Crisis in Syrië #10 Bloedbad!

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'President Assad is de duivel die we kennen'

Uit beduchtheid voor 'the devil you don't know' ontziet de wereld andermaal een Syrische president Assad.

Wie nog dacht dat de Syrische president Bashar al-Assad een minder hardvochtig heerser is dan zijn vader Hafez, die weet nu beter. Zondagochtend liet hij het leger de stad Hama binnentrekken, waarbij de tanks voluit vuurden. Het resultaat: minstens vijftig doden, honderden gewonden.

Er schuilt een tragische symboliek in het feit dat juist in Hama alle geweldsregisters werden opengetrokken. De naam van deze stad is voor altijd verbonden met de massaslachting die Assad senior er in 1982 liet aanrichten om een soennitische opstand de kop in te drukken. Berichten over wat er was gebeurd, drongen destijds pas geleidelijk door tot de buitenwereld, die er nauwelijks consequenties aan verbond: Assad was een belangrijke speler in het Midden-Oosten, hij was 'the devil you know'.

Dankzij de moderne communicatiemiddelen kunnen de gebeurtenissen in Syrië niet meer zo vergaand aan het oog worden onttrokken als vroeger. Maar de geslotenheid van het land maakt het nog steeds moeilijk precies te achterhalen wat er gaande is. En tot op zekere hoogte is Assad jr. net als zijn vader 'the devil you know': er is gebrekkig zicht op wat er allemaal gist onder de etnische en religieuze lappendeken die Syrië is.

Vandaar dat ook nu het internationale protest tegen het gewelddadig optreden van het bewind-Assad aan de behoedzame kant is gebleven. Maar Syrië is nu vier maanden in de greep van het geweld, het dodental ligt al boven de 1.500, niets wijst erop dat de oppositie zich het zwijgen laat opleggen, noch dat het bewind een ander antwoord heeft dan brute repressie. Het wordt steeds onzinniger om Assad nog te ontzien uit angst voor 'the devil you don't know'.

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Key events in Syria's protest movement:
Nov 12 - The Arab League gives Syria three days to end its violent crackdown on anti-government protesters and implement an Arab peace deal or face suspension from the regional body.

Nov 9 - Syrian protesters pelt four opposition leaders with eggs outside Arab League headquarters in Cairo, preventing them from entering the building for talks. The protesters were apparently against the men agreeing to a dialogue with the government.

The UN says country runs risk of Libyan-style civil war as troops desert to back protesters.

Nov 8 - The UN said "more than 60" people had died in the central city of Homs since the announcement of the Arab League ceasefire plan.

Nov 2 - The Syrian government accepts several measures suggested by the Arab League aimed at halting the violence in the country, including the removal of tanks and armoured vehicles from the streets, the release of prisoners, and allowing the Arab League and media access to report on the situation.

Nov 1 - NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen rules out the possibility of military intervention in Syria.

More at http://www.aljazeera.com/(...)111113440490791.html

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:10 schreef Stephen_Dedalus het volgende:

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Appels en peren.

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:13 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Dan ben je nog niet medeplichtig aan de misdaden die een ander begaat. Zo werkt het natuurlijk. Daarnaast is het maar de vraag of "ingrijpen" zin heeft. Er zijn nu in een jaar tijd tienduizend (semi-officieel getal, plus nog wat) doden gevallen, dat zijn er tienduizend te veel, maar hoe gaat het helpen als je nog meer mensen doodt?

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Klopt. En die invasie, die tot miljoenen slachtoffers heeft geleid, was toch verkeerd?

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:15 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Ik snap echt niet waar je het over hebt, het is zeker een soort geheimtaal, want het lijkt op gebrabbel. Geld en leugens van wie zijn verantwoordelijk voor wat? Het Westen had, net als bij Irak, moeten binnenvallen en dan hopen dat het wat oplevert?

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:20 schreef roos94 het volgende:
Syrie is echt een super land, ben er zelf twee keer geweest

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:23 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Je springt van de hak op de tak. Wat hebben de motieven voor de Amerikaanse agressie tegen Irak, en dat zijn er wat mij betreft wel meer dan "belangen niet meer dienen", te maken met de vraag in hoeverre het Westen medeplichtig is aan het geweld in Syrië? Wat had het Westen moeten laten?

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:33 schreef Monidique het volgende:
En waarom zou het Westen niet hypocriet zijn?

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:44 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Jij wilt Assad helpen het naar z'n grootje te bombarderen, toch?

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:46 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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En was dat zo'n goed iets, die Amerikaanse agressie tegen Irak?

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 13:54 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Nee, die volksopstand was jaren eerder al in de kiem gesmoord.

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 14:34 schreef Stephen_Dedalus het volgende:

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Dat was na de eerste golfoorlog? Toen hebben ze zich gewoon netjes aan het VN mandaat gehouden om Irak uit koeweit te verdrijven. Zo zie je maar weer, de VS kan toch nooit iets goeds doen, als ze zich aan de VN resoluties houden is het niet goed. Als ze zich niet aan de VN resoluties houden is het ook niet goed.

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 14:40 schreef Stephen_Dedalus het volgende:

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Het doel van de eerste golfoorlog was om Koeweit te bevrijden. Niet het regime van Saddam omverwerpen.

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SyriaParliament twitterde op zaterdag 25-02-2012 om 13:04:49 Syrian state TV accuses Colvin and Ochlik of being terrorists, army spies or foreign intel. [Arabic]: ( http://t.co/Ww4yp8wT ) #Syria #Syrie reageer retweet

Syrian state news accuse Colvin and Ochlik of being terrorists, army spies or foreign intel.

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Arab World: 'Either Assad stays or we do'

IDLIB – A week ago, I traveled to Idlib province in Syria, to spend some time in the company of the Free Syrian Army. My intention was to gain an impression of this force – its unity, its strength – and whether the possibility that it could be the instrument to destroy President Bashar Assad’s regime was feasible.

Crossing over the mountains from Turkey with smugglers, I linked up with FSA members in the town of Bini’ish, deep in Idlib province, and spent the subsequent days in the company of the rebels. I spoke to them after their return from attacks on army positions, watched them maintain the roadblocks that guard the entry to the “free zones” and saw them guard the mass demonstrations that take place across Idlib every Friday.

The Assad regime’s war against its own people has been continuing for almost a year. The city of Homs is under daily bombardment by regime artillery. A humanitarian crisis is looming in Homs, with parts of the population denied access to food and medical attention.

Assad remains determined to pummel the revolt into submission.

In Idlib province, meanwhile, the precarious free zones carved out by the FSA and the civilian opposition defiantly await the coming attentions of the dictator.

The Assad regime no longer has any visible presence in these areas. The rebel flag flies everywhere.

But the regime’s agents are still present, and FSA and civilian activists know that the current balance cannot hold.

The rebels understand that they are now engaged in a war of attrition with the regime. Assad is sending his depleted forces from town to town to crush centers of revolt which spring up again once the army leaves. Assad knows he must completely extinguish the fire of revolt before his own forces grow too weak to do so.

THE FSA has gradually increased in importance in recent months, as it became clear that the Assad regime was not going to fade quietly, and thus the question – who was stronger, the regime or the protestors – became more central. What were the main impressions I gained from observing the FSA on the ground in Idlib, one of its heartland areas? My first observation was that the high quality and determination of many of the FSA fighters and officers was immediately apparent. The majority were recent deserters from Assad’s army, many from frontline infantry and armored units. The stories they told of the reasons for their defection were similar and similarly harrowing.

They described being ordered to shoot live ammunition at demonstrators, the presence of non Arabic- speaking personnel (Iranians) operating within Assad’s army units and terrible punishments – including execution – meted out to soldiers who refused to follow orders. In many cases, the FSA men had taken considerable risks to get away from the army and join the rebels.

Despite the odds against them, they appeared convinced of their eventual victory. “The regime has the heavy weapons,” one FSA officer in the town of Sarmin told me. “The people are with us...either Bashar [Assad] stays or we stay.”

Secondly, the absence of unity and a real chain of command was acutely apparent.

No one I met seemed to regard themselves as under the command or authority of the notional FSA leadership in Antakya, Turkey. In many ways, indeed, there is no single FSA. Rather, there is a collection of local militias, formed of a combination of army deserters and local men wanting to take up arms.

These militias are in contact, cooperate with one another and receive general directives. But each appears to regard itself as autonomous, and is mainly concerned with ensuring the integrity of its own area and the safety of the area’s civilian protestors.

My third impression was that the arms available to the FSA are basic, but not quite as basic as the “ragtag army with only Kalashnikovs” image might suggest. The AK-47 rifle is indeed the standard issue to all FSA fighters (who must purchase the rifles themselves if they do not already have them courtesy of Assad’s army). But the FSA units I saw also possess RPG-7s, heavy machine guns and mortars. They would not be able to resist a frontal assault from Assad’s forces on the free zones. But they would certainly be able to conduct a guerrilla campaign, should they elect to do so.

Lastly, I observed that the Syrian uprising is very much a sectarian affair, although the FSA activists prefer not to openly characterize it that way. Idlib is a very conservative, traditional Sunni province, and the FSA there is composed entirely of Sunnis.

Anger against the Alawites, on whom the regime relies for support, spills out at unguarded moments. The murderous “Shabiha” Alawite paramilitaries are an object of particular hatred.

The FSA fighters I spoke to said again and again that without arms from the West and the establishment of a buffer zone, the killing in Syria could continue “for years.”

Whether these calls will begin to be heeded by the West, as the carnage in Syria continues, is now the crucial question. A de facto international coalition stands behind Assad: Iran, well skilled in the art of suppressing civil revolt, is providing equipment and expertise. Russia continues to provide diplomatic cover and arms. Hezbollah, too, is lending manpower and expertise.

The FSA, from what I saw, possesses the raw material to become an effective and potent fighting force, and has the potential capabilities to protect the Syrian people from the rage of the dictator and challenge his rule. It does not yet constitute such a force, however.

The crucial variable will be whether the West begins to aid, advise and equip it – as Assad’s friends are doing for his regime. If so, the uprising has a chance. The outcome of the crisis in Syria may well now depend on this decision.

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Shoot the journalists: Syria's lesson from the Arab spring

The killing of the foreign correspondent Marie Colvin and the photographer Rémi Ochlik in the siege of Homs has led to growing international pressure on the regime of Bashar al-Assad

The media centre in the Homs suburb of Baba Amr is nothing more than a family house. Once it had four storeys and a satellite dish on the roof. Reporters, photographers and cameramen had been forced to move there after their previous bolthole came under attack.

Two weeks ago, the top of the house was reduced to rubble during a visit by a CNN television crew, who had placed their own dishes there to broadcast live footage. The assault continued until the dishes were knocked down.

If other evidence were needed that the building had been targeted, before the attack last week that led to the deaths of the Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin and the French photographer Rémi Ochlik, it was supplied by another of the group that travelled to Homs with them, Jean-Pierre Perrin, who described how the building's own dish had been peppered with sniper rounds.

Even after their deaths, the regime has continued to attack Colvin and Ochlik. Footage was shown on state television on Saturday of their bodies, accusing them of being "spies."

The regime of Bashar al-Assad has learned the lessons of the Arab spring when it comes to dealing with the media – both citizen journalists and international outlets. As the Committee to Protect Journalists noted in a 2011 report, the regime quickly "enforced an effective media blackout" as soon as the protests began last March.

It banned, arrested and expelled international journalists and detained local reporters who tried to cover the protests.

It disabled mobile phones, landlines, electricity, and the internet in cities where the protests broke out, and used violence to extract the passwords of social media sites from journalists, allowing the Syrian electronic army, a pro-government online group, to hack the sites and post pro-regime comments. "In April," the report continues, "al-Jazeera suspended its Damascus bureau after several of its journalists were harassed and received threats.

Three days after the brutal assault of the famed cartoonist Ali Ferzat in August, the government passed a new media law that 'banned' the imprisonment of journalists and allowed greater freedom of expression. It followed this by jailing several journalists. In November, cameraman Ferzat Jarban was the first journalist to be killed in Syria in connection with his work since the committee began keeping detailed records in 1992.

If Jarban was the first, he has not been the last. Gilles Jacquier, a French cameraman, was killed in Homs in January, while on a government sponsored press trip, a killing first blamed on opposition fighters but later blamed on the regime by two Swiss colleagues who accused the soldiers accompanying them of leading them into an "elaborate trap".

The regime went further. Those who had entered the country before, such as Anthony Shadid of the New York Times – who collapsed and died in Syria a few days before Colvin's death – were denounced on Syrian state television as "spies", while those visiting Homs illegally were warned that they would be killed by the regime.

Last week, all the evidence now suggests that the regime delivered on its promise, targeting not just the latest group of foreign reporters to visit Homs but also Rami al-Sayyed, a citizen journalist whose video link to Baba Amr had kept news of events in the city in the forefront of the world's attention.

The war in Syria has become not simply a conflict between a brutal regime and those who want to see it fall, but a war on information itself: a calculated desire to destroy the fractured opposition's centres and erase all knowledge of what happened.

On Friday the difficulties of reporting from Homs were reinforced in a series of tweets by Javier Espinosa of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, who survived uninjured in the attack that killed and injured four colleagues, including Colvin, last week. He described drones flying overhead guiding the bombing of the suburb, saying: "I would love to interview who is launching the mortars right now. What he thinks when he is sending tons of shrapnel to kill people."

Asked to describe the drone, Espinosa said it was too dangerous to "get my head from where I am hiding".

Assad's war on the media, like that on his people, is unlikely to be successful in the long run. Journalists may have been pushed out of Syria, but it seems certain they will return yet more determined to tell the world what is happening.

As for the regime, Assad's ferocious tactics may be making short-term gains but in the long term the outcome is most likely to be the fall of his regime, the Chatham House thinktank said in the Political Outlook for Syria, a report last week. The question now is not if but when. And also in what circumstances.

As the "Friends of Syria" meeting ended in disarray in Tunis on Friday, it was not with suggestions about how to bring the violence to an end but amid threats from two key regional actors – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – who said that they supported military escalation against Assad. In doing so they have raised the terrifying spectre of a proxy war with Shia Iran, Assad's remaining regional ally, now that even Hamas has formally backed the uprising.

The remarks of the two countries – including a Saudi statement, before its delegation walked out of the conference, that arming the opposition was an "excellent idea" – came only hours after the disclosure by rebel sources that they were already receiving foreign arms and equipment.

The Saudi threat to arm the opposition has come amid increasing rhetoric from the US – including the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's description of Russia's blocking tactics as "despicable". In a subtle shift in policy, US officials, quoted by the Washington Post, said that "steps toward arming the opposition were likely to become a reality the [US] would not oppose if the Syrian leader does not yield."

The Saudi intervention on Friday should not, perhaps, have been surprising. The day before, in a telephone call, King Abdullah told the Russian president Dmitri Medvedev in the bluntest terms that discussion on the issue was "useless", and criticised Russia for not co-ordinating with Arab states before vetoing a UN security council resolution. All of which appears to confirm the view of some regional analysts that Saudi Arabia decided some time ago that intervention was inevitable.

Another challenge facing the regime is not direct intervention by neighbours but an ever-growing isolation. The regime has been told that it is no longer welcome at the next Arab league summit in Baghdad. The move by Hamas, which for long kept its political bureau in Damascus, meant that there was now no Sunni group or government allied with the regime.

Russia too – despite its objection to intervention and its veto – in recent days has shown increasing frustration, calling for a ceasefire, although it has continued to supply weapons.

Few even among the closest observers of Syria have any certainty, however, of the endgame. The Chatham House report lists a menu of potential scenarios, from the survival of a deeply "embattled and unpopular" regime for several years, to a coup of Alawite officers against the Assad family, to various kinds of collapse that include a Yemen-style implosion.

And if the authors are cautious about predicting an outcome, they are deeply sceptical too about the opposition Syrian National Council. Britain and other governments recognised the council in Tunis on Friday as a "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people.

But the authors describe the group as "not necessarily representative of Syrians" and report concern that "it has focused excessively on wooing international support rather than building domestic strength". Overall, the message is clear, reinforced by the fallout from Tunis: the outcome in Syria is unpredictable and likely to be extremely messy.

None of this will bring comfort to civilians trapped in Syria by the fighting, or the two injured journalists, Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times and Frenchwoman Edith Bouvier, as they await evacuation from Homs.

While the Red Cross evacuated a small number of wounded women and children from the city on Friday, and was in negotiations on Saturday to bring out more, the attacks continued as the military took its bombardment of rebel-held Baba Amr into a fourth week.

Nadir al-Husseini, an opposition activist in the city, described desperate conditions in Baba Amr. "It would be good if they [the Red Cross] could bring in some aid. But even if they brought us some medical supplies how much would it really help?" he told the Reuters news agency. "We have hundreds of wounded people crammed into houses all around the neighbourhood. People are dying from lack of blood because we just don't have the capability of treating everyone. I don't think any amount they could bring in would really help."

The description of conditions in Baba Amr, which has been hit by Russian-made 240mm mortars – the world's largest – came as others in the city condemned the Tunis meeting.

"They [world leaders] are still giving opportunities to this man who is killing us and has already killed thousands of people," said Husseini. "I've completely lost faith in everyone but God. But in spite of that, I know we will continue this uprising. We'll die trying before we give up," he said. "The shelling is just like it was yesterday. We have had 22 days of this. The women and children are all hiding in basements."

"No one would dare try to flee the neighbourhood, that is instant death. You'd have to get past snipers and soldiers. Then there is a trench that surrounds our neighbourhood and a few others. Then you have to go past more troops."

For now the suffering of Homs continues without an end in sight.

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Op zondag 26 februari 2012 21:00 schreef Frikandelbroodje het volgende:
Toch wel opvallend dat Hamas de banden verbreekt met Assad. Haniyeh was een paar weken geleden nog in Teheran en daar leek alles nog koek en ei. Hebben Iran en Syrië al een reactie gegeven? Op Press TV heb ik nog niks gezien.

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Ik weet het ook niet hoor, maar ik vind een poll waarin maar 100 syriërs zijn ondervraagd niet echt betrouwbaar

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Polen onderhandelt om evacuatie gewonde journalisten Syrië

Polen heeft aangegeven dat het naast, onder andere het Internationale Rode Kruis en Frankrijk, ook onderhandelt met de Syrische autoriteiten om de gewonde journalisten in Homs te evacueren.

Dat liet Marcin Bosacki, een woordvoerder van het Poolse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, weten aan perbsureau AP. De Poolse ambassade behartigt de belangen van de Verenigde Staten in Syrië. Ook zei Bosacki dat Polen samen met de VS, Groot-Brittannië en Frankrijk samenwerkt om de lichamen van de Amerikaanse journalist Marie Colvin en de Franse fotograaf Remi Ochlik door Damascus te laten vrijgeven. Lees ook het indringende verhaal van onze correspondent Gert van Langendonck die bevriend was met Ochlik.

Afgelopen woensdag kwamen Colvin en Ochlik om bij een raketaanval op een geïmproviseerd perscentrum in Homs. Daarbij raakten ook twee andere journalisten gewond, de Franse Edith Bouvier en de Britse Paul Conroy. Op 23 februari kwamen beelden naar buiten waarop Conroy en Bouvier de internationale gemeenschap oproepen tot evacuatie. Vandaag liet de Franse president Nicolas Sarkozy weten dat plannen om de gewonde journalisten uit Syrië te krijgen in een vergevorderd stadium bevinden.

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Britse fotograaf 'veilig' in Libanon; onzekerheid over Franse verslaggeefster

De Britse journalist Paul Conroy die gewond raakte in Syrië, zou in veiligheid zijn in Libanon. Dat meldde een betrokken diplomaat vandaag aan persbureau Reuters.

Conroy, die als fotograaf voor dagblad The Sunday Times bij de gevechten in Homs aanwezig was, raakte vorige week woensdag tijdens een beschieting door het Syrische leger gewond. Volgens de diplomaat is de journalist inmiddels in veiligheid gebracht, nadat hij door onbekenden het land kon worden uit gesmokkeld.

Française
Het is nog onduidelijk of Edith Bouvier, een Franse verslaggeefster die net als Paul Conroy gewond raakte tijdens het geweldsincident, net als de Brit naar Libanon is gesmokkeld. Syrische activisten meldden dat Bouvier veilig is aangekomen in het buurland, maar dat werd later ontkend door andere bronnen.

Volgens een goed ingevoerde Franse diplomaat bevindt de verslaggeefster zich nog in Homs. Bouvier zou garanties over haar veiligheid willen van de Syrische autoriteiten, voordat ze zich laat verplaatsen.

Bij de aanval waarbij Conroy en Bouvier hun verwondingen opliepen, werden twee andere journalisten gedood. De lichamen van de Amerikaanse journaliste Marie Colvin van The Sunday Times en van de Franse fotograaf Remi Ochlik liggen nog altijd in Homs.