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In investigations during 23 years with the BBC, and 41 years in journalism (when he was trained to use simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, it is always noticeable that corrupt bosses try to ‘divide and rule’ often creating destruction, so that their activities go unnoticed, and now exactly this is happening on a grander scale in a war-torn part of the world – Syria.
It takes place a lot as organisations unwisely attempt to defend themselves.
As the perception grows that the people at the top are at risk, they often lash out, creating discord.
I remember as I was investigating one dodgy outfit, I noticed how the bent official in charge would keep his people divided so they would compete against each other, and not look too closely at what the boss was doing.
Bizarrely, exactly this seems to be happening across the globe, in a place where the weary populace have just emerged from years of civil war, and after they ousted the tyrant in charge – Syria.
Israel seems determined to keep Syria weak and divided, as they worry about Turkey making inroads there.
Successive Israeli attacks on the infrastructure of Syria’s old army have destroyed many of the Assad regime’s ageing Soviet-built aircraft.
“They’ve taken out every inch of military capability they deemed a potential challenge to Israeli security interests”, says Alper Coskun, a former Turkish diplomat now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP).
As well as overseeing the attacks inside Syria, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s right wing Prime Minister, has invoked the rights of Syria’s Druze minority to demand the demilitarisation of the country’s south.
Israeli officials have no faith in Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, whom Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz describes as “a jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school”.
Mr Sharaa has vowed to prevent his country from becoming a hub for foreign radicals, as it was under the Assads, but Israeli officials fear that Syria’s new leader, backed by Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a longtime supporter of Hamas, may soon roll out a welcome mat for the group.
Israel and Turkey also disagree about governance, and once again they appear to be wanting to divide and rule, sowing the seeds of potential conflict in future
Israeli officials have openly suggested a federal model for Syria, whereby different minorities, including the Kurds and the Alawites (a Muslim sect from which the Assads hail), would enjoy extensive autonomy.
The recent massacres of hundreds of Alawite civilians by armed groups loyal to Syria’s new rulers, they argue, show that Mr Sharaa cannot be trusted.
Mr Sharaa and his Turkish allies have had a wholly different system in mind: a strong central government headed by a president with sweeping executive powers.
On March 13 Mr Sharaa signed a new constitution based on just such a model. Days earlier, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the predominantly Kurdish militia in charge of much of Syria’s north-east, agreed to join the interim government.
Mr Erdogan has accused Israel of stirring up Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities to destabilise a country emerging from one of this century’s deadliest wars.
However what worries him most is the relationship between Israel and the Kurds. Turkey suspects Israel of using the SDF to undermine Turkish influence in Syria and foment separatism within Turkey.
Turkey sees the group as a front for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the country’s officials and most Western nations list as terrorists.
These are major international affairs, but looking into the dealing of a crooked manager at a Welsh company gives you an insight into them!
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when his experiences gave him a flavour of what is happening around the globe) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – how during that career Phil has seen incredible technological change affecting his reporting, now comes new research emphasising the importance of an OLD one – the letter.
