According to the article, "According to data recently announced by the Syrian Government, some 6,100,000 internally displaced persons have returned to their towns since 2015"
In other words, Prensa Latina and MR Online not only post Assadist malevolence, but also stupidity, of the type that would rightly make them a laughing stock among anyone who actually knows anything. A 5-year old wouldn't write such crap. Let's see, according to the UNHCR (https://www.unhcr.org/5ee200e37.pdf), in 2019 there were 6.2 million internally displaced in Syria (on top of 6.6 million refugees outside the country). So according to PL/MR, nearly every one of them has returned to their homes. Strange, of the 5.8 million IDPs worldwide who have returned to their homes, the UNHCR reckons almost all are in Africa. Of the 6.2 million internally displaced, some 1.8 million are displaced from Assadist Syria and living in the northwest under rebel and/or Turkish control - they fled there from Assad, no info they have all suddenly returned (or that any have at all). ( https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/syr_situation_overview_cccm_ismi_north_west_syria_population_overview_november_2018_0.pdf). Another 700,000 people from the conflict have been displaced and living in the northwest, under Kurdish/SDF/US control, plus another 200,000 mostly Kurds who were displaced by the Turkish invasion late in 2019. In other words, nearly half the internally displaced live outside Assadist Syria and about the last place they want to go is back there. Of course, that does not mean the other half, inside Assadist Syria, are there because they like the regime or that they fled from the rebels (of course, many may have) - most simply fled, quite logically, from regions that were being bombed daily to regions that were not being bombed daily. Why write stupidity? Sure I agree that Cuba has to rely on diplomatic support from Russia and China due to the US blockade and hostility, and this means they would be constrained with what they say against Russian policy in Syria or elsewhere. So they could just say nothing. Same with Venezuela. It does not require them pimping for Assad and writing stupid. It did not require Chavez declaring Gaddafi to be his "brother" - could have just said in 2011 he opposed NATO intervention. Dennis Brasky sent a very interesting article the other day about the tital marginalisation of the Palestinian left. From memory, the article said they only held about 7% of seats from the last elections 15 years ago, and based on polling it is expected they will get only about half as many next time. That is, they've withered to nothingness (obviously this does not include any new, extra-parliamentary left growing with new movements etc). Some of this is their own fault due to their own ossified politics and/or opportunism etc. But I believe it is part of a more general phenomenon. Where is the left 10 years after the Arab Spring in the Mideast? Mostly, nowhere. With the support for Assad among a large part of the wesern left often blamed for Syrians understandably not looking to the "left" for support, I often felt this did not tell us much because the western left was too small to ever have made a difference, or even much be noticed, anyway. However, that is where the betrayal of the Latin American left becomes important - because they ran entire countries. What did Syrians see when they looked at Latin America? They saw a number of governments of the left declaring their love for the tyrants, the oligarchs, the genocidaires, those who were slaughtering them, leveling their cities, and uprooting half the country. What would "left" mean to them? In that context, much worse than nothing. Among Palestinians, at least Hamas supported the Syrian uprising. I'm no fan of Hamas and its Islamist ideology, but its not hard to see why the kind of "soft Islamism" of the MB variety gained the upper hand. Better than those supporting the local version of fascist-like dictatorship. Ten years of Arab Spring has left the region mostly devoid of left-wing politics. On Fri, Mar 12, 2021 at 11:12 AM Ken Hiebert <[email protected]> wrote: > Chris Slee said: > > The US economic blockade against Cuba makes Cuba dependent on trade with > Russia and China. This inevitably has an influence on Cuba's foreign > policy. Cuba will be very cautious about doing or saying anything which > might annoy Russia or China, which might cause the latter to cut off trade > and further deepen Cuba's economic problems. > > Only if the US blockade is ended will Cuba be free to adopt a consistently > progressive foreign policy. > > The US left should be campaigning vigorously against the blockades on Cuba > and Venezuela, but as far as I can tell from a distance this does not > appear to be the case. > > * * * * * * * * > > Ken Hiebert replies: > > I’m inclined to agree with Chris. At one time Cuba was very dependent on > the USSR. I don’t know the nature of the relationship today with Russia > and China, but I expect they must be dependent to some degree. > In that situation they are not necessarily bound to slavishly follow the > foreign policy of Russia and China, but it is something they must take into > account. > > Chris says, "The US left should be campaigning vigorously against the > blockades on Cuba and Venezuela, but as far as I can tell from a distance > this does not appear to be the case.” > I think the depends on how you define the left. The various organized > Marxist currents are doing some work, but in my view they are not as > effective as they could be. And I think this is true in Canada as well. > Considering the broad sympathy for Cuba, the movement against the blockade > should be broader. But I’m not sure that any of the leaders of this > movement have the perspective and political skills to bring together a > broad movement. > > I look back at the work that was done in Canada in the early years of the > revolution and I believe it was effective. I cite the work in my own > province, British Columbia. > Aside from Jack Scott, a columnist in the Vancouver Sun, the campaign drew > in Cedric Cox, an MLA (equivalent to a state legislator), and Colin > Cameron, an MP at the federal level. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedric_Cox > > > Colin Cameron > https://www.lipad.ca/members/record/97f9d88f-ae28-4f99-8f6c-2ec41c4accfa/2/ > > I have a very clear recollection of the day in this house when it looked > as though we were coming to the end of things. I refer, of course, to the > confrontation over Cuba. I have been interested to note in all my reading > of the discussions on the matter that no one goes farther back than the > situation that obtained after Fidel Castro succeeded in seizing power in > Cuba. No one goes farther back in history where there are another few links > in the chain of cause and effect which finally led us that day in the House > of Commons to sit here wondering whether we were facing the end of all > things. If people would go farther back they would find something else that > Canada and other prosperous parts of the world should not be very proud of, > namely, that for decades we had known that the Cuban people were suffering > under one of the most brutal dictatorships in the history of the world. > They were living in poverty, in misery and in fear, and we did nothing > about it. As a consequence the chain of events led finally to the > confrontation between the two great powers in the world. > > I suggest that if we are interested in our own defence we should be > bending all our efforts to coping with all the potential Cubas that exist > throughout the world which may at any time produce the chain of cause and > effect that will lead us to the brink of disaster. I can think of no more > honourable, no more decisive and significant role for Canada at this time > than to say to the rest of the world that we are not interested in this > fatal game of military expenditures and military defiance because we know > we can play no real role in it. We should say that we want to free our > hands to undertake the task that lies ahead of all of us in the more > affluent parts of the world, which is to remove to the best of our ability > the causes of future disruption of peace in the world by removing the > poverty and misery underlying those causes. But if we are going to go on > playing, which is all we are doing-posturing, playing and pretending-that > we in Canada can play any sort of role whatsoever in the military sense we > are not going to have the resources, the energies and the time to engage in > the real peace keeping operation of trying to build up the submerged areas > of the world to the level of affluence that we enjoy on this continent. > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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