...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo..."concrete proposals",
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
has slammed the door on a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis. As a representative of the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
and the United Nations
...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country...
, the former secretary-general had proposed negotiations as a solution. But the president said he would not talk to "terrorists". There are reasons why Mr Assad thinks he will be able to ride out the storm. The bastion of his power is the army, and by and large it is loyal to him. There have been individual defections in large numbers, but there have been no wholesale defections by units. In fact, the defeat inflicted on the rebels in Homs and more recently in Idlib would not have been possible if the army high command and the rank and file had not acted with the ruthlessness that was required. A Libya-like foreign intervention is out of the question for a country that is Israel's neighbour, and Jordan and Turkey have refused to enforce no-fly zones in given areas.
The president now wants to hold a general election on May 7, and for the first time it will be a multi-party affair. The election will be held on the basis of a modified constitution the government said was approved in February in a referendum. However,
some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go...
the opposition calls it a hoax and has pledged continued resistance. The result is unabated slaughter and widespread human misery. The number of refugees, including the internally displaced, has crossed 50,000, while the overall corpse count has risen to over 9,000. In this anarchy it will be extremely difficult for the Baathist regime to hold an election that would be accepted by the international community as transparent and reflective of the Syrian people's preferences. The only choice the president has is to invite Arab and other international observers to monitor the electoral process and call off the crackdown. Without an end to the fighting, it is difficult to see how those willing to cast their votes will go to the polling stations in numbers large enough to make the election results appear credible.