U.S. Sponsors Syrian Opposition

Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks made a new disclosure yesterday. According to declassified U.S. diplomatic dispatches, the U.S. State Department transferred millions of dollars to the opponents of the Syrian regime. It is assumed that funding was provided during a period of several years, at least until September 2010.

The influential Washington Post reported yesterday on the new portion of the U.S. State Department’s secrets. The newspaper explained that, at the request of the State Department, some names and details related to the opposition funding program were omitted in order not to jeopardize the personal safety of aid recipients.

American money flowed into the hands of the Syrian opposition as long ago as during the presidency of George W. Bush in 2005, when President Bush froze political contacts with Damascus. The funding of President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents continued after Barack Obama took the presidency. It will be recalled that, during his campaign, Barack Obama promised to resume dialogue with the Axis of Evil leaders, including Assad. Some progress in the relationships between the United States and these leaders indeed took place: In particular, in January of this year, Washington sent its ambassador to Damascus for the first time in five years. However, it seems that the U.S. is still making attempts to achieve the overthrow of the regime with Syrians’ own hands.

The dispatches referred to two opposing structures that were receiving American money. Both of them are based in London. The first is the Movement for Justice and Development in Syria (MJD), and the second is the satellite channel Barada TV, which broadcasts in Syria and is associated with MJD. With the help of these organizations, Syrians in exile have been waging a political struggle with the current regime in their homeland. As follows from the dispatches, the State Department transferred money to these organizations ($6.3 million in total) through the Democracy Council, a nonprofit organization registered in Los Angeles. The State Department passed these payments through the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) program.

State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez said that $7.5 million has been allocated for programs in Syria under the MEPI since 2005. Meanwhile, according to the dispatch from the U.S. embassy in Damascus, this amount was much higher — approximately $12 million between 2005 and 2010.

U.S. diplomats in Syria, according to their reports to Washington, were clearly worried about the potential consequences of disclosing the fact of the secret funding of the opposition. They feared that Mukhabarat (Syrian intelligence service) agents may have infiltrated the Movement for Justice and Development and official Damascus in the course of U.S. actions. American diplomats interpreted the absence of open public accusations of meddling as possible evidence that Syria was setting a trap for democratic activists.

It should be noted that the State Department, Barada TV and the Democracy Council in Los Angeles either refuse to comment on the situation surrounding the American aid program or claim that they do not know about any money whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the situation in Syria remains tense. In the city of Homs, which is in the center of the country, militants have attacked the police and soldiers. It is reported that five soldiers and 12 police officers were injured (one of them died). Militants supposedly neutralized this armed group. However, human rights advocates in Homs reported a different version: Special forces killed eight people during the clashes with demonstrators on Monday night. According to Reuters, a human rights activist from Homs said that “the security forces and the regime thugs have been provoking armed tribes for a month now.” On Monday night, many civilians who took to the streets in many Homs quarters “were shot at in cold blood,” said the rights activist.

In the city of Latakia, approximately 10,000 people participated in a demonstration organized by al-Assad’s opponents. They walked with candles and torches from the southern outskirts to the city center, chanting slogans demanding the release of political prisoners. A similar demonstration took place earlier in the southern part of the country.