Stop killing your people, UN chief tells Al Assad
LEAGUE TO DISCUSS MONITORS’ REPORT AS SYRIA DECLARES AMNESTY
Dubai UN chief Ban Kimoon yesterday urged Syria’s Bashar Al Assad to stop killing his own people, saying the path of repression was a “dead end”.
“Today, I say again to President Al Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people. The path of repression is a dead end,” Ban said in a keynote address at a conference in Beirut on democracy in the Arab world.
“The winds of change will not cease to blow. The flame ignited in Tunisia will not be dimmed,” he added.
Ban’s comments came as the Syrian president announced a general amnesty for crimes committed during the popular unrest that has rocked the country over the past 10 months.
Arab League foreign ministers will meet on January 22 to discuss the findings of monitors sent to Syria, Egypt’s Middle East News Agency said.
Opponents of Al Assad said the amnesty was meaningless because most detainees were held without charge in secret police or military facilities with no due process or legal documentation.
The Arab League monitors are due to complete on January 19 a report on the situation in Syria.
Beirut/ Yangon (AFP & AP) French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe yesterday decried the “silence” of the UN Security Council on Syria’s deadly crackdown on protests, saying the situation was becoming “intolerable”.
“The massacre continues, the silence of the Security Council too. This situation is becoming intolerable,” he said at a press conference during a visit to Myanmar.
In October, Russia and China vetoed a Western draft resolution that would have condemned Bashar Al Assad’s regime. Russia later circulated an alternative that would have pointed the finger at both sides.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon yesterday issued a call to Al Assad to stop killing his people.
“Today, I say again to President Al Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people. The path of repression is a dead end,” Ban said in a keynote address at a conference on Arab world democracy in Beirut.
The United Nations estimates more than 5,000 people have been killed in Syria as Al Assad’s forces crack down on anti-regime protests now in their 10th month.
The government says far fewer have been killed while accusing “armed terrorist gangs” backed by foreign powers of being responsible for the violence.
“The repression has not ceased. The violence is still at work. The Arab League has given itself until January 19 to assess the situation. I strongly hope that it will make a report that is as objective as possible that it can communicate to the Security Council,” Juppe said.
Today, I say again to President [Bashar Al] Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people.” Ban Ki-moon (above)
UN Secretary General
Syria agreed last month to an Arab League plan that calls for a halt to the crackdown, the withdrawal of heavy weaponry like tanks from cities, the release of all political prisoners and allowing foreign journalists and human rights workers in. About 200 Arab League observers are working in Syria to verify whether the government is abiding by its agreement to end the military crackdown on dissent.
Opposition
But the presence of the observers has not put a stop to bloodshed, and the US and many in the Syrian opposition say killings have accelerated. The UN says about 400 people have been killed in the last three weeks alone, on top of an earlier estimate of more than 5,000 killed since March.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported yesterday t hat f ive workers were killed when a roadside bomb detonated near the bus they were riding in the town of Khan Shaikhoun in northern Syria.
Syria’s state news agency reported that Al Assad granted a general amnesty for “crimes” committed during the uprising, and officials said authorities have begun granting local and foreign media outlets approvals to work in Syria. Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud said the level of “incitement and distortion of facts” has doubled since the media was allowed in along with the Arab League > observers, who started work late last month.
Ban acknowledged chal- lenges facing Arab states in the wake of the uprisings sweeping the Arab world in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. “It is sometimes said that authoritarian regimes, whatever else their faults, at least kept a lid on sectarian conflict. This is a cruel canard.”
Ban said in Beirut. “Yet it would be equally mistaken to assume that all of the new regimes now emerging will automatically uphold universal human rights,” he said.