ISIS at Davos

President Trump is attending the alpine gathering of the global elites in Davos this month but he wouldn’t have been so keen had he known that the World Economic Forum was trying to invite the leaders of ISIS to attend Davos 2015. That bit I got to know back in the summer of 2014 as a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum and got it straight from the WEF Associate Director responsible for inviting Middle Eastern leaders.

What exactly would be the intention of having ISIS at Davos? Would ISIS leaders have been rubbing shoulders and sharing drinks with the leaders of the free world away from public eye? Did ISIS leaders attend incognito in the end? These are the questions that popped into my mind, as I started thinking about President Trump’s visit to Davos.

Let’s rewind back to the summer of 2014. As a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum between 2014 and 2017, I attended a cocktail party for Global Shapers from around the world in August 2014, whom the WEF had gathered in Geneva, Switzerland. We were at one of the most chic places in Geneva – Buddha Bar – with its two floors reserved for the private party of around 100-200 Global Shapers — the WEF’s group of VIPs below the age of 33.

In the midst of the party, I spoke to an Associate Director who at the time was working for the World Economic Forum and was responsible for inviting the political leaders from the Middle East to Davos. You can imagine my surprise when he told me that the WEF was trying to invite ISIS leaders to the global elites gathering in Davos in 2015. “Iraq is gone”, told me the WEF Associate Director. What was apparent from his words was that ISIS were now seen as the new power in the Middle East to be reckoned with, and the World Economic Forum was planning to give ISIS the legitimacy and recognition of a political actor, just like any other. My jaw dropped to the floor — just as Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau said on another occasion at the NATO London Summit.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights where I was working at the time had long condemned ISIS for horrific crimes against humanity. My colleagues at the time – seasoned investigators at the UN Syria human rights commission who had seen it all – were telling me that the ISIS atrocities they were documenting were like nothing they had seen before. International criminals were the Davos desired attendees “committed to improving the state of the world” – the WEF’s motto at the time. It is remarkable how the bad guys that win could become “committed to improving the state of the world”. The World Economic Forum doesn’t really broker peace agreements, so what would ISIS leaders be doing in the company of billionaires who surely would have had interest in the newly ISIS-governed Syrian and Iraqi oil-rich territories?

At the time in 2014, ISIS had a stronghold over Iraq and Syria, while battling the Kurds on the ground, and the US on air. To invite ISIS to Davos meant that the Western, liberal society had accepted defeat. It was waving the white flag, while the Kurds were fiercely defending their territories and the US was pushing hard against ISIS. I never knew if in the end ISIS attended the 2015 Davos Summit, but the intention was certainly there on the part of the World Economic Forum, according to the WEF Associate Director. “We are trying to get them to come”, he told me at the summer cocktail.

Today in 2020, things of course look different. The caliphate is gone. ISIS are largely captured, defeated and on the run. US President Trump boasted the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019 in northwestern Syria. This time, the World Economic Forum – using its measure of sheer power and sticking with the strong – was not going to invite ISIS to Davos 2020. This much was clear.

The revelation that they might have rubbed shoulders with ISIS leaders would not sit well with the European and American top leaders who sometimes make trips to the mountain summit held every January in the Swiss Alps. European constituencies’ opinions on ISIS are clear: Europeans are largely opposed to EU countries accepting back for trial any ISIS fighters. That constituency predisposition defines also European leaders’ stance on the issue, which is a big, resounding no-go. Europeans are largely resisting the US on taking any ISIS fighters back for trial, or even worse, rehabilitation.

As I will be watching and commenting on the Davos gathering starting in a couple of weeks, I will remember that ISIS were once desired guests there. The Forum generally disinvites guests only when there are no repercussions – and not on moral grounds but rather on the grounds of loss of power. The Ukrainian delegation, for example, was disinvited in 2014 over the Ukrainian government’s treatment of peaceful demonstrators, but we knew that the Ukrainian regime’s song was sung by that time. Why a terrorist group like ISIS would have been invited by the WEF is beyond comprehension. Or maybe not. In the end, we are talking about the World Economic Forum. Sheer power and wealth will always be in vogue and the defining factor there.

Iveta Cherneva is an author in the fields of security and human rights who previously served for five UN agencies and in US Congress. Her recent opinions have appeared in Euronews, The New York Times, The Guardian, London School of Economics, The Fletcher Forum, Euractiv, EU Reporter and others

Source: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/01/11/isis-at-davos/