Slashdot Mirror
Syria Buys Dell PCs Despite Sanctions
puddingebola writes with a New York Times article about how mundane PC equipment — not just more esoteric and eyebrow-raising network monitoring equipment from Blue Coat — makes its way to Syria: "Large amounts of computer equipment from Dell have been sold to the Syrian government through a Dubai-based distributor despite strict trade sanctions intended to ban the selling of technology to the regime, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The disclosure of the computer sales is the latest example of how the Syrian government has managed to acquire technology, some of which is used to censor Internet activity and track opponents of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad."
where's the news in that?
and what the fuck does this even have to do with Dell? it's more to do with the Dubai based outfit. Dell might have good reasons to drop them as an official reseller now though, but the whole trade sanction can't work if you can sell to countries which don't adhere to the trade sanction, because they'll buy and fence the goods to their customers - that's what retailers do after all.
and an arab businessman shitting his business associates in another country? TELL IT AIN'T SO!!!! /s.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This is an outrage! We have set up strict trade sanctions to prevent this exact kind of thing from happening! The circumvention of these sanctions is reckless and might endanger the freedoms of Syrian citizens everywhere. To think that we would simply allow Syria to acquire Dell PCs is unfathomable. We need stronger provisions and enforcement mechanisms to make sure that Dell PCs and the dangers that they present do not wind up in the hands of other innocent countries. We must strengthen the already tough sanctions against Dell!
It's based on cookies; you get 10 free articles per month and then it starts throwing up a paywall. You can clear the cookie or visit it in private-browsing mode, though.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The same people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Perl who sold us on the idea that we had to attack Iraq, because otherwise Saddam Hussein would attack us with chemical weapons, always wanted us to attack Syria next.
The Iraq story turned out to be a lie, and we are now worse off in Iraq, with Islamist and secular militias carving up the country and giving a big slice to al Qaeda and its successors. (Not to mention the 3,000 Americans killed, and forget about the 300,000 or so Iraqis who were killed.)
Assad is running a stable, secular dictatorship that violates human rights. The anti-government forces are sectarian Islamists who will violate human rights even worse, massacre people in the other sects, destroy Syria as a functioning country and turn it into feuding fiefdoms like Iraq.
We ignored the same human rights violations when Assad was our puppet and we wanted to send prisoners to Syria for him to torture. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/19/syria-us-ally-human-rights
but after Egypt, I'm not entirely sure another MB dominated country in the ME is a good outcome for the West.
what say you?
I suspect that the ship has largely sailed on that sort of thing. When you prop up regimes that (while secular and at least semi-docile) provide governance of absolutely dreadful quality, while generally cracking down on civil-society types, that increasingly leaves you with a 'puppet tyrant or religious nutjobs' situation that can be expensive, even impossible, to maintain for the puppet tyrant(y hello there, Iran, we were just talking about you, and I think I see Pakistan heading up the driveway to join us!). It's somewhat similar to all those CIA-backed-Latin-American-Fascists who, once they eventually collapsed, were largely replaced by semi-hostile populist socialists. No shit the locals were looking to change brands after the delightsome performance of their previous government provider.
I'd say that the locals are making a mistake, descending into theocratic insanity tends to put you among the ranks of some really shitty places; but it's not as though secular liberal democracy has been putting on a very impressive show...
Anonymous Coward, I'm disappointed in you.
Dubai is a shining paragon of cooperation between east and west! A city where the venerable traditions of enlightened liberalism and individula rights of the middle east can come together with the honesty and fundamental decency of the west's finest financial services providers. Truly, a model for us all.
Even Syrians need to pay taxes and watch youtube videos featuring cats.
More the second than the former, I'm thinking. Hell, flood the world with cheap computers and internet access. If everybody is checking out Lolcats, they'll be too damned busy to shoot anybody. Just make sure the female cats are dressed in a hijab and we should be golden.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
WASHINGTON — Large amounts of computer equipment from Dell have been sold to the Syrian government through a Dubai-based distributor despite strict trade sanctions intended to ban the selling of technology to the regime, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
Hamid Khatib/Reuters
A building damaged this week in Syria’s civil war. The government is suspected of using the computers to track opponents.
The disclosure of the computer sales is the latest example of how the Syrian government has managed to acquire technology, some of which is used to censor Internet activity and track opponents of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
According to internal company e-mails, cash transfer statements, sales receipts and shipping documents, the computer equipment was sold by BDL Gulf, which is based in Saudi Arabia and is a large distributor of computer equipment in the Middle East. It is an authorized dealer for Dell in the Middle East and Africa, and is also a reseller for other computer brands, including Samsung and Acer.
BDL sold the equipment to Anas Hasoon Trading, a Damascus-based company with contracts to provide computers to the Syrian government, according to billings records and e-mail exchanges between the companies.
Jess Blackburn, a spokesman for Dell in Round Rock, Tex., confirmed that BDL was an authorized reseller. He said the company was recently made aware of a possible shipment of Dell equipment to Syria by an anonymous source.
“We are investigating an allegation we received recently that BDL was involved in a possible transaction involving Syria,” Mr. Blackburn said in a statement. “Dell requires its resellers to follow U.S. trade requirements, just as Dell does. Resellers of Dell products and services are contractually prohibited from selling or shipping any technology to a customer in a restricted country.”
The United States has barred the sales of most American-made goods to Syria for nearly a decade and has repeatedly tightened sanctions against the government. An executive order by President Obama, dated April 22, 2012, specifically addresses the sale of computer technology to Syria, barring Americans from helping the Iranian and Syrian governments engage in human rights abuses, including monitoring and tracking of dissidents.
United States officials charged with enforcing sanctions against Syria would not comment on the possible violation of export sanction laws but did say that exporting technology to Syria was illegal unless the sale would promote the free flow of information between the Syrian people and the outside world.
Asked about the evidence of shipments to Syria, a manager at BDL said the company had hundreds of customers and did not keep track of their locations.
“We cannot know if they are from Pakistan, Egypt or Morocco; we just sell in Dubai,” said RamaNarayan Singh, who is listed as BDL’s sales manager for the United Arab Emirates, Africa and Iran. “I’m just an employee doing my duty. I don’t know if a company is from Syria.”
But e-mails between Mr. Singh and a representative from Anas Hasoon Trading show that the Syrian company made it clear to him that it was working on behalf of the Assad government. Mr. Singh signed several invoices that listed a Syrian address for the trading company. Mr. Singh said he did not recall the e-mails or the invoices.
The records, which were provided to The Times by an individual who was briefed on the transactions, showed that BDL sold hundreds of laptops, tablets and desktop computers to the Syrian company.
In e-mails sent between Mr. Singh and Yahya Rifai, who was listed as a purchasing manager for the Anas Hasoon Trading company, Mr. Rifai mentioned several times that he was working to buy the computers for the Syrian government.
The companies
Flood Syria's government with Dell's. After a month, when the first 99% break, the entire government will be online with two Indian technical support technicians who will both try and get *them* to take apart their own machines even though they purchased the "premium" support package.
The regime will fall within weeks. My compliments to the CIA operative who suggested this.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If Syria wants computers that are available on the open market anywhere in the world, they'll get them. Even if every company in Dell's supply chain was 100% committed to upholding the export rules (which, obviously, they aren't), all the Syrians would have to do is set up a company in a non-restricted country to buy them by lying to a distributor about being Syrian owned, then ship them over the border themselves.