[WCUSP] Virginia Tilley: Whose Coup, Exactly?

[yvonne simmons]

Subject: Virginia Tilley: Whose Coup, Exactly?
> Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:28:36 +0000
> 
> Whose Coup, Exactly?
> 
> Virginia Tilley, 
> The Electronic Intifada, 
> 18 June 2007
> http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7038.shtml 
> 
> 
> Having sacked Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and dissolved
> his democratically-elected government, Palestinian
> Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has now
> installed Salam Fayyad as the new Prime Minister, to
> the clear delight of the West. Mutual accusations
> are hurled by Abbas and Haniyeh that the other side
> launched a coup against the legitimate authority.
> Nevertheless, now a fresh line of grave Palestinian
> faces has lined up before the cameras as Fayyad`s
> new `emergency government` is sworn in. That the new
> PA has virtually no power in the West Bank, and none
> at all in Gaza, is the first glaring problem with
> this pageantry. (Bitter jokes about a `two-state
> solution` consisting of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
> have circulated.)
> 
> An international community worried by the `coup`
> accusation might endorse the Fayyad government as
> the seemingly correct position. But the `coup` claim
> stumbles over a basic problem -- that Abbas`s
> appointing a new prime minister was itself entirely
> illegal. The new `emergency government` is illegal,
> too. According to the Basic Law of Palestine (as
> amended in 2003), which serves as the constitution
> of the PA, Abbas can do neither of these things. Nor
> can the new `emergency government` claim any
> democratic mandate. This means that Abbas and the
> Fayyad government are ruling by decree, outside the
> framework of the Basic Law. So on what basis is that
> government supposed to govern -- and on what basis
> are foreign governments supposed to deal with it?
> 
> According to the Basic Law, Abbas has violated a
> whole stream of Articles as well as the spirit of
> its checks and balances, which were designed during
> the Arafat era partly to limit the power of the
> presidency. With full US and Israel support (if not
> their insistence), Abbas has baldly trashed numerous
> provisions of the Basic Law, including:
> 
> # The President can sack his Prime Minister (Article
> 45) but he cannot legally appoint a new Prime
> Minister that does not represent the majority party
> (i.e., Hamas).
> # In the event that a President sacks the PM, the
> Government is considered to have resigned (Article
> 83), but the serving Cabinet (here, the Hamas-led
> Cabinet) is supposed to govern until a new Cabinet
> is confirmed by the Legislative Council (Article
> 78).
> # Only the Legislative Council can confirm the new
> PM and Cabinet and the new officials cannot take
> their oaths (Article 67) or assume their duties
> (Article 79) until this is done. We might now look
> for the Fayyad government to go to the Legislative
> Council for post hoc approval, but if the
> Legislative Council cannot vote for lack of a quorum
> -- because too many of its members are in jail or
> refuse to participate -- then the Cabinet cannot be
> legally confirmed. The Basic Law provides no remedy
> for conditions where the Legislative Council cannot
> vote to confirm the Cabinet or the actions of the
> President.
> # The President can rule by degree during
> emergencies (Article 43) but the Legislative Council
> must approve all these decrees at its first meeting.
> # The President cannot suspend the Legislative
> Council during a state of emergency (Article 113).
> # The President has no power to call early
> elections, either.
> # The Basic Law has no provision whatsoever for an
> `emergency government.`
> 
> What does this mean for the PA? It is no longer the
> same animal. The Fayyad government is the step-child
> of an extra-legal process with no democratic
> mandate. The whole manoeuvre is not precisely a
> palace coup, but it is something like it.
> 
> What does this mean for the world? Foreign
> governments now confront one of the most unwelcome
> events in international diplomacy -- the sudden
> transformation of a government into a different kind
> of government. As in any revolution or coup,
> diplomatic recognition of Salam Fayyad`s `emergency
> Government` as the legitimate representative of the
> Palestinian people must now be reassessed. For
> example, by what authority does the `emergency
> government` act in the name of Palestinians in the
> West Bank and Gaza? What capacities and
> responsibilities does the `emergency government` now
> have? On what legal and political bases are
> diplomatic relations to be sustained?
> 
> We must admit that these are legal but also
> political questions. The PA is the invention of the
> 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords (it was supposed to serve
> for a period `not exceeding five years`) But the
> Basic Law was developed later, to confirm and ensure
> its democratic character. This set of laws
> represented a Palestinian state-building measure,
> providing a start-up framework for Palestinian
> democracy in anticipation (or at least affirmation)
> of eventual Palestinian statehood. Hence the Basic
> Law refers in its introduction to the 1995 Oslo 2
> accord but also invokes the Palestinian people as
> its ultimate political authority (Article 2: `...
> the people are the source of power ...`).
> Governments may therefore attempt to justify
> sustaining relations with the new Fayyad government
> out of solidarity with the Palestinian national
> effort -- albeit one in crisis.
> 
> Still, in attempting this, foreign governments now
> face dubious and perplexing options:
> 
> They could suspend diplomatic relations with the
> Fayyad government, on grounds that it is illegal,
> and deal with the elected Haniyeh government. But
> this might cripple their communication with Ramallah
> at a critical time and put them at odds with the US
> and Israel.
> 
> They could sustain diplomatic relations with the
> Fayyad government, accepting its claim that the
> Hamas government launched a coup, but they would
> then be endorsing a government that is violating its
> own laws and has itself effectively pulled a coup.
> 
> They could accept the new Fayyad government on
> condition that it now obey other provisions of the
> Basic Law, such as gaining Legislative Council
> approval and/or calling new elections. But the Basic
> Law doesn`t allow the Cabinet to call new elections
> and this new Cabinet doesn`t have any legal standing
> to govern anyway. (It`s also hard to see how new
> national elections could be held when the Haniyeh
> government refuses to recognize the new Cabinet and
> conditions in both territories are so contrary to
> free and fair elections.)
> 
> They could pull a classic diplomatic side-step by
> calling the situation a temporary constitutional
> crisis and maintaining relations with both sides,
> but this tactic will quickly bog down because
> present events look more like the complete collapse
> of the Basic Law and its framework.
> 
> Facing this mess, they could do a back-step: suspend
> formal diplomatic relations but maintain
> communication with both sides, pending further
> developments, but what about those formal agreements
> (exchange, trade, security, diplomatic
> representation) they may have signed with the PA?
> Which side is truly representative and to whom are
> they accountable?
> 
> There are other legalistic maneuvers they could try,
> such as treating the PA under terms established by
> the Oslo Accords or the Gaza-Jericho agreement of
> 1994. But none of those documents provide for a
> prime minister or any of the procedures being acted
> out in Ramallah.
> 
> In short, the diplomatic landscape is now in utter
> disarray. The Fayyad Government has no democratic
> mandate, is not operating by the very rules that
> establish its democratic legitimacy, and so is only
> a facsimile of the `government` with which many of
> the world`s states established diplomatic relations.
> It does not help that the United States, an obedient
> Europe, and legless Arab states have trotted up to
> anoint it as the sole legitimate authority. Nor does
> it help to pretend that Hamas -- a broad movement
> with popular legitimacy -- will simply disappear
> through decrees from Abbas and some nice political
> theatre.
> 
> It is not clear how long this flimsy diplomatic
> pretense can hold up to scrutiny by a skeptical
> world. Nor is it clear what political costs foreign
> governments will have to absorb if they try to play
> along with it -- especially when the now-traumatized
> Palestinian people, in the territories and in
> Diaspora, begin protesting their government`s being
> hijacked by anti-democratic figureheads for Israeli
> and US agendas. Being targeted as supporting this
> pantomime government was not the goal of those
> governments who recognized the PA to support the
> Palestinian people. As UN official Alvaro De Soto
> put it in his eloquent `End of Mission Report` this
> May, `It may be better to be the one who raises
> questions about the Emperor`s new clothes than to be
> ridiculed as the naked Emperor oneself.`
> 
> Virginia Tilley is a US citizen now working in
> Pretoria, South Africa. She can be reached at
> vtilley AT mweb DOT co DOT za.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> "Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
> Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity
> asks the question - is it popular? But conscience
> asks the question - is it right? And there comes a
> time when one must take a position that is neither
> safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it
> because it is right." ~Martin Luther King, Jr. 
> 
> "I rebel, therefore we exist." ~ Albert Camus 
> 
> "We must not forget that this country owes its birth
> to disobedience to law." ~ Matilda Joslyn Gage 
> 
> "My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not
> selling bread, I'm selling yeast." ~ Unamuno, wall
> graffiti from Paris, May 1968 
> 
> "To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and
> to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this
> anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking
> deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the
> hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if
> anger is taboo, thought will starve to death." ~
> Jules Henry 
> 
> "Walk gently, breathe peacefully, laugh
> hysterically." ~ Nelson Mandela
> 



       
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