Great Caesar's Ghost!
Stephen Schwartz, a Muslim convert and head of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, has written the below piece for the Hudson Institute. It appears that Hazem Chehabi, Syrian Honorary Consul in Newport Beach, California, is also chair of the UC Irvine Foundation and recipient of the UCI Medal (Whatever the hell that is).
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2329/uc-irvine-syrian-dictatorship
Honorary consuls are not part of the normal diplomatic corps. For countries without the resources to have multiple consulates in countries (aside from embassies), an option is often to contract with a private citizen in the host country to serve as honorary consul.
Hazem Chehabi wearing his UCI medal
June 9, 2011 protest against Chehabi at UCI
Here is more from OC Weekly:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2011/05/hazem_chehabi_syria_uci_founda.php
Below is Dr. Chehabi's UCI Foundation webpage. It says nothing about his status as Syria's honorary consul.
http://www.ucifoundation.org/Pages.aspx/Hazem-Chehabi
Let's see; in 2005, Chehabi and his wife, Salma give one million dollars to UCI. The following year, he joins the UCI Foundation as a trustee.
Let's be blunt. It is not that the slaughter of Syrian protesters just began recently after Chehabi became connected to UCI. The Syrian government has been known for decades for its butchery of political opponents. As Schwartz ably points out, in 1982, thousands of people were massacred by Hafez Assad's army in the town of Hama. Syria has long been an adversary of the US and Israel. For any university to be connected in such a way with Syria's honorary consul is unacceptable.
What I don't know yet is when Chehabi became the Syrian honorary consul. Was it before or after he gave one million dollars to UCI and joined the UCI Foundation? Is this another example of questionable Arab money going into our universities to buy influence? Mr Chehabi is a naturalized US citizen, quite wealthy, and engages in a great deal of philanthropy. Even if he became involved with UCI before becoming the honorary consul, the fact is that an American university has no business being involved with a representative of a country that is a known supporter of terrorism and which is currently-just as it did in 1982- involved with murdering thousands of its own citizens.
UC-Irvine must immediately sever its ties with Mr Chehabi. If they don't, then UC President Mark Yudof must step in.
14 comments:
Honorary consuls are NOT a "representative of a country".Please check job description before blogging.
Anonymous,
That's funny. I once met an honorary consul of a South American county when I was in Italy.
If they are not representing a country, what do they represent-their favorite soccer team?
Here is wikipedia's def of honorary consul. I don't see where my definition was in contradiction.
Some consuls are not career officials of the represented state at all; some are locally-engaged staff with the nationality of the sending country,[2] and in smaller cities, or in cities that are very distant from full-time diplomatic missions, a foreign government which feels that some form of representation is nevertheless desirable may appoint a person who has not hitherto been part of their diplomatic service to fulfill this role. Such a consul may well combine the job with his or her own (often commercial) private activities, and in some instances may not even be a citizen of the sending country. Such consular appointments are usually given the title of honorary consul. Graham Greene used this position as the title of his 1973 novel The Honorary Consul.
Notwithstanding their other roles, Honorary Consular Officers (in the widest use of the term) also have responsibility for the welfare of citizens of the appointing country within their bailiwick.[citation needed] Thus, particularly within a port town, an Honorary Consul may be called out (at any time, day or night) to attend to the well-being of a citizen of the appointing country who has been arrested. Their role in this situation is to ensure that the arrested persons are treated in a like manner as would be the citizen of the country in which this person was arrested, and understand their rights & obligations.
This is from the top section of the same Wikipedia article (the part that cannot be edited by random people):
Consuls are not ambassadors, as the nature of their work greatly differ from each other. This distinguishes the consul from the ambassador, who is, technically, a representative from one head of state to another. While there can be but one ambassador of a given country in another country, representing the first country's head of state to that of the second, and his or her duties revolve around diplomatic relations between the two countries, there may be several consuls, one in each of several main cities, providing assistance with bureaucratic issues to both the citizens of the consul's own country travelling or living abroad, and to the citizens of the country the consul resides in who wish to travel to or trade with the consul's country.
So how is that in conflict with the way I described them? What are we arguing about here?
Gary,
It says, what he does is: "providing assistance with bureaucratic issues to both the citizens of the consul's own country travelling or living abroad, and to the citizens of the country the consul resides in who wish to travel to or trade with the consul's country."
He helps Syria but he has absolutely nothing to do with the Syrian government or even politics!
Anonymous,
We are agreed. I never suggested they engage in diplomatic activities with other diplomats. However, if you are suggesting that they have nothing to do with the country they REPRESENT, which hires them to do the job, that's absurd. Who contracted with this guy and gave him the title of honorary consul-Japan?
I think that we have a different understanding of the consul being a representative.
If he were indeed a government representative, he could never have said: "Personally, I am opposed to the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators, and find no justification whatsoever in shooting unarmed civilians," and "I am saddened about the daily loss of life in Syria and hope to see it come to an end as quickly as possible." in an email.
UCI's chancellor, in a statement, said about Hazem Chehabi that "We support his efforts and those of the broader world community in reaching a peaceful and JUST resolution."
Moreover, his father is a prominent member of the opposition, as evidenced by a 2006 wikileaks cable: http://blog.cytalk.com/2011/04/wikileaks-saad-hariri-proposed-brotherhood-replace-assad/
I think when he was given the job because he was competent, and they didn't care about his political views. For his position, that doesn't matter.
I am obviously a UCI student so I have done my homework.
Anonymous,
I highlight the part of the Huson Institute article:
"Perhaps most significantly, his father is General Hikmat Chehabi (also spelled Shehabi and Shihabi), the late Damascus dictator Hafez Al-Assad's former army chief of staff, with top command of Syrian troops in the infamous Hama massacre of 1982 and other atrocious events. Hikmat Chehabi was replaced in his military post in 1998. According to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya broadcast network, former Lebanese prime minister Saad Al-Hariri told American officials in 2006 that he favored replacing Hafez Al-Assad with a coalition of the Muslim Brotherhood, General Chehabi, and former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam. General Chehabi moved to California, and he is said to be suspected of disloyalty to the Al-Assad regime, although he continues to visit Damascus"
I repeat my question- who contracted with him to do his work?
And that statement from Chehabi is pretty lame. Why has he not resigned his job in protest?
If he were a diplomat and was forced to represent the regime, then he can resign in protest. But if his job is to renew passports, he cannot resign in protest.
He must have applied for the job from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who gave it to him because he is well liked and respected by the Syrian community in Southern California.
Anonymous,
Now I know why you remain anonymous. That is a silly statement. Is he a prisoner of his post? He is a US citizen who can call a press conference at any time, announce that he will no longer serve as honorary consul because of the killings in Syria and denounce Assad. Instead he makes this lame statement regretting loss of life and the university quotes him.
You call that doing your homework?
This whole story reminds me of the land of Oz.
I should have explained that better…
He can resign if he wants to. But he cannot resign IN PROTEST to the regime. That is because he does not represent the regime, he simply serves the Syrian community in LA by doing such things as renewing passports.
It would be silly if he said he was resigning due to the actions of the regime, and I don’t think the press would pay the slightest attention.
Also, if were indeed representing the government, wouldn't he be fired instantly after what he wrote in an email for the OC Weekly?
According to the article, he wrote; "Personally, I am opposed to the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators, and find no justification whatsoever in shooting unarmed civilians,"
That strays quite a bit from the government's story that the army is fighting armed gangs that terrorize cities.
That statement is pretty lame in my view, but I think we are arguing over some semantic issue that you are hung up on and I can't figure out.
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