360. Question Time: Assad’s People - Syria, Torture, and Justice

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0:21Welcome to The Restless Politics question time with me, Alistair Campbell and with me Rory Stewart. We did quite a lot of overseas politics in the main podcast. We were going to talk about this, but we ran out of time. Let's start with Timothy Baker. Be great if you could touch on some of the parallels between what's going on in Georgia and Venezuela at the moment. Both countries seem to be in the grip of democratic backsliding with elections widely recognised and valid. What's next for the two countries? Okay, well let me start on Georgia. This is an opportunity to encourage people who haven't heard it.

0:54The very, very courageous, originally French -born president of Georgia, who's this remarkable woman who to Alistair's sort of astonishment, the amusement, is a sort of fluent French -speaking French ambassador to Georgia who then became the Georgia and foreign minister and then the Georgia president has been holding out at these elections. What happened in the elections is the Georgian Dream Party, which is a pro -Putin party, which has been cussing down on civil society and dissent in his back by an oligarch called Iván Schvilly, won the election in very, very dubious circumstances. There is a very simple demand being made by people protesting on the street, which is for a new set of elections.

1:35She was hanging on to push for those new elections, and we have for weeks now been trying to encourage European nations to engage and take seriously the fact that for 20 years, Georgia has been an unusual pro -Western ally in the Caucasus and it's that of fall into the hands of Putin, giving him a key strategic location, linking the Black Sea and the Caspian, Iran and Russia, Turkey and Russia, and it's really depressing anywhere, over to you and what she thought of it. So when we interviewed her, we asked what she was going to do when the new president, this former Manchester City footballer, was sworn in, who's a kind of pro -Putin, Iván Schvilly, place person, and she said, I'm not going to answer that question.

2:21And I thought at the time that was because she was going to stay put in the presidential residence, but she didn't. In the end, she made a speech and she said she's leaving, but she is urging people not to recognize this new guy, not to accept the outcome of the elections, but what worries me, if to be absolutely frank, is that it wasn't, I don't think, as much on the international radar as it should have been anyway, but it's even less so now. There's so much other stuff happens in the world and these things just have a habit of kind of dribbling away. So I hope she's saying strong, I hope that the people of Georgia are saying staying strong, but I think it's going to be pretty difficult.

3:00Just very quickly on that. So the Americans have stepped up quite strongly on this. I mean, the US is still, for all its problems, they're still trying to think strategically about what Putin's trying to do and what Putin's basically doing is trying to reverse most of the last 20, 30 years in what he's doing in Ukraine, what he's trying to do in Moldova, what he's doing in the Caucasus, Georgia, etc. And the Americans have responded by imposing sanctions on eventually. But most of his money is in Europe. So the question is, will the Europeans follow suit? If they did, that would be a real squeeze.

3:40And they've been trying to, but of course, we have, because the European Union, the way that it operates, packed our friend Mr. Orban, Mr. Fiso in Slovakia, possibly soon to be joined by another propute in leader in Mr. Keekil in Austria, they have vetoed attempts to be tougher. And that's why we keep talking about it. But if this is going to begin happening in the European Union, the European leaders are going to have to get more accustomed to forming smaller groups, which could include the United Kingdom on an issue like this. So no reason why France, Sweden, the UK couldn't have been involved.

4:13Very disappointing that the German foreign minister didn't visit Georgia, but instead decided to make this rather awkward visit to Syria, when in fact they could have much more influence on Georgia, because Georgia is a European Union candidate state in a way that Syria isn't. And I think there's a terrible sense they've given up. They've given up, and they're using the fact that Fiso and Orban and the Slovaks are blocking. They've also basically given up on the idea of sanctions. They seem not to believe that they work anymore. But I can see a real opportunity if they can just lift their heads, follow the US and impose on the sanctions.

4:57We may be able to have another set of elections in Georgia, and fair enough, if the Georgian dream wins the elections fairly, that's fair enough. UK did impose sanctions on some of these people who are involved in the crackdowns, which were pretty brutal. And fair play to the people in Georgia who are still out there protesting. But these things have a habit of going away unless the international focus remains on them. Venezuela. So Maduro, it's another election where nobody really believes that Maduro won it, just as nobody believes that the Georgian dream had the result that they announced. But Maduro has announced that he's won.

5:33He's the electoral commission has insisted that he's won. They have put out, there's a reward for $100 ,000 for information leading to the capture of Gonzales, who actually won, who has fled to Spain. But has then now come back and is going on this very interesting tour. He's been to Argentina, he's going to Uruguay, he's been to several Latin American countries. And interesting how when we do get the, it's on Friday, I think, January the 10th, when Maduro is sworn in for another term, very, very, very few world leaders are going to be there. I think he might, he might have decent representation from Russia, he might have decent representation from Iran, from Cuba, but essentially most of the big powers are either sending an ambassador or not sending the enemy at all.

6:24The other thing is really horrific about what's going on in Venezuela. So there's the guy that who's won the election, who is, frankly, if you does a reappear in Venezuela, who's going to get banged up. And the woman who they've banned from running, this very popular Maria Curina Mashado, the actual opposition leader, but they barred her from standing, and this Gonzales guy color stood in for her. She's there, but she's living somewhere in secret. She can only communicate by putting videos out. She is basically saying to people, get out on the streets, but it's a very difficult call to make that to people who, frankly, you know, there were 2 ,000 people arrested when she first tried to mobilize opposition to what's going on.

7:09And worse than that, they basically, the government puts out the line that these people, the opposition, they're actually working in league with criminal gangs who are trying to undermine the thing. And so it's going to be horrific. He's going to have all the pomp and the levies sash and all that stuff. Hard to see how you get stopped, but the question is right. In both places, in different ways, we're seeing Democratic backsliding. Question coming in on Gaza, Martin Dixon, you seem curiously silent like most of the West media on the horror son folding daily in Gaza, which many international bodies now say is genocide.

7:47Why slide off the issue? And please don't discard this question in the not good for ratings pile. I don't think we have been sliding off Gaza, but Martin, I apologize if you've missed the things we've talked about it. So for an update on what's happening in Gaza, the Israelis have continued very, very significant operations and bombardments in Gaza. Despite the fact that they have achieved most of the objectives that they had set in terms of killing the major figures in the Hamas leadership, and despite the successful attacks on Lebanon, which killed the Hisbalah leadership, most of it's senior people.

8:26It's very difficult to understand what Israel is achieving by continuing to do this, apart from allowing Netanyahu to remain in power and keep his coalition going because it's a demand of the far right in his cabinet, that they keep pummeling Gaza. The negotiations have restarted again in Qatar and the negotiations focus on the release of hostages. Meanwhile, Israel is killing a lot of people, just killed another two journalists, just killed another 57 people in a day. I've just taken out the Indonesian hospital and Tom Fletcher, who we should I think interview on leading Houston, you absolutely, yeah.

9:04UN representative has now said that there are effectively no hospitals at all functioning in Gaza and the World Food Programmer has pointed out that attacks are happening against their convoys. So the ongoing situation in Gaza, horrifying, and actually after the killing of the senior leaders in Hamas and after the amount of destruction and 50 ,000 deaths, very difficult to understand why what possible strategic advantage Israel thinks it's achieving by continuing to kill so many people. I think Martin does have a fair point. Martin Dixon asked the question, it's not that we've been, we haven't been silent.

9:42We've talked about this most weeks in some shape or form, but I guess I think we're back to the point that we're making in relation to Georgia a moment to go that because of the way that the pace of politics in the modern age, the pace of media and so forth, this is just, it's almost like I do make a point of watching Al Jazeera at some point most days because they have not left it. And interestingly, Al Jazeera, as we said, has now been, this now banned both by the Israelis and the Palestinians. Now I never buy that thing with the BBC say, if we're being attacked by all sides, it means we get something, we're getting something right.

10:21So it's not automatic in the case, but I do think with Al Jazeera, they have done a very a really important service. Yes, they're biased, they come from a certain perspective, but they do make an effort to keep trying to explain what is actually happening inside Gaza. And that statement you just made, there is no effectively no real hospital care inside Gaza. That should make everybody pause for thought. I saw an interview on, I think it was on Channel 4 News the other day with a doctor who just come back from Gaza. And you could see the sort of visceral sense of anger and loss and impotence is that you've got no idea.

11:00And of course, we don't have an idea because we can't see it properly. So I think Martin, we're all affected by the fact that the Israelis have very effectively kept public support at home pretty strong, given that Netanyahu is so unpopular. They have kept the issue internationally, they've managed to keep it, get it down a bit. And when you say what is hard to see what their strategy is, I think their strategy for some time has been, let's wait for Trump and let's see what happens when Trump comes in. And we'll see, we'll see. But even Trump, we said in the main podcast that Trump's been quite quiet recently.

11:37I can't remember the last time he said much about them at least. Yeah. So we're back to the scene with impunity. One of the things that is now right front and center for Britain. And remember, the British National Security Council will be having updates on Gaza once a week. Kirstner will be very focused on this issue. And it's an issue that really matters to a lot of his key voting groups, matters a lot to his party, matters a lot to British people. But for Britain, for Europe, for the Gulf and for the US, the question is increasingly, what happens next? So let's say, hostures released, let's say there is a ceasefire.

12:17It's a lot of ifs there because Netanyahu has blocked these things as have Hamas in the past. But if that happens, what then happens in reconstruction of Gaza? And that's where I'm very gloomy because anybody volunteering, let's say Saudis, Emirates, volunteered to provide an interim administration of security in Gaza with money coming in from Europe and the US. I'm worried that it is a hiding to nothing because Israel will continue to blame whoever is running Gaza if there are any security attacks. The Palestinians in Gaza, on the other hand, will accuse whoever's running Gaza of being astute for Israel.

12:58Israel can at any moment enter the country and attack people that can close off borders and stop the economic activity. We learnt how difficult nation building was in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in Gaza, I think it's not that we will have learnt the lessons and found that easier. I think it'll be that much more difficult because of the situation they're in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is unbelievable, really surprising. And I think we obviously you said there, Kirstal, we're beginning briefed and Britain does have a role. The Britain should have a role given our part in the history of this old thing.

13:31But I was just a charity event last night. It was the historian Peter Frankapalanai in conversations it were. And he is a very, very clever guy. And also he's one of the few brits that I know who has a kind of relationship with using pain. And he was making the point that all these big foreign policy questions as Trump comes in. And essentially if you look at the sort of bandwidth of American diplomacy and Chinese diplomacy, the bandwidth the both he was making the point essentially is taking up with each other. And so we'll see when Trump has been wanging on about Greenland and wanging on about Panamark and Ireland so far.

14:10But actually the extent to which China is going to be such a big focus of a lot of their time and energy and effort I think is another reason why I'm not I could be completely wrong about this. I don't know. But I don't yet feel the signs and see the signals that this is going to be Trump's first big foreign policy priority. No, and I'm not sure to some extent these new brand leaders really have foreign policy priorities. I mean, I think they're increasingly concerned about what happens at home. They're increasingly concerned with doing things which pretty much erode democracy and rights in their own countries rather than supporting democracy and rights in other people's countries.

14:53Yeah, yeah. Now what about this? We've all got to break Roy because we haven't honestly, I don't think we talk enough about Brexit on this podcast. Judy, Judy Abel thinking of the recent independent front page on the eye -watering cost of Brexit. What will it take for UK Labour who say they want growth to start meaningfully addressing this issue, easy considering whether it's time for another EU referendum. Now, I don't know if you saw, did you see the independent front page? No. So there we are, I'll show it to you. Yeah. Five years on the true cost of Brexit and it's 30 .2 billion cost of our settlement divorce, 27 billion dropping good -sex ports, 15 % long -term to UK trade, under 18 ,000 tons drop in seafood exports, so and so and so and so.

15:40It goes on and on and on, 2 .3 million net migration since the end of free movement, etc, etc, etc. I mean, the facts, I know I'm biased, I freely acknowledge that, but the factual analysis that anybody who makes without bias from the other side, the question is right whether whether it's a referendum, I don't know, but Judy's question about how are we going to get growth unless we fix this mess? How's that going to happen? And we're in a world where Trump is going to put up tariff barriers, so protection on trade, charge people for selling to the US, is the world we need to be closer to the European markets in a customs union where we have tariff free, quota free, full trade with European union markets, in a world in which there are pressures where we need people to work for the health service, where we need people to work in critical industries, there's exactly the world in which we should be signing up for young Europeans as opposed to people from all the world coming over on visas in the way that Europe offered, and in a world in which we're worried about security, where we're talking about why can't Europe pull its act together on Georgia, why can't it pull its act together on Ukraine, why can't it pull its act together on any of this stuff?

16:59Britain needs to be much, much closer and so why does Stama who has a cracking majority not say, look, okay, I accept the Brexit vote happened, but we are going to be in a new relationship with Europe, but it's going to be a close relationship with Europe, and it's going to start with the customs union and it's going to have the visa travel for young people back and forth and it's going to have strong security cooperation and we're going to lead with Europe because Europe actually needs Britain now, it's a time where with France and Germany week, Britain engaging on foreign policy and defence will be central.

17:39Yeah, okay, well, we're just to take a quick break, when we come back prepare yourself, I'm going to ask you a question about cricket, oh, looking forward to that after the break, bye bye.

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19:03Welcome back to the rest of politics question time with me, Rory Stewart. And me, as to Campbell, and technically it is a political question, but it is about cricket. Helen Mullin, Rory. It's the upcoming cricket match between England and Afghanistan. Yes. Why are we not boycotting based on the Taliban laws restricting women? Why is the international community doing nothing? Well, good question, and I think it's true, the Taliban do run a gender apartheid state. Why is it difficult? It's difficult because we spent 20 years in that country and we made a royal mess of it and tens of thousands of people were dying a year.

19:42The Taliban took over the country and it's much safer. We don't have tens of thousands of people dying a year, a few hundred people dying a year. Securities restored when I was back there in August, for the first time in over 20 years you can travel safely through the country. The Taliban have very repressive views on women, but they've also in other ways changed. They have taken a much better attitude towards religious minorities that share group, for example in Bamiyaan than they had last time run. And they're running a country which is crippled by sanctions, where its economy can't get off the ground.

20:20Afghanistan is rapidly degenerating to becoming one of the poorest countries in the world. And I'm a bit disturbed by the fact that with real horror happening in Gaza, with everything we've talked about with Georgia and Venezuela, with what Putin's doing in Ukraine, that it's convenient for people to make it all about Afghanistan. And I think in the list of priorities of people you should be sanctioning and sporting occasions. Afghanistan isn't one of them, and partly because it's one of the countries where it's clearest in the world that sanctions are completely irrelevant. The Taliban are not like the classic corrupt Russian oligarch or classic corrupt Nigerian politician who wants to go shopping in harrads and is going to be affected by sanctions.

21:08They've been living in caves for 22 years. They don't give a flying monkeys about shopping in harrads or international sporting recognition. And all you're doing by doing that is affecting the teams that are going abroad and having zero impact on any change in Afghanistan. There are interesting things you can do in Afghanistan. There are splits emerging within the Taliban. There are more reforming groups in Kabul. But nothing is stupider than Britain trying to develop a unilateral policy of beating up Afghanistan. When actually most of the problems there were caused by us. And a lot of what we're doing now is just a form of guilt because we can't acknowledge that we abandoned the country the Taliban.

21:49And now think we can deal with it by telling them off a cricket. Was there ever a point in recent history where you might have felt that say because of Saudi Arabia's attitudes on some of the sort of deeply social conservatism? Where would you have stood in the argument that said the occasional non -diflimatic cultural social engagement might be a good thing to do to push them in a direction that we want. And do you think the fact that they have become more integrated into the sort of global sporting community might have been because they picked up on some of those campaigns? Yeah. I mean, I think sanctions can work.

22:29I think they were really, really important in South Africa in ending apartheid. I think they've had a pretty mixed result elsewhere. I mean, there was a huge debate in Myanmar. There's a fantastic Burmese right Attemptment U who's just written a book that I really recommend about a come out on his grandfather Utant, the Secretary General of the UN, and this amazing moment where there was a Burmese Secretary General and people from the Global South were running the international system in the 60s. He though was quite quick to point out that in many ways the sanctions in Myanmar didn't do what we wanted.

23:04They didn't make the regime change its behavior. They didn't improve conditions for Burmese people. They simply made us feel good about ourselves. The brutal truth in Afghanistan is if you want leverage and influence over Afghanistan, we had it when we were in Afghanistan. When we had 2 ,500 American troops sitting in a base when the capital cities were controlled by a American and British back government, when we decided to withdraw from that country and hand the country to the Taliban, which we did almost overnight, all these attempts then to fantasize about what are we going to do to change the regime in Afghanistan, change human rights in Afghanistan?

23:43I think is unrealistic and the loss of it is actually damaging because a lot of it means that charities on the ground who are working with women and who are able to support some education for women, even though it's difficult, jobs and livelihoods for women, are being undermined because people are feeling good about themselves saying, well, we're not going to give any money to the Taliban. Of course, it also feeds and I'm now going to really irritate people. I'm afraid we're in a culture now where it really suits a lot of people, particularly on the far right, to emphasise most of them countries where women are not treated correctly because it helps to whip up the general antipathy towards Islam and distracts attention from the parts of the world which they're more sympathetic to.

24:28Now, I was hopeful we were going to get through the entire episode without mentioning the richest person in the world who owns a 600 million people based social media platform, but you mentioned South Africa and you mentioned the role that this had all played in bringing the end of the apartheid, which I think was. I think sport did play a really big part in that. Can I make an appeal to the media? And I think this was Times Radio. I don't honestly think that the parents of Elon Musk are sensible, credible voices on the politics of the United Kingdom. I think if you're going to view Elon Musk's parents, maybe we should interview it, try and get them on the podcast, you should be interviewing them about what an earth they did to create this person who has become what he's now become.

25:22Elon Musk's father was on the radio, Rory, explaining why just as people used to say Nelson Mandela would never be president, the same people are probably now saying Tommy Robinson could never be prime minister. I just think our media needs to shake its head a bit. I know Elon Musk at the moment is sort of a good clickbait, but just ask yourself the question, how is that helping any debate going rant over? Okay, okay, I mean, my goodness that it does seem as though he know my father's inflicted some damage on the world. I mean, you've seen these interviews where people say to him, are you proud of your son?

26:03And he says, no, God, it's completely useless. It's can't even, can't even fix a vehicle. And you can see clearly part of what's inflicting misery and pain on the world. Is Elon Musk's attempt to try to impress his father? Okay, here's a question which Declan Costello listened to the stories emerging from Syria. I'm reminded the brutality of the Assad regime. Clearly had thousands of people prepared to commit horrendous crimes against their fellow citizens. I personally find it unimaginable that anyone could elicit such cruelty to another person, but in war zones around the world, history tells us there are many people who have prepared Jews.

26:39How do normal citizens become torturous? What are the politics of torture? How are so many people mobilized to do this? I'd like to come to you on this, because it's something that British people and Americans often want to believe isn't relevant to them. And that was partly because Britain and the United States were not occupied during the Second World War. They didn't have to deal in the same way that many other people did with Japanese or German occupation, with collaboration, and they haven't been through the experience, the Balkans went through recently, or that Syria has been through. But generally, reading good books on Germany or good books on Syria, what you realize is how many, many, many millions of people, and that will include many people in the UK and the US in the right conditions, will get involved in barbarity, will get involved in torture, and will do absolute unharifying things.