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OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDM #0103/01 0341445
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 031445Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7315
INFO RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 0878
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 0832
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 000103 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ELA 
LONDON FOR MILLER, PARIS FOR NOBLES 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/03/2020 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EIND EINV ETRD CASC CVIS KISL
KLIG, KPAO, SCUL, SOCI, SY 
SUBJECT: OUTSIDE THE CAPITAL: LOCAL LEADERS DISCUSS 
CHALLENGES FOR HOMS 
 
REF: A. DAMASCUS 00102 
     ¶B. DAMASCUS 00093 
     ¶C. DAMASCUS 00028 
     ¶D. DAMASCUS 00033 
     ¶E. 09 DAMASCUS 00797 
 
Classified By: CDA Charles Hunter for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: The Charge met a range of political, 
religious, and business leaders during a January 26-27 visit 
to Homs.  In addition to a long discussion with Homs Governor 
Iyad Ghazal (ref B), the Charge met Melkite Catholic 
Archbishop Isidore Battikha, Greek Patriarchate Deputy 
Patriarch Father Afram, "Awan" (Kuwait-based newspaper) 
journalist Hanna Aboud, senior leadership at the National 
Sugar Company, and American citizen wardens.  He also toured 
al-Ardh, a Jesuit-administered farm outside the city offering 
educational and therapeutic opportunities to mentally 
challenged children and young adults from nearby rural 
communities.  The only sour note in the trip was the MFA,s 
last-minute cancellation of a scheduled meeting with 
"al-Ouruba" newspaper Editor-in-Chief Issa Ismael. End 
Summary. 
 
---------------------- 
The Christian Minority 
---------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) Queried about stories of Sunnis being paid to convert 
to the Shi'a faith, Melkite Catholic Archbishop Isidore 
Battikha claimed the practice was widespread.  He dismissed, 
however, the idea that these paid conversions reflected a 
real spiritual or religio-political shift.  The real 
incentive for conversion, he argued, was economic privation, 
especially in the rural communities.  In a separate meeting, 
the journalist Hanan Aboud said of these conversions that 
"Iran is the problem; they play a dirty role here," though he 
was unable to say with certainty whether the Iranians were 
paying people to convert.  He observed there had always been 
a sizable but quiet Shi'a population in Homs.  Now, 
presumably as a result of growing Iranian regional influence, 
the Homsy Shi'a were emboldened and more public in their 
faith. 
 
¶3. (C) When asked for his reaction on recent public attacks 
against the Syrian Grand Mufti (ref A) for allegedly 
insensitive comments about the Prophet Muhammad, Battikha 
said he was unaware of the rift.  "The Damascene Sunni don't 
accept the Mufti because he is from Aleppo," Battikha 
sniffed, suggesting urban alliances might be at the root of 
the problem. 
 
¶4. (C) In separate meetings, Battikha and Greek Patriarchate 
Deputy Patriarch Father Afram both attested to the excellent 
relationship their churches enjoyed with their Muslim 
counterparts.  Battikha, who served in Damascus for 15 years 
before transferring to the Homs diocese, argued that 
Christians and Muslims had stronger relations in Homs than in 
Damascus.  He attributed this to the fact that the two 
populations lived "closer together" in Homs.  Battikha told 
us he was generally asked to speak in mosques two or three 
times a year and that he had invited imams to give speeches 
in his churches.  The two groups did not, however, "pray 
together."  Battikha reported there were roughly 45,000 
Catholics in his diocese, second in size only to Damascus. 
When asked whether his congregations were still declining in 
number due to out-migration from the governate, Battikha 
assessed the population was now stable.  He speculated 
economic hardship throughout the country made the larger 
cities less attractive to young people than in the past. 
 
¶5. (C) Father Afram described his diocese's membership as 
having stabilized at 150,000 after years of out-migration. 
Economic difficulties in South America, once a major 
destination for Homsy Christians, had slowed migration.  Like 
Battikha, Afram characterized the relationship between his 
church (Syria's largest Christian denomination) and Muslims 
as being better than in other countries.  Though people did 
not pray together, they participated in common religious 
celebrations like weddings.  Further, Muslims regularly 
prayed before the tomb of the St. Elian, a third-century 
martyr from Homs, whose church in the city is the only one in 
the world named for him. 
 
---------------------------------- 
On the Cusp of Greater Prosperity? 
 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) During a January 27 tour of the National Sugar Company 
(NSC, established in 2008), CEO Anlo du Pisani (protect) and 
Chairman Muhammad Najib Assaf figured the total investment in 
the NSC, including working capital, to be 160 million 
dollars, the largest non-oil investment in the country.  The 
company is a "destination refinery" and primarily targets the 
Syrian sugar market, which du Pisani told us was one of the 
largest in the world at about 800,000 tons per annum.  The 
U.S. company Cargill, a minority NSC owner, was heavily 
involved in the plant's construction and in managing the 
company's raw sugar trade with Brazil.  As NSC operations 
increased, du Pisani and Assaf told us they anticipated 
moving into the Iraqi sugar market. 
 
¶7. (C) Commenting on the nearby industrial city of Hissyah 
(ref B), Du Pisani expressed doubt about the site's long-term 
viability.  NSC had opted not to build in Hissyah because the 
location lacked a stable water supply.  The NSC's decision 
combined perhaps with the Homs governor's recognition of the 
economic threat NSC represented to a sugar refinery already 
operating in Hissyah, upset the local government and set in 
motion the governor's effort to block the NSC from acquiring 
land outside Hissyah.  According to du Pisani, Assaf's 
successfully appealed to the President's office -- through 
the First Lady's family, who are "Homsy" -- which in turn 
forced Governor Ghazal to back down. 
 
¶8. (C) Once the NSC's factory was up and running, its output 
quickly dwarfed that of its Syrian competition.  In August 
2009, just as world sugar prices were spiking, the Ministry 
of Trade accused the NSC of trying to monopolize the sugar 
market and confiscated all its stock, between 4,000 to 6,000 
tons of refined sugar (ref E).  SARG compensation for the 
seizure fell well short of its market value and the NSC had 
sought greater recompense through the Syrian courts.  Because 
trade is viewed as a national security issued, du Pisani 
complained, the NSC's case landed in Military Court.  He 
doubted whether NSC would get a satisfactory outcome unless 
company lawyers succeeded in getting the case transferred to 
a different court.  In general, though, du Pisani and Assaf 
were optimistic about the company's future, noting with 
satisfaction that the NSC had recently won a tender to supply 
sugar to the government cooperatives. 
 
----------------------- 
Helping the Handicapped 
----------------------- 
 
¶9. (C) The Charge distributed educational gifts to the 
students at "al-Ardh," a Jesuit-administered farm on the 
outskirts of Homs providing educational and therapeutic 
facilities to mentally handicapped children and young adults 
from the surrounding villages.  The children, both Christian 
and Muslim, work on the farm as part of their education and, 
in some cases, have the opportunity to work there after 
graduation.  The director, Father Nawras Sammour, said 
tuition was set at 300 Syrian pounds ($6.50) per month, 
though the actual cost per student was closer to 7,200 Syrian 
pounds ($158.00).  It was important, he explained, that 
families pay a little so as to feel they were contributing to 
their child's future.  Al-Ardh also offers educational 
opportunities to local farmers on how to improve agricultural 
production. 
 
---------------- 
Wardens' Meeting 
---------------- 
 
¶9. (C) American wardens for the Homs region expressed their 
hope that improved Syrian-U.S. bilateral relations might 
warrant more consular outreach to the region.  Regularly 
scheduled consular visits to Homs would, they contended, 
reduce the heavy travel burden on families seeking passport 
renewals and notarials.  The wardens also received guidance 
from Conoff on new procedures for both non-immigrant visa 
appointments and American citizen services. 
 
¶10. (C) There was general disapproval among the wardens of 
recent TSA regulations subjecting Syria to increased security 
measures at U.S. airports (refs C and D).  One warden said it 
was unacceptable that he, an American citizen who had lived 
in the U.S. for more than 20 years, would have to "walk 
through one of those machines" just because he was arriving 
from Syria.  This sentiment was widely encountered throughout 
 
the Homs trip. 
 
¶11. (C) Comment: There was an undeniable vibrancy to the city 
and people of Homs that belied the city's reputation as 
somewhat of a backwater.  The governor's ambitions for the 
region (ref B) and the presence of successful businesses like 
the NSC suggest Homs may very well be on the cusp of greater 
economic prosperity, providing public-private partnerships do 
not flounder in a sea of bureaucratic red tape and political 
egos.  Our visit made clear that outside the capital, there 
is an abiding interest in building stronger links to the U.S. 
on a political and economic level, and that the Homsy are 
tracking the improving U.S.-Syria bilateral relationship with 
great interest and hope.  End Comment. 
HUNTER