Russia is protecting Syria’s former strongman. But it’s also talking to the rebels who ousted him

Russia is protecting Syria’s former strongman. But it’s also talking to the rebels who ousted him

The three-starred flag representing Syrian rebel groups was hoisted up a pole atop the Syrian embassy in Moscow on Monday — even as Bashar Al-Assad, Syria’s brutal dictator, is believed to be in exile in Russia after President Vladimir Putin granted him and his family asylum. 

“This is politics,” said Ahamad Al-Gafra, a Syrian national who spoke to Reuters outside of the embassy. “I think Russia has the right to its interests.”

Over the past decade, Russia has spent billions of dollars propping up Al-Assad’s regime, which gave it a foothold in the Middle East and leases for two strategically important military bases. In exchange, Russia’s airforce launched tens of thousands of deadly airstrikes against opposition groups and Syrian cities.

With Russia’s help, Al-Assad crushed his opponents, killing hundreds of thousands of Syrians, and forced millions of others to flee. 

Now that the regime has crumbled, the Kremlin finds itself sheltering its one-time strongman and trying to manage ties with the rebel groups that quickly swept in to defeat him. 

Sudden political shift

The rebel push toward the Syrian capital, Damascus, was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist group whose origins included links to al-Qaeda.

Russia, along with several other countries, including Canada, consider HTS a terrorist group. But the language being used in Russian media to describe them has softened nearly as quickly as the collapse of the Al-Assad regime. 

Near the beginning of his show on Sunday, Russian television host Dmitry Kiselyov referred to HTS as a terrorist group and former al-Qaeda cell. But by the end of the broadcast, he was referring to the rebels as the “armed opposition.”

“Since yesterday, [the language in Russian media] has been pretty unflattering towards Assad,” said Anna Matveeva, a visiting senior research fellow with Kings College London. “They are not calling him a bloodthirsty dictator — but not saying that he was a white knight in shining armour, either.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t elaborate on the whereabouts of Al-Assad or his wife, Asma, and their three adult children. But Russian state media have reported the family has been granted asylum in the country. 

Al-Assad and his wife, who was raised in London, are sanctioned by several governments, but have strong ties to Russia. 

Russian connections

According to an investigation by the Financial Times, Al-Assad’s extended family previously bought at least 18 luxury apartments in a single complex in Moscow in an attempt to safeguard their money during the civil war and rounds of international sanctions.

Al-Assad’s three children vacationed at a seaside resort in Crimea as teenagers, after Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014. In 2023, Al-Assad’s oldest son, Hafez, graduated from a masters program in mathematics at Moscow State University. His mother, the now former first lady of Syria, was part of a special delegation that travelled to Moscow for the ceremony. 

Matveeva told CBC she met Al-Assad’s oldest son in 2019 at a cultural event in Damascus, and recalls speaking to him briefly in Russian.

She says it’s not surprising the Kremlin granted Al-Assad’s family asylum. The arrangement gave him a quick exit from the country and allowed him to escape the fate that befell Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was hanged in 2006, and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, who was shot by rebels after being ousted from power in 2011. 

“Russia, of course, would be able to control what he does or doesn’t do. He wouldn’t engage in any political activity unless Moscow thinks it is in their interest.”

Any moral argument that Russia shouldn’t be harbouring a wanted war criminal is “completely lost” on the Kremlin, Matveeva says. 

“Putin himself is wanted by the International Criminal Court,” she said. The Russian government regards “it as just a political label.”

On the streets of Moscow, a journalist working for Reuters spoke to a handful of residents. All publicly supported the actions of their government. 

“There is a slogan — ‘We do not dump our [allies].’ I understand that politics is a complicated and delicate business,” said one man, who would only be identified by his first name, Leonid. 

Russia has granted high-profile political asylum before, including for Viktor Yanukovych, the former Ukrainian president who has been convicted of treason for aiding Russian aggression in 2014.

Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor accused of leaking classified documents on U.S. government surveillance programs, was granted asylum, too (and got Russian citizenship in 2022).

Russian military and investment in Syria

While the Kremlin hasn’t disclosed when Al-Assad arrived or even the last time he met with Putin, officials say everything is being done to try to secure two Russian military bases that it leases from the Syrian government.

Russia has an airbase stationed at Hmeimim in Syria’s Latakia province and a naval facility at Tartus on the coast, which is Russia’s only repair hub in the Mediterranean.

Moscow frequently uses Syria as a staging area to move its military contractors in and out of Africa. It had an agreement with the now-deposed Syrian regime to lease the spaces until 2066. 

“Now we see that we are in a time of transformation, of extreme instability, so, of course, it will take time and a serious conversation with those who will be in power,” Peskov said during a Monday morning press call with journalists. 

Aside from the military bases, Russia has around $20 billion US worth of investments in Syria, including in oil and gas projects.

Matveeva says if Moscow were to lose them, it would claim the Syria endeavour was a setback, but not “catastrophic.”

During the civil war, Matveeva says there were few Russian troops inside Syria. Instead, paid fighters from the mercenary Wagner Group were on the ground. 

She says average Russians don’t really see Syria as their war, with the military and much of the economy mobilized toward the battle in Ukraine. 

Nikita Smagin, an independent expert on Russia and the Middle East, said that when Russia joined the Syrian conflict in 2015, the Kremlin saw it as a chance to secure a presence in the region amid other global players, such as the U.S.

“Russia saw Syria as a very important asset that helps them to talk with the Western countries, to talk with Middle Eastern countries, to increase their power, to increase their authority,” said Smagin, who spoke to CBC News by Zoom from Baku, Azerbaijan.

Now, he says, Russia is trying to build connections with HTS, in a relationship that Smagin says would likely be mutually beneficial. 

“I think that generally HTS needs Russia … because I don’t think that there will be a lot of countries that are ready to recognize them as a legitimate power, at least in the short term.”

Political pivot

Matveeva says while Moscow officially backed the Al-Assad regime, it would have also had communication channels with various factions in Syria’s rebel forces. 

Just as Russia is now strengthening its ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan — which it removed from its lists of terrorist organizations earlier this fall — Matveeva says Russia will pivot its Syria policy as the situation on the ground changes. 

“Russian officials will try to work out a new political line,” she said. 

Putin, like other heads of state, is watching to see whether HTS can marshal Syria toward a stable government. If so, the Kremlin may say it didn’t like the way the group came to power, but will move to form diplomatic ties, as it is in Russia’s interest. 

If the sudden political change creates a power vacuum where violence ensues, Matveeva says Russia will probably claim Al-Assad was the best of a bunch of bad options. 

“If they all start fighting each other, then Russia will say, ‘Hey, OK, our bastard was still a bit better than … when nobody has any control.'”

Published at Sat, 07 Dec 2024 15:44:10 +0000

Polygamist leader Samuel Bateman draws 50-year sentence for efforts to coerce women, girls into sex

A polygamist religious leader who claimed more than 20 spiritual “wives” including 10 underage girls was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Monday in Arizona for coercing girls as young as nine years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and other adults, and for scheming to kidnap them from protective custody.

Samuel Bateman, whose small group was an offshoot of the sect once led by Warren Jeffs, had pleaded guilty to a years-long scheme to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes, and later to kidnap some of them from protective custody.

Under the agreement, Bateman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for sexual activity, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment, and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which is punishable by up to life imprisonment. He was sentenced to 50 years on each count, to be served concurrently.

The rest of the charges were dismissed as part of the agreement.

Authorities say that Bateman, 48, tried to start an offshoot of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints based in the neighbouring communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The fundamentalist group, also known as FLDS, split from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after Mormons officially abandoned polygamy in 1890.

Statements from victims

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich sentenced Bateman after hearing statements in court by three teenage girls about the trauma they still struggle to overcome.

“You should not have the opportunity to be free, and never have the opportunity to be around young women, ” Brnovich told Bateman, noting that for a man of his age, the 50-year sentence was effectively a life sentence. “You took them from their homes, from their families and made them into sex slaves,” the judge said.

“You stripped them of their innocence and childhood.”

A short competency hearing that was closed to the public was held just before sentencing to discuss a doctor’s assessment of Bateman’s mental health. The defence had argued that Bateman could have benefited from a maximum of 20 years of psychiatric treatment behind bars before being released.

The girls told the court, sometimes addressing Bateman himself, how they grappled to develop relationships in high school, among other struggles. Now living with foster families, they said they had received much support from trusted adults outside their community.

After the sentencing, the teens hugged and wept quietly. They were escorted out of court by a half dozen men and women in jackets with the slogan “Bikers Against Child Abuse,” a group dedicated to protecting children from what it calls dangerous people and situations. A woman who sat with the teens said no one in the group would have a comment.

There was no one in the courtroom who appeared to be a supporter of Bateman.

The alleged practice of sect members sexually abusing girls whom they claim as spiritual “wives” has long plagued the FLDS. Jeffs was convicted of state charges in Texas in 2011 involving sexual assaults of his underage followers. Bateman was one of Jeffs’s trusted followers and declared himself, like Jeffs, to be a “prophet” of the FLDS. Jeffs denounced Bateman in a written “revelation” sent to his followers from prison, and then tried to start his own group.

Proclaimed ‘wives’

In 2019 and 2020, insisting that polygamy brings exaltation in heaven and that he was acting on orders from the “Heavenly Father,” Bateman began taking female adults and children from his male followers and proclaiming them to be his “wives,” the plea agreement said. While none of these “marriages” were legally or ceremonially recognized, Bateman acknowledged that each time he claimed another “wife,” it marked the beginning of his illicit sexual contact with the woman or girl.

Federal agents said Bateman demanded that his followers confess publicly for any indiscretions and he imposed punishments that ranged from public shaming to sexual activity, including requiring that some male followers atone for their “sins” by surrendering their own wives and daughters to him.

Bateman travelled extensively between Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska and regularly coerced underage girls into his criminal sexual activity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona said. Recordings of some of his sex crimes were transmitted across state lines via electronic devices.

Bateman was arrested in August 2022 by state police as he drove through Flagstaff, Ariz., pulling a trailer. Someone had alerted authorities after spotting small fingers reaching through the slats of the door. Inside the trailer, which had no ventilation, they found a makeshift toilet, a sofa, camping chairs and three girls, between the ages of 11 and 14.

Bateman posted bond but was soon arrested again, accused of obstructing justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across state lines for his sex crimes. Authorities also took nine children from Bateman’s home in Colorado City into protective custody.

Eight of the children later escaped from foster care in Arizona, and were found hundreds of kilometres away in Washington State, in a vehicle driven by one of the adult “wives.” Bateman also admitted his involvement in the kidnapping plot.

Federal prosecutors noted that Bateman’s plea agreement was contingent on all of his co-defendants also pleading guilty. It also called for restitution of as much as $1 million US per victim, and for all assets to be immediately forfeited.

Bleak upbringings

Seven of Bateman’s adult “wives” have been convicted of crimes related to coercing children into sexual activity or impeding the investigation into Bateman. Some acknowledged they also coerced girls to become Bateman’s spiritual “wives,” witnessed Bateman having criminal sexual activity with girls, participated in illicit group sex involving children, or joined in kidnapping them from foster care. Another woman is scheduled to be tried on Jan. 14 on charges related to the kidnappings.

In court records, lawyers for some of Bateman’s “wives” painted a bleak picture of their clients’ religious upbringings.

One said his client was raised in a religious cult that taught sexual activity with children was acceptable and that she was duped into “marrying” Bateman. Another said her client was given to Bateman by another man as if she were a piece of property, feeling she had no choice.

Published at Tue, 10 Dec 2024 03:58:59 +0000