Qaddafi sons: two sides of the same coin?

Al Saadi Al Qaddai (Source: AP/Cultureofsoccer.com) 

By James M. Dorsey

It is hard to fathom that Colonel Moammar Qaddafi’s third son, Al Saadi Al Qaddafi, would truly be any more conciliatory to NATO-backed Libyan rebels who have effectively replaced his father as the country’s rulers, than his older, fire-breathing brother Saif al-Islam, who has vowed to fight to the bitter end.

If Saadi, a man whose brutality as head of the Libyan soccer association as well as a military commander is vividly remembered by many Libyans, surrenders to the rebels, he would be handing them on a silver platter an important psychological and symbolic victory. He would also be fuelling suggestions that there is less cohesion among Mr. Qaddafi’s family and closest associates than Mr. Qaddafi and Said have sought to project. Saadi has said that he wants to avoid further bloodshed that seems likely in the coming days.

For his part, Saif has warned that some 20,000 Qaddafi loyalists will resist a rebel attack on the former Libyan leader’s hometown of Sirte. The rebels have given the defenders of the city an ultimatum until Saturday to lay down their arms or face the consequences.

At face value, Saadi and Saif’s different positions appear to be at best a surprising reversal of roles with Saadi, described in a leaked 2009 US diplomatic cable as “notoriously ill-behaved” with a history of violence playing peacekeeper while Saif, long seen as reforming, pro-Western face of the Qaddafi regime positioning himself as a warmonger.

While there is no way of knowing to what degree the varying positions of the two brothers reflect differences within Mr. Qaddafi’s inner circle, it is not inconceivable that they are two sides of the same coin. The Qaddafis throughout the six-month crisis have simultaneously said that they are willing to negotiate a solution while at the same time denouncing their opponents as rats whom they would fight to the bitter end. Saadi’s notion of a power-sharing arrangement has long been rejected by the rebels who say they will settle for nothing less than the Qaddafi’s complete removal from power.

Saadi, beyond guarantees for his safety by the rebels, can expect little mercy or compassion from the rebels. The man who now says that he would not use arms against fellow Muslims had no compunction about attacking his opponents who employed soccer to denounce his father’s regime and sentencing them to death.

A pile of rubble in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi testifies to the length Saadi was willing to go to abuse the beautiful game as a crutch for the regime. The rubble is what is left of the headquarters of the Al-Ahly Benghazi soccer club.

It tells a story that is extraordinary even by the standards of the bending of the beautiful game to their will by autocratic leaders in the Middle East and North Africa. The story of Al Ahly’s battle with the Qaddafis also goes a long way to explain why Benghazi emerged as the capital of the revolt.

What makes Al-Ahly’s story different from the battle on soccer pitches between autocrats and militant fans elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa was Saadi’s desperate ambition to be recognized as a top soccer player and the brutality with which he responded to expressions of dissent. To fulfill his ambition, he bought and managed Tripoli’s main soccer club, which like its Benghazi namesake is also called Al Ahly. He also captained and played on its team.

The rubble is what is left of Saadi’s effort to bury Benghazi’s historic club lock, stock and barrel. The club’s red and white colors were banned for several years from public display. 

It was a heavy price to pay for challenging the regime in a country in which sports broadcasters were forbidden to identify players by name to ensure that they did not become more popular or have greater media exposure than Saadi himself. 

The story of Al Ahly stands out as a perverted twist of the abuse of soccer by other Middle Eastern leaders like Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who publicly identified with their national soccer teams in a bid to boost their lingering popularity.

In a country in which the mosque and the soccer pitch were the only release valves for pent-up anger and frustration prior to revolt against the Qaddafis, Saadi’s association with Al Ahly meant that the prestige of the regime was on the line whenever the team played. 

As a result, soccer was as much a political match as it was a competition in which politics rather than performance often dictated the outcome.

Saadi showed his real face when little more than a decade ago, Al Ahly Benghazi fans had enough of his subversion of the game. They booed him and his team during a national cup final in front of visiting African dignitaries and taunted him by dressing up a donkey in the colors of Al Ahly Tripoli.

Saadi went ballistic.

“I will destroy your club! I will turn it into an owl's nest!” Khalifa Binsraiti, Al Ahly Benghazi’s then chairman, who was imprisoned in the subsequent crackdown, quotes an irate Saadi as telling him immediately after the match in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.

A penalty in another Al Ahli Benghazi match against a team from Al-Baydah, the home town of Saadi’s mother and the place where this year’s first anti-government demonstrations against corruption in public housing were staged, again so outraged Benghazi fans that they invaded the pitch, forcing the game to be abandoned.

Things came to a head when Saadi engineered Al Ahly Benghazi’s relegation to the second division by having a referee in a match against Libyan premier league team Al Akhdar ensure the team’s humiliation by calling a questionable penalty.

Al Ahly’s coach confronted the referee and militant fans stormed the pitch. The game was suspended and Al Ahly’s fate was sealed.

But Al Ahly fans didn’t leave it at that. They headed to downtown Benghazi shouting slogans against Saadi. They burnt a likeness of his father and set fire to the local branch of his national soccer association.

In response, Saadi had Al Ahly’s 37-hectare clubhouse and facilities raised to the ground while plainclothesmen arrested 80 soccer fans of whom 30 were charged with vandalism, destruction of public property and having contacts with Libyan dissidents abroad, a capital offense in Mr. Qaddafi’s Libya. Three were sentenced to death, but their penalties were later converted to life in prison by the Libyan ruler. They were released after serving five years in prison.

Public outrage over the retaliation against Benghazi forced Saadi to resign as head of the national soccer federation, only to be reinstated by his father in response to the federation’s alleged claim that it needed Mr. Qaddafi’s son as its leader.

The rebels, many of them soccer fans from Benghazi, will not have forgotten their humiliation at the hands of Saadi whose campaign against Al Ahly Benghazi is a study in the use of soccer by authoritarian Arab regimes to distract attention from economic and political problems and of Arab autocrats’ divide and rule approach to governance.

Nonetheless, how the rebels treat Saadi should he indeed surrender himself will serve as a litmus test of whether the rebels as Libya’s new authority can ensure that their hard fought struggle to rid the country of the yoke of dictatorship can ensure that it does not descend into a violent and vicious spiral of revenge and retribution.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Bin Hammam associate announces candidacy for AFC presidency

By James M. Dorsey

Yousuf al Serkal (Source: Gulf News Archive)

Asian Football Confederation (AFC) vice-president Yousuf al-Serkal has put himself forward to replace suspended Qatari national Mohammed bin Hammam as head of the continent’s governing soccer body.

Mr. Bin Hammam remains nominally in charge of the AFC while he launches legal challenges against his lifetime ban from world soccer body FIFA for allegedly buying votes in his failed bid to replace Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.

The AFC has delayed filling the presidency while the appeals continue, but United Arab Emirates official Mr. Al-Serkal, widely viewed as an associate of Mr. Bin Hammam, says he intends to run for the position.

“Now is the opportunity… I have more to offer Asian football as a president,'' Mr. Al-Serkel told SNTV.

"At the moment, Bin Hammam is busy sorting out the various allegations before him. He has been given a year's time by the AFC to come clean from all the charges made against him. If he proves 100 per cent that he is not guilty then he will take over his post at the AFC. If not, then I am only too willing to formally announce my intentions of contesting for the AFC President's post," Mr. Al Serkal said in a separate interview with the Gulf News.

Mr. Al-Serkal asserted that had the support of members of the executive committee of the AFC. “This makes things a lot easier for me," Mr. Al-Serkal said.

Acting AFC president Zhang Jilong of China is also expected to be a candidate to succeed Mr. Bin Hammam as is Japan’s Kohzo Tashima, who is reported to want to run for the job despite the fact that he enjoys little support in the region.

Perhaps the most controversial potential contender is Bahrain Football Association (BFA) president Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, whose candidacy could put the AFC and FIFA in a difficult position.

Sheikh Khalifa’s election is likely to meet with a mixed reaction from Arab and Iranian football fans. The BFA has denied that Bahraini national soccer team players as well as soccer and other sports executives were penalized or disciplined for their participation in anti-government demonstrations earlier this year despite solid evidence to the contrary. Sheilk Khalifa’s election would be seen as FIFA and the AFC endorsing the BFA’s involvement in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.

That may be a controversy neither the AFC nor FIFA wants at a moment that FIFA is embroiled in the worst corruption scandal in its 107-year history and Asia together with Europe is coping with match-fixing scandals in South Korea, Turkey and Finland linked to illegal betting in Southeast Asia.

Former AFC secretary general Peter Velappan said in an interview earlier this month that 

Mr. Al Serkal as head of the AFC’s competition committee had backed Nepal’s successful bid to host the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup despite the fact that an AFC inspection team advised against awarding the tournament to Nepal and in favor of its competitors, Palestine and the Maldives. The Nepal soccer association is headed by another Bin Hammam associate, Ganesh Thapa.

The AFC has warned Mr. Manilal that Nepal could lose the hosting of the Cup if it fails to get its facilities into shape. Jordanians who played in Nepal earlier this month described the pitch as a dirt field and the countries facilities as abysmal.

Sources close to the AFC executive committee said that Mr. Thapa moreover as a member of the committee had acted improperly by lobbying the organization to ignore the inspectors’ report and award the hosting of the Cup to his country.

Mr. Manilal is also under investigation by FIFA for potentially having had knowledge of 

Mr. Bin Hammam’s alleged bribery of Caribbean soccer officials to ensure their support for his failed FIFA presidential bid. Mr. Manilal was one of several officials who accompanied Mr. Bin Hammam in May to Trindidad & Tobago where he allegedly engaged in the bribery for which he was banned by FIFA.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Iranian soccer fans protest government’s failure to rescue Lake Orumiyeh

By James M. Dorsey

Iranian authorities have arrested scores of soccer fans and protesters demanding during a match this weekend that the government take measures to prevent Lake Orumiyeh in the predominantly Azeri northwest of the country from drying up.

The protest followed an Iranian parliament vote against allocating funds to channel water from the Araz River to raise the level of the salt lake that lies between the Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijan near the border with Turkey. Parliament suggested instead that Azeris living near the lake be relocated.

The protest was the third time this year that anti-government sentiment spilled onto the soccer pitch, one of the few places that strength of numbers and moments of intense passion spark expressions of dissent.

The protest erupted during a match on August 25 in the city of Tabriz between storied Iranian top league team Tractor Sazi SC, a flashpoint of Iranian Azerbaijan’s identity politics that is owned by state-run Iran Tractor Manufacturing Co. (ITMCO), and another local team, Shahrdari Tabriz SC.

“Wherever Tractor goes, fans of the opposing club chant insulting slogans. They imitate the sound of donkeys, because Azerbaijanis are historically derided as stupid and stubborn. I remember incidents going back to the time that I was a teenager,” says a long-standing observer of Iranian soccer.

Thousands of fans chanted "Lake Urmia is dying, the Majlis orders its execution" during Tractor Sazi’s match against Shahrdari.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported that at least 30 ethnic Azeris had been arrested because of the protests, some of them during an iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their Ramadan fast. Protesters were also reportedly arrested in Ardabil and other Iranian Azerbaijani cities.

RFE quoted Azeri human rights activist Vahid Qaradagli as saying the arrests were designed to prevent further protests. Mr. Qaradagli said tha some 10 million tons of salt would be exposed and pose a risk to the environment and public health if the lake dried up.

Lake Orumiyeh (Source: Mehr News Agency)

Iranian soccer pitches are battlefields for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a soccer fan who sees the game as a way to polish his tarnished images, and fans who view it as a venue to express dissent.

A 2009 cable from the US embassy in Tehran disclosed by Wikileaks describes how Mr. Ahmadinejad has sought with limited success to associate himself with Iran’s national team in a bid to curry popular favour.

Mr. Ahmadinejad went as far as in 2006 trying to lift the ban on women watching soccer matches in Iranian stadiums, but in an early public disagreement was overruled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The funeral in May of a famous Iranian soccer player in Tehran’s Azadi stadium turned into a mass protest against the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

A fan waves a photo of late defender Nasser Hejazi at the entrance to Azadi Stadium in Tehran (Source: France 24)

Tens of thousands reportedly attended the ceremony for Nasser Hejazi, an internationally acclaimed defender and outspoken critic of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

In a rare occurrence, some 1,000 women were allowed to be present during the ceremony. Iran bans women from stadiums in accordance with its strict segregation of genders in public places.

Mourners chanted “Hejazi, you spoke in the name of the people” in a reference to Mr. Hejazi’s criticism of the Iranian president’s economic policies. Mr. Hejazi took Mr. Ahmadinejad in April to task for Iran’s gaping income differences and budgetary measures which hit the poorest the hardest.

The mourners also shouted "Goodbye Hejazi, today the brave are mourning" and "Mr Nasser, rise up, your people can't stand it anymore".

The Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) postponed in February league matches in Tehran in a bid to prevent celebrations of the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution from turning into anti-government protests inspired by the anti-government protests in Tunisia and Egypt that toppled presidents Zine el Abedine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak

.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. 

Libya poses policy challenge to Asian giants

JAMES M. DORSEY

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APMahmoud Jibril, deputy chairman of the Libyan Transition National Council at a press conference in Doha on August 23, 2011, after rebel forces overran Qadhafi's Bab al-Azizya headquarters in Tripoli.

Change by any possible means is the name of the game in the Middle East and North Africa.

An offer to assist Libya with its post-Qadhafi reconstruction and rehabilitation coupled with India's remaining days as president of the United Nations Security Council and an invitation to attend this week's Friends of Libya conference in Paris enable India to turn the page in its somewhat troubled relations with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-backed rebels poised to form the North African country's new government.

The opportunity arises as India alongside China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa – the five Security Council members that did not support the imposition last March of a no-fly zone in Libya and NATO's bombing campaign — finds itself forced to rethink its approach towards embattled Arab autocratic leaders in the wake of the rebels' takeover of the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

China and Russia scrambled last week to improve their ties with the rebel Transition National Council (TNC) in a bid to salvage commercial ties and opportunities in post-Qadhafi Libya. Libya may be their most immediate concern as the TNC asserts its authority in the country, but India like China, Russia and the others, is certain to debate the implications of Mr. Qadhafi's fall in its policy towards other embattled Arab leaders, first and foremost Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

Alarm bells rang out last week in the Chinese and Russian capitals after Abdeljalil Mayouf, a manager of the rebel-controlled Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) warned that China, Russia and Brazil, in contrast to Western nations, could face political obstacles in reverting back to business as usual once Mr. Qadhafi has been removed from power. Mr. Mayouf did not mention India, but there is no doubt that in his view, it falls into the same category as China, Russia and Brazil.

To be sure, Mr. Mayouf represents only one strand of thinking among the rebels, who have agreed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy inviting India along with the other four recalcitrant Security Council members to the Paris conference to discuss support for the TNC.

Foreign assistance is crucial as the TNC faces the daunting task of enforcing law and order; preventing further acts of revenge and retribution; providing basic services such as water, electricity, food and fuel; reviving oil exports and kick-starting the economy while at the same time hunting down Mr. Qadhafi and gaining control of Qadhafi strongholds such as his hometown of Sirte.

The exercise is likely to provide India and others in the international community a template for similar situations that are certain to arise as anti-government protests sweep the Middle East and North Africa, particularly as protesters' resolve in Syria and in Yemen is boosted by events in Libya and opposition groups seek to emulate the Libyan model of forming a united leadership that effectively serves as a government-in-waiting.

Syria is probably next in line with protesters displaying the kind of resilience and perseverance that has rendered Mr. Assad's five-month old brutal crackdown a failure. As western sanctions particularly of Syria's oil sector start to kick in, the question no longer is if but when Mr. Assad will be forced out of office. India alongside China and Russia is likely to want to ensure that it maintains some kind of constructive relationship with the forces likely to succeed the Syrian leader.

Commentators have been quick to note that Asia's commercial interests in Libya are limited and are likely to in good time assert the same with regard to Syria. India's interests in Libya are virtually non-existent while China relied last year on Libya for only three per cent of its crude imports but had to evacuate from Libya 36,000 workers employed by 75 primarily State-owned Chinese companies earlier this year.

Yet, even if commercial ties with Libya and Syria are relatively miniscule, there is a lot more at stake for India and other Asian nations not only in the three countries whose autocratic leaders were toppled this year, i.e. Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, but across the Middle East and North Africa. Beyond chancing that their companies will be at a disadvantage in competing for lucrative post-revolution contracts, they risk negative perceptions in a region in which millions are closely monitoring events in Libya and Syria and are likely to be reinvigorated by the demise of Mr. Qadhafi.

Mr. Qadhafi's fall was preceded by peaceful mass protests that forced the Presidents of Tunisia and Egypt to resign earlier this year. The grievances that have propelled the rebellion in Libya and the protests in Syria, Tunisia and Egypt are shared with the population of a swath of land that stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf. Change by hook or by crook is likely to be the name of the game for the next decade in the Middle East and North Africa, a region that is strategic because of its geography, energy resources and the financial clout of its oil producers.

No doubt, the struggle for greater political freedom and economic opportunity is likely to be protracted and bloody and the transition towards more open societies messy at best. In a region in which the struggle to get rid of the yoke of dictatorship faces the constant threat of sectarian and tribal strife, India with its mosaic of ethnic and religious groups cohabiting in a democracy and its long-standing ties to parts of the Middle East has much to offer.

That is most immediately true in Libya where the TNC has to quickly move from the rebel capital of Benghazi in the east of the country to Tripoli in a demonstrative gesture of its taking control of the country and a city of two million that is without political leadership or direction. With no running water in Tripoli because supply from aquifers in the desert has been disrupted by the fighting and barely any electricity, the TNC has already promised to immediately start distributing 30,000 tons of gasoline as well as diesel fuel for power stations.

In a country, in which in his 42 years in power Mr. Qadhafi ensured that no institutions developed that could challenge his authority, the TNC and its elected successor will need substantial support in building a more open, transparent society from scratch. Iraq, which was wracked by sectarian violence and fratricide after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, has served as an example of how not to do it. Those lessons are reflected in the TNC's blueprint for the future, which outlines a 20-month timetable for the transition as well as procedures to ensure that the process is transparent.

Like the rebels, Mr. Qadhafi too appears to have drawn inspiration from Iraq's example. He allowed his capital to fall, ensured his escape and vowed to wage an insurgency. Hussein fled to his hometown of Tikrit where he exploited his successor's policies to fuel sectarian strife. Mr. Qadhafi's whereabouts remain a mystery and it is not clear whether he has returned to Sirte. Unlike Hussein, Mr. Qadhafi has no powerful neighbours on whose support he will be able to rely. As a result, Mr. Qadhafi's final stand could prove to be a less bloody and wrenching battle than that of Hussein and his associates.

For India like for China and Russia, the challenge is to develop middle rather than short-term policies that enable it to capitalise on political and economic opportunities amid initial chaos and instability. Transition in Syria is likely to prove as messy as it is in Libya.

It took five months of bloodshed in Syria for India and the other Security Council holdouts to endorse condemnation of Mr. Assad's crackdown and then only in the weakest possible form because of their concern that it could lead to foreign military intervention. Syrians, unlike Libyans, oppose foreign military aid and have so far insisted that they do not want to move from peaceful to armed resistance.

This should make it easier for India, if not for Russia and China, to get on the right side of history. Doing so does not require a political U-turn but would mean a more forceful stand against the brutality of an embattled leader that does not give him an effective license to brutally crackdown on protesters by effectively blocking an international consensus. Libya offers an opportunity for countries like India to demonstrate that their heart is in the right place.

(James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.)

Algerian-Qatari tension over Libya spills onto the soccer pitch

Islamist rebel Abdel Hakim Belhadj 

By James M. Dorsey

Diplomatic tensions between Algeria and Qatar over the Gulf state’s support for NATO-backed Libyan rebels are spilling onto the soccer field.

As part of a litany of alleged anti-Algerian moves by Qatar, Algerian media are accusing the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), of seeking to undermine Algeria’s soccer prospects by offering Algerian players in Europe large sums of money and Qatari citizenship if they move to its national team. The media have not identified specific instances and no Algerian player has recently packed up his bags and moved to Qatar.

Qatar, which will host the 2022 World Cup, was several years ago slapped on its fingers by world soccer body FIFA for trying to lure Latin American players with promises of money and citizenship. FIFA has since tightened the rules governing the acquisition of foreigners for national teams. The Algerian media charge that the approach to the country’s soccer players is part of a Qatari effort to damage the Algerian economy by buying strategic Algerian assets.

In response to the allegations, Qatar has reportedly stopped issuing visas to Algerians.

Algeria charges that Qatari financial and material support of the rebel Libyan Transition National Council (TNC), which has effectively replaced Colonel Moammar Qaddafi as the troubled country’s sole legal authority involves aiding Al Qaeda’s North African franchise, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Qatar is “funnelling hundreds of millions of dollars to fund and fuel the TNC and its various branches, including the army of Al Qaeda,” said an Algerian newspaper editorial.

Relations between Algeria and the Libyan rebels are fraught. Rebel officials have accused Algeria of backing Mr. Qaddafi in the country's civil war, an allegation Algeria has denied. Algerian officials, despite Arab League recognition of the TNC, say they will not recognize the Libyan rebels as the new leadership of its neighbour until they have received a strong commitment that the new government will fight AQIM.

Algeria is still emerging from a conflict with Islamist militants which killed an estimated 200,000 people at its peak in the 1990s. Its government is concerned that chaos in Libya could be exploited by al Qaeda. An AQIM suicide bomber killed 18 Algerian soldiers this weekend in an attack on a military facility.

Algeria asserts that it has evidence that Libyan militants it had handed over to Mr. Qaddafi's government are now at large in Libya and some have joined the insurgents. 

"There is proof that Libyan Islamists who were delivered by Algeria to Tripoli have managed to flee and join the rebels. We even saw one of them on Al Jazeera television, speaking in the name of the TNC. We want to be certain that the new rulers in Libya are involved in the fight against al Qaeda in our region -- this is key for good relations," a government official told Reuters news agency.

Algeria has also asserted that AQIM has gained access to Libyan weapons arsenals.

The TNC has rejected assertions that it has been infiltrated by al Qaeda or other Islamist militants.

The Algerian assertions have gained currency with reports that a senior Islamist guerrilla with past ties to Al Qaeda and its late leader, Osama Bin Laden, has helped the rebels capture the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The Islamist, Abdel Hakim Belhadj,a leader of Libyan Islamic Movement for Change, was a leader of the now defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

Founded in Afghanistan, the LIFG broke with Al Qaeda in the 1990s, opting to fight Mr. Qaddafi’s regime in Libya rather than wage global jihad. Many of its fighters were killed in battles with Mr. Qaddafi’s forces while many others landed in prison. LIFG fighters who were either released from jail before the anti-Qaddafi revolt or escaped during the uprising joined the TNC-led insurgency. Mr. Belhadj was among the Islamists released last year under a rehabilitation program headed by Mr. Qaddafi’s son, Saif al Islam.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Soccer: a tool to further Palestinian statehood (JMD on BBC)

BBC World Football

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/wswf/wswf_20110826-1129a.mp3

Syria starts feeling the pain of Western sanctions

Western sanctions start to hit home in Syria’s oil sector (Source: Syrian Oil and Gaz News)

By James M. Dorsey

Embattled President Bashar al Assad is feeling the pain of Western sanctions for the first time since anti-government protests erupted in Syria five months ago.

Already deprived of $8 billion a year in tourism receipts, Syria was this week forced to halt all US dollar denominated transactions as a result of new US sanctions announced last Tuesday. As if that were not bad enough, some of the world’s largest oil companies have severed their ties to Syria in anticipation of a new European Union sanction regime.

Taken together, the measures aimed at forcing Mr. Assad to halt his brutal crackdown on the protesters are the first by Western governments and institutions to be more than symbolic in the short term. The halt on US dollar transactions was prompted by US Treasury sanctions against the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, which handles most of Syria’s oil business and a ban on imports and exports to Syria, including oil and gas.

Tuesday’s US targeting of Syrian oil exports and imports was designed to prompt Europe, the main buyer of Syrian oil, to follow suit. The EU has yet to decide whether it too will target the Syrian oil sector, which funds up to a third of the budget of Mr. Assad’s government.

Even so, the effective sanctioning of US dollar transactions and the anticipation of European sanctions was sufficient for the likes of Trafigura, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and Total to quietly cut their ties to Syria. The four companies are among the most important buyers of Syrian crude, which is refined in European refineries, or the country’s main suppliers of refined products such as gasoline and diesel.

The four companies stopped doing business with Syria as Britain’s oil explorer Gulfsands Petroleum was this week forced to defend itself against mounting criticism of its links to Mr. Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, who by some estimates controls more than half of Syria's economy. Mr. Makhklouf is on a list of 35 people that includes Mr. Assad on whom the EU and the United States imposed sanctions earlier this year.

The decision by the oil companies is likely to make it easier for the EU to impose oil sanctions of its own despite fears that such a measure would impose hardship on ordinary Syrians. Syrian officials have been feeding those fears by warning that the country will have to tighten its belt as unemployment and poverty increases as a result of the sanctions.

The US sanctions and the oil companies’ refusal to do further business with Syria have increased the pressure on Mr. Assad, but like a cat with nine lives, the president is looking to China and Russia to ease his predicament. Syrian officials are certain that China will step in to take over the oil business they were conducting with Europe. At the same time, Syria’s central bank is shifting all transactions from US dollars to euros.

Syrian officials also believe that Gulf states who in recent weeks for the first time condemned Mr. Assad’s crackdown, withdrew their ambassadors from Damascus and quietly halted investments in Syria are having second thoughts. They take heart from the fact Saudi Arabia recently arrested anti-Assad demonstrators while Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani is visiting Iran, Syria’s closest ally. That could prove to be an illusion. Saudi-led criticism of Mr. Assad is motivated by the desire to further isolate Iran rather than by concern about the bloodshed in Syria.

Nonetheless, Sheikh Hamid’s visit to Iran has special significance to the Syrians. He is the first Gulf leader, albeit one who conducts an independent foreign policy, to visit Iran since anti-government-protests began sweeping the Middle East and North Africa in December of last year. Most Gulf nations accuse Iran of instigating the protests.

Russia’s United Nations ambassador Vitaly Churkin encouraged Syrian hopes that his country together with China may come to Mr. Assad’s rescue by saying that Russia was likely to continue to oppose Western efforts to get the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Syria. Mr. Churkin said Russia advocated dialogue and diplomacy instead of sanctions.

The Russian approach and China’s reluctance to condemn violence failed in Libya where

Moscow unsuccessfully tried to persuade Colonel Moammar Qaddafi to seek a negotiated settlement with NATO-backed rebels who have now gained control of the capital Tripoli and most of the rest of the country. The failure of Russia and China to support the rebels or at least garner favour with them by strongly condemning Mr. Qaddafi threatens to deprive them of lucrative contracts in the post-Qaddafi reconstruction of Libya.

Mr. Assad has so far proven to be as intransigent as Mr. Qaddafi. He has rejected appeals to stop his crackdown by his closest friends, including Turkey. Shielding Mr. Assad from the pain he is starting to feel from Western sanctions theoretically would put Russia and China in a position to push the Syrian leader to halt the violence and implement the kind of political and economic reforms that would satisfy the protesters demands.

There is however little reason to believe that Mr. Assad would be susceptible to Russian or Chinese pressure. For that, it is too late. It is hard to envision any compromise after five months of brutality that has cost some 2,200 lives that would not lead to Mr. Assad’s demise. Mr. Assad may be able to cling to power for some time yet, but his demise is a question of when rather than if. That leaves Russia and China with a closing window of opportunity to plan for a post-Assad Syria in which they are not seen as in Libya as powers that opposed the very people that ultimately will replace the country’s autocratic leader.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Soccer players speak out about their ordeal during Bahrain’s brutal crackdown on protesters

Awaiting trial and barred from playing: Alaa Hubail (Source: CarbonatedTV)

By James M. Dorsey

When Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa came out in support of peaceful anti-government protests earlier this year, national soccer team players and brothers Alaa and Mohammed Hubail believed the time had come for them to add their voices to demands for greater political freedom and economic opportunity.

The two star players had been until then reluctant to join mass protests on the Gulf island, afraid that their popularity and reputations would make them targets. The crown prince’s statement suggested they had nothing to fear. They joined a march in February of several hundred athletes to Pearl Square in the Bahraini capital of Manama, the focal point of the Shiite Muslim-led protests against the Gulf nation's minority Sunni Muslim rulers.

That proved to be a major mistake as the 31-year old Alaa Hubail recounted in an interview with The Associated Press’s Mike Casey, his first with the foreign press since he and his brother were arrested, abused and humiliated during the government’s brutal suppression of the protests.

Two weeks after the demonstration, Ala’a was denounced as a traitor on state-run television. A day later he, Mohammed, 29, and national team goalkeeper Ali Saeed Abdullah were arrested while training at their Al Alhi soccer club in the Bahraini capital. 

Three other national team players were also detained among 150 Bahraini athletes and sports officials who were sacked or arrested for participating in the protests. The arrests were part of a government sweep that targeted medics, government employees and activists, many of who said they were tortured while in detention.

The arrests and sackings were ordered by Bahrain Football Association (BFA) chairman Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, who headed a committee that identified them from photos of the protests. Six Shiite soccer clubs were fined $20,000 each and suspended from the domestic league.

Sheikh Salman’s involvement in the crackdown has privately prompted questions within the Asian Football Confederation because he is a frontrunner to succeed disgraced Qatari national Mohammed Bin Hammam as the organization’s president. The AFC last month postponed initiating the process of electing a new president to give Mr. Bin Hammam time to appeal a world soccer body FIFA ban for life on involvement in football because of his alleged engagement in bribery. AFC officials suggest privately that electing Sheikh Salman would send the wrong signal.

Mohamed was tried by a Bahraini security court and convicted to two years in prison, but later release pending his appeal after world soccer body FIFA questioned the BFA about the crackdown. The BFA denied that any soccer player or official had been disciplined or arrested because of partcipttaion in the protests.

Alaa nonetheless has a court case that has yet to go to court. He and the five other national team players have been barred from playing on the national team or in Bahrain’s domestic league.

"I served my country with love and will continue as much as I can. But I won't forget the experience which I went through for all my life. What happened to me was a cost of fame. Participating in the athletes' rally was not a crime,” ," Alaa, nicknamed the Golden Boy after he was named in 2004 Asian Footballer of the Year told The Associated Press at his home in the predominantly Shiite village of Sitra.

The protests were part of the wave of anti-government demonstrations sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike in Syria and elsewhere the region, Bahrain succeeded to squash the protests with brute force. Thousands were detained and some 30 people were killed.

By including athletes in the crackdown, Bahrain effectively shot itself in its foot. Like other Gulf states, Bahrain sees sports as a vehicle to project itself on to the world stage. It succeeded in attracting the region's first Formula One race, the Bahrain Grand Prix, and in becoming part of this year’s   Volvo Golf Champions European tours. Both events were however cancelled because of the protests.

AP said that Alaa and other athletes interviewed feared that speaking to the press would earn them harsher prison sentences, but that they felt they had no choice but to speak out about their experience in detention were they allegedly were beaten and accused of being agents of Iran or Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite militia-cum-political party in Lebanon.

"I only went to the (Pearl) roundabout for 30 minutes. I never said bad things about the government, especially the king. The sports people only went there because they want freedom for the people. Everybody went there. It wasn't a big thing,” ," Tariq al-Farsani, a former bodybuilder who was arrested April 15 and spent some two months in jail, told AP.

Mr. Al-Farsani, like the others interviewed by AP, said they were barred from returning to their jobs, unable to find new employment, and living in a legal no-man’s land.

"When I saw all this happen to me, I feel like I'm nothing. They don't care about anyone who served the country, who made history for this country," Saleh Hasan, a nine-time Bahrain pingpong champion who was banned as a national coach and lost his job at the Ministry of Education, told AP.

"Seventy days in jail. This is their appreciation to me," he said. "I'm thinking a lot of ending my sportsman career. ... The things they do to me has given me another chance to think. All my history was a big mistake for this country if they will treat us like this."

AP said that several athletes remained in prison, including brothers Mohammed and Ali Mirza, who played for the country's handball team that in January went to the 2011 World Cup, and 16-year-old Iraqi soccer player Zulfiqar Naji, who played for Al Muharraq's junior team.

Bahrain's Information Affairs Authority, in a statement quoted by AP, said no one had been jailed because of their profession, but that it "was their understanding that people have been detained for various reasons to do with the maintenance of public order or threats to national security."

The authority said that an independent commission of inquiry was investigating the allegations, including claims of torture and would issue a report in late October. It said the future of athletes was an issue for clubs and team managers, not the government.

"The idea that there is some kind of conspiracy against sports people is ludicrous," the authority said. "Bahrain is proud of its patriotic sports men and women and looks forward to seeing their talents on display at the forthcoming Gulf Cooperation Council Games in Bahrain (in October)."

Many of the soccer players are trying to move on with their lives. National team defender Sayed Mohammed Adnan went into voluntary exile and has joined Australian A-League champion Brisbane Roar. Alaa recently signed a deal to play for an Omani football club.

His brother Mohammed is still looking for a place to go. He rejected an offer to return to Al Ahli because the club demanded that he sign a statement admitting to his crimes. Mohammed told AP he was still trying to come to grips with the abuse he says he suffered in prison where he allegedly was blindfolded, handcuffed and kicked and beaten with hoses. He wonders whether he wants to return to soccer and says he is not sure he’d again want to wear Bahrain’s red and white colour if he were asked to re-join the national team.

"Sure, I want to play. But first we need a solution to all of this," he told AP. "I need to know what is going to happen to me. For our community, the nation, how long are we going to be like this?"

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. 

Asian football struggles to shed off-field malaise (Interview with AP)

JOHN DUERDEN  Associated Press First Posted: August 25, 2011 - 9:51 pm Last Updated: August 25, 2011 - 9:52 pm

AAA

SEOUL, South Korea — The motto of the Asian Football Confederation is 'The Future is Asia', yet a series of recent controversies indicate the game seems unable to shake off its unhappy history of corruption, bribery and political interference across the continent.

Asian football may be making great strides in some areas — luring top quality players — but the problems off the pitch remain as a brake on development, with Syria's expulsion from the 2014 World Cup qualifiers being yet another example.

In its second-round win over Tajikistan in July, Syria selected George Mourad despite the fact that the player had represented Sweden earlier in his career and was therefore ineligible.

The Syrian Football Association queried the decision and said FIFA's ban was politically motivated — a charge that is a common and often legitimate refrain in the Middle East nations.

Political interference is endemic on multiple levels, according to James Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

"Soccer in West Asia, a region dominated by autocratic regimes, constitutes both an image booster and a threat to governments," Dorsey told The Associated Press. "As a result, political interference is part of the game. Across the region countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar witness a rapid turnover of coaches and trainers because they approach them as a zero-sum game.

"Ironically, Syria — prior to the eruption of this year's anti-government protest — had actually witnessed a degree of improved professionalism. But with professional matches suspended because of the protests and a brutal government crackdown, embattled president Bashar al Assad has regained a degree of control."

In recent years, FIFA has suspended the federations of Kuwait, Iran, Yemen and Iraq for political interference in their national football bodies.

Bahrain ran the risk of receiving a similar sentence earlier this year, after established internationals Sayed Mohamed Adnan, Alaa and Mohammed Hubail were imprisoned in April, accused of taking part in anti-government demonstrations.

While they have since been released, charges have not been dropped and they will not play in the third-round qualifier against Qatar beginning on Sept. 2.

It is not just the national bodies that are in political turmoil. Even the AFC itself is without a president after Mohammed bin Hammam was banned from all football activities for life in July by FIFA's Ethics Committee after being found guilty of vote buying during his failed bid to replace FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

The AFC has left the presidency open pending the outcome of bin Hammam's appeals — leaving Asia's peak body leaderless at a time it is being urged to make reforms to promote the game.

West Asia has struggled at times with incompetence and interference, and Southeast Asia has had its own issues.

This year alone, elections to choose the head of the federations in Thailand and Indonesia were suspended amid political infighting. Long-term head of the Indonesian FA Nurdin Halid, jailed for corruption during his leadership, was finally prevented from running for a third term.

In June, Djohar Arifin Husin was elected and two days into the new regime, and just a week before the start of qualification for the 2014 World Cup, national team coach Alfred Riedl was fired. The former Austrian coach was told that his contract was invalid. "I have since had no contact with the new federation," said Riedl, who believes he is a victim of the political rivalries between Nurdin and his enemies. "I have still not been paid and I have sent all the details to FIFA."

Corruption is a long-standing problem in the region. According to Steve Darby, an English coach with experience in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, a more professional outlook would help.

"There have been recent arrests in Malaysia but the problem is deep-rooted," said Darby. "The basic first step is to pay on time and in full, as debt, especially in poorer countries, is a major contributor to match-fixing."

Former English Premier League defender Zesh Rehman plays for Thailand champion Muang Thong United and believes that Southeast Asian football is getting its act together.

"There is always room for improvement," Rehman told AP. "But the level of professionalism at Muang Thong is very good. Our club is the benchmark for others in terms of fan base, marketing, and the club in general as a brand. Countries like Japan and Korea are what Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia should be aspiring to emulate, it's starting to happen."

South Korea's not exempt from off-field strife. The K-League, Asia's oldest and most successful national league in terms of continental titles, this week imposed a lifetime ban on 40 footballers for their alleged involvement in a match-fixing. The ban from appearing in games and assuming any official football-related jobs follows a similar punishment handed to 10 players in June. Seven indicted footballers-turned-gambling brokers have also been banned.

Authorities are drawing up plans for a revised league with much stricter operating criteria for clubs to meet from 2013.

Despite the problems around Asia, the general direction of the continent is forward.

James Montague, author of When Friday Comes, a book about football and politics in the Middle East, believes that Syria didn't do its homework with Mourad but is optimistic about the future.

"The professionalism of the players in the region is actually pretty good when you look at what they have to put up with: war, political interference, ineptitude within federations, corruption and poverty. When you look at somewhere like Palestine, where in three years they have built a professional league, started a women's league and built their first home stadium, there is proof that it is going in the right direction."

Soccer-playing Qaddafi son seeks to negotiate ceasefire in Libya

(Al Saadi Al Qaddafi (Source: Mafiatoday.com)

By James M. Dorsey

Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Qaddafi’s soccer-playing son, Al Saadi Al Qaddafi, has reportedly offered to broker a ceasefire with NATO and the United States in an email to a CNN correspondent.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson said he received an email on Wednesday from Mr. Qaddafi, saying that he was authorized to negotiate a deal.

"I will try to save my city Tripoli and 2 millions of people living there ... otherwise Tripoli will be lost forever like Somalia,” Mr. Qaddafi said, referring to the civil war that has ravaged that East African state.  Without a cease-fire, Mr. Qaddafi said, "soon it will be a sea of blood."

The 38-year Qaddafi scion was reported earlier this week to have been captured by NATO-backed rebels after they entered the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Al Saadi, a businessman and the head of the Libyan soccer association, reportedly commanded a key brigade in the Libyan military.

Al Saadi apparently made no mention of talks with the rebels in his email. The rebel Transition National Council (TNC) had no immediate comment on the email.

Libyan government officials have made several cease-fire offers during the six-month revolt against Colonel Qaddafi’s 42-year rule. US and European officials said that several Libyan officials had reached out to them in recent days.

Colonel Qaddafi, whose whereabouts are not known after the rebels on Wednesday captured his compound in Tripoli has vowed to launch an insurgency against his opponents.

With the United States, Britain and Qatar assisting the rebels in their hunt for Mr. Qaddafi, it seems unlikely that they would be willing to negotiate with Al Saadi without a guarantee that his father would agree to either turn himself in or go into exile.

Al Saadi’s soccer career has been marked by brutality, political interference in the beautiful game and manipulation of matches. It highlights the use of the soccer pitch by Middle Eastern and North African autocrats like Colonel Qaddafi as a tool to improve their tarnished images and control popular discontent.

Al Saadi’s association with Libyan soccer meant that the prestige of the regime was on the line whenever the national team or Tripoli’s Al Ahly, which Al Aassdi owned, played. As a result, soccer was as much a political match as it was a competition in which politics rather than performance often dictated the outcome.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. 

South Africa agrees to replace Libya as host of 2013 Nations Cup in bid to pre-empt Nigeria

By James M. Dorsey

Libya has agreed to withdraw as host of the 2013 African Cup of Nations in favour of South Africa ss rebels hunt for Colonel Moammar Qaddafi and the country heads for a prolonged and possibly messy transition to democracy.

The South African Football Association (SAFA) said in a statement that it had signed an agreement to that effect with its Libyan counterpart.

SAFA said that South Africa had effectively swapped hosting dates with Libya. In return for withdrawing from the 2013 tournament, SAFA said that the troubled North African nation would host the 2017 games that originally had been awarded to South Africa.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) had been pressuring Libya to recognize earlier rather than later that it may not be able to host the 2013 Cup so that a replacement could be found in a timely fashion.

CAF wanted to avoid a repeat of the scramble in April when South Africa agreed to host at the last minute the African Youth Championship, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Libya.

SAFA said the swap with Libya would have to be confirmed by CAF’s executive committee which is scheduled to meet in Cairo on Sept. 28.

"All the issues regarding 2013 will be discussed at the end of September. The issues regarding 2013 will definitely be discussed by the executive committee and decisions on tournament hosting can only be made by the executive committee,” ," CAF spokesman Suleiman Habuba said..

The agreement between South Africa and Libya furthermore covers the 2014 African Nations Cup, a tournament for emerging players, which was also to be hosted by Libya.

It was not immediately clear who signed the agreement on behalf of the Libyan association. The Libyan soccer body was headed by Mr. Qaddafi’s soccer-playing son, Al Saadi Al Qaddafi, whose whereabouts are unclear. Al Saadi was reported earlier this week to have been captured by the rebels after they entered the capital of Tripoli.

By signing the agreement, South Africa hopes to pre-empt Algeria and Nigeria, which are also lobbying to replace Libya. Egypt was initially interested but said later that it was not a candidate. South Africa hopes to capitalize on the fact that it has the infrastructure and experience in place following last year’s World Cup.

The agreement between South Africa and Libya could pose a problem for CAF, which in 2006 agreed with Nigeria that it would have the right to step in if any of the Nations Cup hosts named that year were unable to fulfil their commitments.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Bin Hammam appeals FIFA’s banning him for life from soccer

Mohammed Bin Hammam (Source: http://victorikoli.blogspot.com)

By James M. Dorsey

Suspended Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Mohammed Bin Hammam has appealed world soccer body FIFA’s decision to ban him for life from involvement in soccer and oust him as the body’s vice president.

In a statement, the 62-year old Qatari national said that he had filed with the soccer body’s appeals committee his appeal against last month’s verdict by the group’s ethic committee that found him guilty of bribery.

Mr. Bin Hammam, who has asserted that the charges against him had been trumped up to prevent him from challenging FIFA president Sepp Blatter in last June’s presidential election said that he was “not hoping for justice to prevail” but had filed the appeal  “ as a protocol to enable me access to the Court of Arbitration of Sport."

Mr. Bin Hammam is the most senior figure ever to have been banned by FIFA and is at the center of the worst corruption scandal in the organization’s 107-year history.

Mr. Bin Hammam withdrew his presidential candidacy in late May hours before the ethics committee suspended him pending its investigation. His withdrawal paved the way for Mr. Blatter’s unchallenged re-election for a fourth term as president. Mr. Bin Hammam was banned based on the conclusions of the investigation.

The investigation has led to enquiries into a number of Caribbean soccer officials whom Mr. Bin Hammam allegedly bribed to secure their support for his presidential campaign. The head of North and Central American and Caribbean soccer, Jack Warner, resigned to avoid investigation.

Mr. Bin Hammam filed his appeal after FIFA last week released the documents justifying its decision.

"The panel from the Appeals Committee is decided by my opponent and in this case, as previously, the judge is the rival. Therefore, I should not exaggerate hope for a fair decision,” Mr. Bin Hammam said.

He said the decision by the ethics committee was “deeply flawed” and raised “doubts on whether any decision-making body of FIFA has sufficient independence to ensure a fair decision based solely on evidences and applicable laws.”

Mr. Bin Hammam suggested that the appeals process could take up to two months and charged that FIFA would seek to extend the process.

The AFC last month decided to postpone a decision on whether to replace Mr. Bin Hammam, whose presidency of the group has been suspended, effectively giving him time for the appeals process.

Mr. Bin Hammam asserted that he had been suspended by FIFA on May 29 allegedly on strong evidence provided by FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke and executive committee member Chuck Blazer.

"Yet despite the alleged strong evidences conclusive enough to justify my suspension and deprived me of going to the Congress and running as a FIFA Presidential candidate surprisingly enough, FIFA went for another investigation again, this time by (former FBI chief Louis Freeh’s) Freeh group, to look for evidences which they never had in the first instance to suspend me. Consequently, my suspension, instead of 30 days became almost two months and on 23 July, I was found guilty beyond any doubt by a kangaroo court and banned for life,” Mr. Bin Hammam said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

The colonel's solitude - interview in El Mundo

Damage limitation: China and Russia have options in Libya and Syria but time is running out

 Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutuoglu visits Benghazi (Source: Al Jazeera)

By James M. Dorsey

China and Russia would do well to take a leaf out of Turkey’s playbook in trying to recover lost ground with Libyan rebels taking control of their country even though Colonel Moammar Qaddafi remains at large.

Turkey like China and Russia alongside India, Brazil and South Africa initially opposed foreign military intervention in Libya. But unlike the others Turkey reversed its position early on and became a member of the Libya Contact Group that groups NATO and the Arab League.

It is too late for the five United Nations Security Council members to undo the fact that in contrast to Turkey they continue to oppose the military intervention as well as the fact that Mr. Qaddafi’s opponents took up arms against him.

Their position threatens now to haunt them as they brace themselves for the fact that they may not get a significant share of Libya’s post-Qaddafi reconstruction pie. It also confronts them with the need to review their policies so that they are not caught in the cold as the Arab revolt sweeping the Middle East and North Africa threatens the grip on power of other autocrats in the region, first and foremost embattled Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

That need not involve a dramatic U-turn. It would however mean being proactive rather than reactive with the Libyan rebels as well as with Mr. Assad’s opponents. There is nothing to stop representatives of China and Russia from following in the footsteps of Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu who this week became the most senior foreign official to visit Benghazi since the rebels entered Tripoli this weekend.

Bearing a gift of $300 million in grants and loans, Mr. Davutuoglu is certain to have ensured that Turkey will rank high on the list of nations to benefit from Libya’s reconstruction. Mr. Davutuoglu told the rebels he wanted Turkey’s state-owned energy group Turkish Petroleum Group (TPAO) to resume oil production and exploration in Libya.

Representatives of China and Russia as well as from India, Brazil and South Africa may not be greeted with the same enthusiasm with which Mr. Davutuoglu was welcomed, but the gesture of following the example of the Turkish official would not be lost on the rebels. That is certain to be all the more the case if Mr. Qaddafi makes good on his threat to wage an insurgency against the rebels as they seek to establish their authority over the country.

That threat could significantly complicate the rebel’s already daunting task of establish law and order, ensuring the revival of basic services, kick starting the economy and leading a transition to democracy. In those circumstances, the rebels will more than ever need all the assistance they can get.

If the rebels and NATO powers look at what went wrong in Iraq to save Libya the fate of a cycle of vicious violence and fracticide, Mr. Qaddafi may well have seen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s campaign of terror as an example to emulate. Like Mr. Hussein, Mr. Qaddafi appears to have escaped from his besieged headquarters through vast underground complex surrendering Tripoli in the hope of being able to wage a prolonged and bloody insurgency.

The window of opportunity for China, Russia and the others to try and limit the damage they suffered by failing to support the rebels is however limited. The rebels, acting on Western advice based on the experience in Iraq, are emphasizing the need to avoid retribution, be inclusive in giving all elements of Libyan society a stake in shaping their country’s future and ensure the operations of medical facilities and communications as well as the supply of electricity, fuel and water. The rebels hope that this will undermine support for Mr. Qaddafi whose potential insurgency would lack the kind of covert support Mr. Hussein enjoyed from neighboring countries.

The Libyan rebels are likely to get the bridge financing they need from Western as well as Arab nations until the billions of dollars in frozen overseas Libyan assets are freed and put at their disposal. Nonetheless, this is for the rebels a moment of immediate need, one that China and Russia and the others could help alleviate. Such a gesture would not erase the past but would go some way in repairing their tarnished images.

Similarly, China and Russia could quietly establish relations with Syrian protesters in a bid to avert a similar situation if and when Mr. Assad is forced to relinquish power. The US and European push for the adoption of UN sanctions against Syria offers China, Russia and the other Security Council members another opportunity to position themselves differently.

To do so, China and Russia would have to define their interests over the middle rather than the short term and defeat widespread conspiracy theories in their capitals that assert that Western nations see the Arab revolt as a spring plank for similar uprisings in their own backyards. That would stand them in good stead in a resource-rich region that stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf whose short and medium-term future is one that will be marked by popular demand for political and economic change.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.