Syria Forces Kill 120, Activists Say, Government Signs Deal
December 21, 2011, 4:55 AM ESTBy Ladane Nasseri and Nayla Razzouk
(Updates with comments from analyst starting in fourth paragraph.)
Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Syrian forces killed as many as 120 people, including dozens of defecting soldiers, as the government agreed to allow Arab League monitors into the country to verify compliance with measures to halt the violence.
The deaths were among the highest in a single day since the start of an uprising nine months ago against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. The 72 defectors were killed in the northern governorate of Idlib, while 35 civilians died across the country, Mahmoud Merei, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said today by phone from Damascus. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group with a network of members in Syria, said on its website that 48 civilians died.
Yesterday’s signing of the Arab League accord in Cairo came as the bloc moved closer to asking the United Nations Security Council to address the Syrian crisis. The League postponed a meeting of foreign ministers who were scheduled to gather in Cairo tomorrow to discuss submitting a proposal on Syria to the Security Council, Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency said, citing the league’s secretary-general, Nabil el-Arabi.
Given Syria’s “prevarication and intransigence in signing the Arab League deal and the fact that the violence appears to be continuing unabated, there are good reasons to doubt both Syrian sincerity and the Arab League’s effectiveness in seeing through the observer mission,” David Hartwell, Middle East analyst with IHS Global Insight, said in an e-mailed note.
Arab League Sanctions
Syria signed the Arab League deal after the bloc agreed to 70 percent of the amendments sought by the government, Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem told reporters yesterday without elaborating on the changes.
“The Syrian government may have calculated that it can ‘manage’ the monitoring mission as part of its wider strategy to delay or divert international pressure,” Hartwell said.
The Arab League imposed sanctions on Syria on Nov. 27, increasing economic and political pressure on Assad to end the suppression of protests that began in mid-March. The violence risks moving the nation closer to civil war as military personnel defect and take up arms against the government.
Efforts by the U.S. and Europe, which have also imposed sanctions on Syria, to get a condemnation of Assad’s crackdown at the Security Council have been blocked by Russia and China.
Popular movements have toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya this year, and forced Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh to agree to cede power.
Buying Time
An initial mission will go to Syria within a day or two to discuss plans for 500 observers to be deployed nationwide, the Associated Press cited Arab League Secretary-General Nabil el- Arabi as saying in Cairo.
Assad’s government is trying to buy time by signing the Arab League proposal, Burhan Ghalioun, president of the Syrian National Council, said in a televised news conference in Tunisia, where Syrian opposition groups have been meeting.
Assad has blamed the unrest on foreign provocateurs, while his forces have used tanks, armored vehicles and artillery to crush the uprising. The UN estimates that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the uprising. New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Syrian military and intelligence officials last week of giving both “direct and standing orders to use lethal force.”
--With assistance from Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Lebanon. Editors: Heather Langan, Karl Maier, Louis Meixler
To contact the reporters on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Dubai at lnasseri@bloomberg.net; Nayla Razzouk in Dubai at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
