawatra of Thailand and most recently Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh.
View of Aleppo, December 2024, a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous governorate of Syria. Credit: UN OCHA
When the Taliban captured power back in 1996, one of its first political acts was to hang the Afghan President Mohammed Najibullah in Ariana Square in Kabul.
And, when it assumed power a second time, it ousted the US-backed government of Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, armed with a doctorate in anthropology from one of the most prestigious Ivy League educational institutions in the US: Columbia University.
In a Facebook posting, Ghani said he fled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) seeking safe haven because he “was going to be hanged” by the Taliban.
If that did happen, the Taliban would have earned the dubious distinction of being the only government in the world to hang two presidents. But mercifully, it did not.
Last week, as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost his battle for survival against a 14-year-old civil war in his country, he went into exile in Russia, one of his strongest political and military allies.
At a media conference on December 10, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said, “We saw (in Syria) a regime driven from power following decades of brutal repression, and after nearly 14 years of relentless conflict.”
Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost during this time, more than 100,000 people disappeared, and some 14 million were driven from their homes, often in the most atrocious circumstances, he said.
“I’ve met many of them over the years, witnessed their despair and trauma as they bore testimony to the most serious human rights violations committed against them, including torture and the use of chemical weapons,” declared Turk.
But Assad, now under Russian protection, is not expected to pay for any of his crimes against humanity.
Recounting his personal experience, Dr James E. Jennings, President of Conscience International and Executive Director of US Academics for Peace, told IPS: “I met Bashar al-Assad only once, at his grand palace in Damascus before the war, as head of a delegation of US Academics for Peace. We thought that young Bashar, Western-educated and impeccably mannered, might lead Syria away from his father’s cruel repression.”
Assad, like Israel’s Netanyahu, already under indictment by the ICC, is responsible for the conduct of the war and could reasonably be tried for crimes against humanity. That would certainly serve the interests of justice, and might help restrain some of the last half-century of unending bloodshed across the Middle East, he pointed out.
But the reality is that international institutions, largely invented after WW II, have very little capability to implement judgments even if an individual is found guilty. Under the prevailing system of national governments, there is a certain amount of impunity for the head of a government acting for “reasons of state,” said Dr Jennings.
The rebels have no such protection until they become a government. The coalition from Idlib now in control in Damascus is headed by Islamists. At this point, by no stretch of imagination can the Ba’ath Party and Assad himself regain power. Russia, where Assad has fled for refuge, is unlikely to surrender him in any case, he said.
Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS it would certainly appear that Assad and other top Syrian officials would be liable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Part of the delay, he said, has been the difficulty in accessing the necessary evidence, but that should be a lot easier now.
“There were hardly any real battles in those final days. Without Hezbollah ground support or Russian air support, Assad had to rely on unwilling conscripts who were not ready to fight and die to keep him in power.”
This was not a military defeat. It was a political collapse. A government is only as strong as its people’s willingness to recognise its legitimacy, said Zunes.
Asked whether Assad should be held accountable for his crimes, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said: “I think the violations of human rights in Syria have been well documented by various independent commissions. Anyone involved in the commissioning of these violations needs to be held to account, without a doubt.”
In a statement released on December 10, Human Rights Watch said: “Assad’s government committed countless atrocities, crimes against humanity, and other abuses during his 24-year presidency.”
These include widespread and systematic arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearances and deaths in detention, use of chemical weapons, starvation as a weapon of war, and indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against civilians and civilian objects.
Non-state armed groups operating in Syria, including Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS) and factions of the Syrian National Army that launched the offensive on November 27, are also responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes.