Middle East
Syrian opposition vows to 'break the regime'
Activists say democratic transition will safeguard the country from "a period
of violence, chaos and civil war".
Last Modified: 27 Apr 2011 12:04
Syrian opposition figures have said their "massive grassroots revolution" will
break the regime unless Bashar al-Assad, the president, leads a transition to
democracy.
The statement on Wednesday from an umbrella group of opposition activists in
Syria and abroad, called the National Initiative for Change, said a democratic
transition will "safeguard the nation from falling into a period of violence,
chaos and civil war."
"If the Syrian president does not wish to be recorded in history as a leader of
this transition period, there is no alternative left for Syrians except to move
forward along the same path as did the Tunisians, Egyptians
and Libyans before them," the statement said.
The opposition in Syria is getting more organised as anti-government protests
gain strength, but it is still fragmented.
Meanwhile, witnesses said a convoy of about 30 tanks were seen on the Damascus
circular highway outside the capital.
Witnesses also said troops had poured into the Damascus suburb of Douma
overnight and were also deployed around the coastal city of Baniyas.
White buses brought in hundreds of soldiers in full combat gear into Douma, a
witness told Reuters news agency. Pro-democracy protesters have tried to march
from the suburb into the centre of the capital in the last two weeks but have
been dispersed by security forces.
More than 2,000 security police deployed in Douma on Tuesday, manning
checkpoints and checking identity cards to arrest pro-democracy sympathisers,
the witness, a former soldier, said.
He said he saw several lorries in the streets equipped with heavy machine guns
and members of the plainclothes secret police carrying assault rifles. He
believed the soldiers to be Republican Guards, among the units most loyal to
Bashar al-Assad, the president.
Deraa crackdown
Troops have been deployed in the southern city of Deraa since Monday and
activists said gunfire could be heard on Wednesday.
Sawasiah, a Syrian human rights organisation, said security forces had killed
35 civilians since they entered the city. The group said electricity, water and
telecommunications were cut in Deraa and that supplies of blood at hospitals
was starting to run low.
Late on Tuesday, the state news agency SANA reported the army "continued to
chase armed groups and extremists in Deraa who attacked military positions, cut
off roads and forced passers-by to stop so they could hit them."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday it had collected the
names of at least 453 civilians killed during almost six weeks of pro-democracy
protests.
Asked who killed them, the group's director Rami Abdelrahman said: "It does not
require a comment. The names we have are from Deraa, Damascus, rural Damascus
and the coast."
Meanwhile, the official news agency SANA said funerals were to be held for six
security personnel killed on Tuesday by "armed extremist groups".
UN session
The UN's top human rights body has agreed to hold a special human rights
session on Syria to try to stop the security forces' brutal crackdown on
protesters.
The 47-nation Human Rights Council in Geneva will convene the special session
on Friday. The meeting was requested by the US and endorsed by 16 member states
including Britain, France, and Japan.
No Arab countries were among those requesting the session, which requires
endorsement by one-third of the forum's membership to convene. Arab diplomats
to the UN were holding closed-door talks on the issue in Geneva, according to
UN sources.
Emergency sessions in recent months have launched investigations into alleged
human rights violations in Libya and Ivory Coast.
The UN secretary-general has called for an independent inquiry into the deaths
of people he has described as peaceful demonstrators.
But Syria's UN envoy has said the country is perfectly capable of conducting
its own transparent inquiry into the deaths.
Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters that Assad had instructed the
government "to establish a national commission of inquiry and investigation
about all the casualties among civilians" and the envoy pledged "full
transparency".
"We have nothing to hide," he said.
"We regret what's going on, but you should also acknowledge the fact that this
unrest and riots, in some of their aspects, have hidden agendas," he said,
adding that some foreign governments were trying to destabilise Syria.
International pressure on Assad is mounting, with European governments urging
Syria to end the violence.
European Union governments will discuss the possibility of imposing sanctions
against Syria on Friday, with various measures being explored, a spokesman for
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.
"All options are on the table," he said.
Source:
Agencies
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