Rebels View Coalition Leadership Outside Syria as Detached From the Suffering
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Version 0 of 1. ISTANBUL — With empty pockets and clothes smudged with dirt, the Syrian rebel fighter smuggled himself across the border and traveled 18 hours by bus to plead with Syrian opposition leaders meeting in a luxury hotel here to send help back home. The fighter, Hassan Tabanja, a former electrician, needed money to provide food, weapons and ammunition for dozens of men fighting alongside him against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. But after two days of scant results at the main opposition coalition’s meeting here last weekend, Mr. Tabanja sat on the patio glaring at the men in suits all around him. What they had provided, he said, “will barely get me back to Syria.” For Mr. Tabanja and many other government opponents inside Syria, the leaders of the coalition who claim to represent them abroad have long seemed detached from their suffering, and frugal or mysterious with the money they have raised. As the leaders have shuttled among world capitals and bickered in fancy hotels, they have appeared increasingly powerless to affect the course of Syria’s war: more than 100,000 people have died, millions have been displaced, and extremist groups are gaining ground. The leaders complain that their efforts to win recognition and support have been thwarted by the world’s indifference and the competing agendas of their own tightfisted patrons, but their words have failed to assuage many of the people relying on them for help. “It’s a political game,” said Mr. Tabanja, after he was shooed away by guards surrounding Ahmad al-Jarba, the leader of the main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition. “They are like puppets in the hands of their enemies,” he said. “They are prolonging the presence of Assad.” This dim view of the coalition has gained greater significance after an agreement by the United States and Russia to rid the Syrian government of its chemical weapons stocks, a deal that has renewed talk of an international conference aimed at ending the war with a political settlement. The opposition leaders complained that Mr. Assad had outmaneuvered his international adversaries to stay in power, and they feared that their coalition would be sidelined in any settlement. The sense that the opposition leadership was becoming even more marginal deepened last week during some of the fiercest rebel infighting of the war, when fighters linked to Al Qaeda battled other rebels in the northern Syrian town of Azaz, near the border with Turkey. The coalition seemed like a bystander as events highlighted the growing turmoil among the opposition fighters in areas nominally under rebel control: after two days of silence, the coalition finally released a statement on Friday condemning the extremist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Frustrated that events were spinning beyond their control, the coalition leaders tried to find other ways to assert their importance during the three-day Istanbul conference last weekend. With rare unanimity, and what appeared to be the blessing of their foreign patrons in the Persian Gulf, they elected a prime minister, Ahmad Tomeh, to lead what they say is an interim government. The opposition leaders also voted to incorporate an alliance of Kurdish parties, broadening the coalition’s support. Some Syrian activists saw the moves as a sign of hope. “I think they are improving, slowly,” said Yakzan Shishakly, a Syrian-American activist who runs a humanitarian foundation and was at the Istanbul hotel. But he added: “We are waiting to see if they make a difference. We want to see an impact on the ground.” Others saw a possibly desperate attempt by the coalition to be included in any negotiations before Mr. Assad made a deal with foreign powers on his own terms. “Nothing has changed,” said Hassan Hassan, a columnist who writes about Syria for The National, an English-language newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates. “It’s a face-saving move to prove they are still relevant.” Mr. Tomeh, the new prime minister, “seems like he means well” and wisely focused his first statements on the need to provide relief to Syrians, Mr. Hassan said. But it would be difficult to change Syrians’ perceptions of the coalition, which has been accused of mismanagement, corruption and favoritism. “The problem is not with him,” Mr. Hassan said. “It’s with the institution.” Mr. Tomeh, a dentist and Islamist dissident from the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, spent several years as a political prisoner and has stayed in Syria through much of the war. He contrasted what he called his own moderate beliefs with those of the extremists now menacing Syria, groups that the coalition has been accused of coddling. “Things can’t stay this way,” he said, though he did not have a solution to the growing influence of the radical groups. “We don’t want a military confrontation,” he said. Mr. Tomeh said that he would form a cabinet within a month, and that the interim government then should serve inside Syria, “to be close to the people.” But he conceded that it might not be possible because of the fighting, a position likely to reinforce the perception that the coalition is aloof. Even its critics acknowledge that the coalition faces daunting challenges, especially in delivering aid. Although its Persian Gulf patrons have often bypassed the group and sponsored their own fighters and causes, the coalition announced last week that it had distributed about $5 million in humanitarian relief, provided by Qatar, in several Syrian provinces. But in other places, the opposition is simply invisible. An opposition activist in the north-central Syrian province of Raqqa, who uses the nickname Abu Bakr, said that less than 10 percent of the aid in the province came from the coalition. “We barely hear about relief distribution done by them,” he said. “They don’t have offices inside.” Rami Jarrah, a Syrian political activist based in Turkey, said the coalition had little contact with local councils set up to administer rebel-held areas, or with battalions fighting under their banner. “They are totally disconnected,” Mr. Jarrah said. “They are more of a burden now than they’ve ever been. It seems hopeless.” At the Istanbul conference, as the coalition members ate at the buffet, Mr. Tabanja, the fighter, smoked a cigarette at the Burger King downstairs. He said he failed to see how the coalition would achieve its goals without people like him. “If you have a roof without a base, how do you expect that to last?” he said. <NYT_AUTHOR_ID> <p>Karam Shoumali contributed reporting. |