Since last June, the UAE, with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, have shut their national air and sea corridors to aircraft and vessels, and imposed a series of financial and diplomatic measures on Qatar to ensure that it will abide by its previously given assurances to continue the international fight against terrorism. Simply put, the anti-terror quartet wants Qatar to cease and desist aiding and abetting those who spread terrorism, extremism and sedition across the region.
Qatar has steadfastly refused to deal with the 13 demands set out by the quartet to end this matter and ensure it no longer gives shelter to harbingers of hate.
Instead of talking to its Arab brothers in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the leadership in Doha has looked to Tehran and Ankara for solace. It has consistently misstated and misrepresented the situation, and has used its well-oiled and well-financed propaganda puppets at Al Jazeera to convince all that black is indeed white.
Qatar too has deliberately bamboozled representatives from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights last November into producing a misguided, mistaken and misleading report centred solely on the egocentric, contrived and contrarian opinions of the leadership in Doha.
Firstly, Qatar is not blockaded, and for it to suggest and infer that its people are suffering economic deprivation from such a non-existent measure, is malicious. The anti-terror quartet has shut its own corridors to Qatari craft. But Qatar is free to trade and have financial dealings with any other nation it chooses — just not the anti-terror quartet. The UN group erred by failing to look at the UN’s own Charter, its resolutions and a whole body of international laws and agreements condemning and sanctioning nations that support terror, and how Qatar’s actions and money have aided bombers, killers and terrorists. Doha readily admits, for example, funding the fighters of Fatah Al Sham [Al Nusra Front] — a vicious and violent force that is an Al Qaida offshoot and ally. But the UN group is silent on that. Nor has it spoken to the victims of acts of terror, carried out by groups that receive Doha’s backing.
The report was purposely leaked by the Qatari National Human Rights Commission before the group forwarded a copy to the quartet, and it was subsequently released without review and challenge because of that leak. It contains technical errors, procedural inaccuracies and procedural mistakes that taint its veracity and legitimacy. Most of all, the anti-terror quartet is determined that those supporting terrorism and extremism will be held accountable. Qatar is playing a game. It is a long game, and one with deep consequences. The UN group may be deceived — but few others.
