| New York Times | - |
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria's main exile opposition coalition elected a naturalized Syrian-born American citizen early Tuesday to be the first prime minister of an interim Syrian government, charged with funneling aid to rebels inside Syria and offering ...
Syrian Rebels Pick U.S. Citizen to Lead Interim Government
By ANNE BARNARD
Published: March 18, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syria’s
main exile opposition coalition elected a naturalized Syrian-born
American citizen early Tuesday to be the first prime minister of an
interim Syrian government, charged with funneling aid to rebels inside
Syria and offering an alternative to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Multimedia
By choosing Ghassan Hitto, 50, an information technology executive who
lived in Texas until recently, the Syrian opposition coalition concluded
months of contentious efforts to unite behind a leader, under pressure
from the United States and its allies, which demanded that the
opposition set up clear chains of command as a condition of increasing
aid to the rebels.
Mr. Hitto, a relative unknown in opposition politics who rose to
prominence recently through efforts to improve the delivery of
humanitarian aid, was far from a unanimous choice. After a day of
maneuvering and voting on Monday that lasted into early Tuesday, he won
35 votes, just three more than Assad Mustafa, a former agricultural
minister under Mr. Assad’s father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad.
Mr. Hitto faces formidable challenges in his quest to to establish
administrative authority over areas of northern Syria that have been
secured by the rebels.
Mr. Assad’s air force still rules the skies, so any attempt to govern
from those rebel-held areas risks the constant threat of airstrikes. And
antigovernment fighters and activists inside Syria, who have long
complained that the coalition offered little concrete help and had
little connection to the struggle on the ground, remain skeptical of any
interim government based outside the country.
Even opposition leaders outside Syria are divided on whether an interim
government makes sense. Fahed al-Masri, a spokesman for the rebel Free
Syrian Army’s unified command, questioned how a government could
function when it controlled little territory or money yet would be held
responsible for the fate of more than one million Syrian refugees and
several times that number displaced inside the country.
“Welcome, government,” Mr. Masri said sardonically.
Mr. Hitto — who ruled out negotiations with Mr. Assad, another blow to
wavering efforts to find a political solution — has argued that forming a
government would help keep Syria from slipping further into chaos.
“There is always a possibility that this regime might fall suddenly,” he
said, in a video posted on YouTube to announce his candidacy. “And we
can’t avoid a political vacuum in the country and the ensuing chaos
unless there is a transitional government.”
He called for “a government of institutions and law” that would be accountable and transparent.
The stakes are high. Many nations have recognized the coalition as the
legitimate representative of the Syrian people, meaning that if Mr.
Hitto is able to form a cabinet, which is far from certain given the
group’s fractiousness, his government could try to claim Syria’s frozen
state assets and other levers of power.
With his many years in Texas, Mr. Hitto may seem like an unusual
selection to lead a government struggling to establish street
credibility with rebels — or an uprising facing allegations from Mr.
Assad’s supporters that it is an American creation.
But he said he could not resist getting involved, especially after his
son Obaida, 25, sneaked off to Syria and joined rebel fighters to shoot
videos, deliver humanitarian aid and spread word of their struggle.
Mr. Hitto and his wife, Suzanne, an American schoolteacher, have four
children, all born in the United States, where Mr. Hitto advocated for
Muslim Americans after 9/11 as a representative of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations.
He traveled to the Middle East last fall to learn more and never went
back. “I have a career back home that I’m in the process of destroying,”
he said jovially over lunch recently in Istanbul.
In his role heading the humanitarian aid arm of the coalition under
Suhair Atassi, a coalition vice president and respected activist from
Damascus, Mr. Hitto quickly came into close contact with American and
other foreign officials. Frustrated with what he saw as anemic and
disorganized international efforts to aid displaced Syrians, he hired
internationally known aid consultants to do a survey that found that the
number of needy people in six Syrian provinces was more than 50 percent
higher than United Nations estimates.
- 1
- 2
No comments:
Post a Comment