Emboldened by monitors, Syrians hold huge protests

Syr­ian sol­diers chant slo­gans dur­ing a pro-regime rally in Dam­as­cus, Syria, Fri­day. The rebel Free Syr­ian Army said Fri­day it has stopped its offen­sive against gov­ern­ment tar­gets dur­ing a month-long mis­sion by Arab League mon­i­tors, say­ing it wants to expose how the regime is killing peace­ful pro­test­ers. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Muzaf­far Salman)

ZEINA KARAM

Asso­ci­ated Press

BEIRUT — In the largest protests Syria has seen in months, hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple took to the streets Fri­day in a dis­play of defi­ance to show an Arab League observer mis­sion the strength of the oppo­si­tion movement.

Despite the mon­i­tors’ pres­ence in the coun­try, activists said Syr­ian forces loyal to Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad killed at least 22 peo­ple, most of them shot dur­ing the anti-government demonstrations.

In a fur­ther attempt to appeal to the mon­i­tors, dis­si­dent troops who have bro­ken away from the Syr­ian army said they have halted attacks on regime forces to rein­force the activists’ con­tention that the upris­ing against Assad is a peace­ful movement.

While oppo­si­tion activists are deeply skep­ti­cal of the observer mis­sion, the out­pour­ing of demon­stra­tors across Syria under­scores their wish to make their case to the for­eign mon­i­tors and take advan­tage of the small mea­sure of safety they feel they brought with them.

The nearly 100 Arab League mon­i­tors are the first that Syria has allowed into the coun­try dur­ing the upris­ing, which began in March. They are sup­posed to ensure the regime com­plies with terms of the League’s plan to end Assad’s crack­down on dis­sent. The U.N. says more than 5,000 peo­ple have died as the gov­ern­ment has sought to crush the revolt.

Friday’s crowds were largest in Idlib and Hama provinces, with about 250,000 peo­ple turn­ing out in each area, accord­ing to an activist and eye­wit­ness who asked to be iden­ti­fied only as Man­hal because he feared gov­ern­ment reprisal. Other big ral­lies were held in Homs and Daraa provinces and the Dam­as­cus sub­urb of Douma, accord­ing to Rami Abdul-Raham, who heads the British-based Syr­ian Obser­va­tory for Human Rights.

The crowd esti­mates could not be inde­pen­dently con­firmed because Syria has banned most for­eign jour­nal­ists from the coun­try and tightly restricts the local media.

Haytham Manna, a promi­nent Paris-based dis­si­dent and human rights defender, said the observers’ pres­ence has embold­ened pro­test­ers to take to the streets in huge numbers.

“Whether we like it or not, the pres­ence of observers has had a pos­i­tive psy­cho­log­i­cal effect, encour­ag­ing peo­ple to stage peace­ful protests — a basic con­di­tion of the Arab League peace plan,” he told The Asso­ci­ated Press.

The observers began their mis­sion Tues­day in Homs, often referred to by many Syr­i­ans as the “Cap­i­tal of the Rev­o­lu­tion.” Since then, they have fanned out in small groups across Syr­ian provinces, includ­ing the restive Idlib province in the north, Hama in the cen­ter and the south­ern province of Daraa, where the revolt began.

The orange-jacketed observers have been seen tak­ing pic­tures of the destruc­tion, vis­it­ing fam­i­lies of vic­tims of the crack­down, and tak­ing notes.

On Fri­day, they were within “hear­ing dis­tance” from where troops opened fire on tens of thou­sands of pro­test­ers in the Dam­as­cus sub­urb of Douma, activist Salim al-Omar said. They later vis­ited the wounded in hos­pi­tal, he added.

Despite ques­tions about the human rights record of the man lead­ing the mon­i­tors, tens of thou­sands have turned out this week in cities and neigh­bor­hoods where they were expected to visit.

The huge ral­lies have been met by lethal gun­fire from secu­rity forces, appar­ently wor­ried about mul­ti­ple mass sit-ins mod­eled after Cairo’s Tahrir Square. In gen­eral, activists say, secu­rity forces have launched attacks when observers were not present. But there have been some reports of fir­ing on pro­test­ers while mon­i­tors were nearby.

Omar Shaker, an activist and res­i­dent of the bat­tered neigh­bor­hood of Baba Amr in Homs, said the observers were “laugh­able,” often walk­ing around with out­dated cam­eras and with­out pens.

“Still, the bom­bard­ment and killings have decreased here in their pres­ence. We see them as a kind of human shields, that’s all,” he said.

Shaker said around 7,000 protested Fri­day in Baba Amr — the first demon­stra­tion in the besieged dis­trict in more than a week.

“Peo­ple are feel­ing opti­mistic,” he said. “We’ve been protest­ing and dying for 10 months. We have the feel­ing that the worst is over and the end is near,” he added.

In Douma, up to 100,000 peo­ple protested Fri­day. Ama­teur videos posted on the Inter­net by activists showed demon­stra­tors car­ry­ing away a bleed­ing com­rade after being hit by a gas canister.

“Look, Arab League, look!” the cam­era­man is heard shout­ing. The British-based Obser­va­tory, which relies on a net­work of activists on the ground, said the regime used nail bombs against pro­test­ers in Douma. The report was con­firmed by Douma activist al-Omar.

In another video, a huge crowd packed a main street in Homs, singing anti-Assad songs and danc­ing in uni­son. The crowd sang, “We will die in free­dom,” to the fes­tive beat of a drum, as the uniden­ti­fied cam­era­man pro­claimed, “For months we didn’t hear any­thing on Fri­day” because of the crack­down. “But because of the observer com­mit­tee, they didn’t fire a sin­gle bullet.”

“Vic­tory is close, god will­ing,” he said.

Thou­sands turned out in the city of Idlib to wel­come the observers, fill­ing a large square, wav­ing olive branches and flags, and chant­ing, “The peo­ple want the fall of Bashar.”

But the ongo­ing vio­lence in Syria, and ques­tions about the human rights record of the head of the Arab League mon­i­tors, Sudanese Lt. Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, are rein­forc­ing the opposition’s view that Syria’s lim­ited coop­er­a­tion with the observers is merely a ploy by Assad to buy time and fore­stall more inter­na­tional con­dem­na­tion and sanctions.

One of Assad’s few remain­ing allies, Rus­sia, voiced its approval of the observer mis­sion so far, call­ing the sit­u­a­tion “reassuring.”

The Local Coor­di­na­tion Com­mit­tees, an activist coali­tion, said at least 130 peo­ple, includ­ing six chil­dren, have been killed in Syria since the Arab League observers began their one-month mission.

On Fri­day, activists said secu­rity forces fired on pro­test­ers in Daraa, Hama, Idlib and Douma. In the cen­tral city of Homs, six peo­ple who were reported miss­ing a day ear­lier were con­firmed dead.

The Obser­va­tory reported 22 peo­ple were killed nation­wide, most of them shot while protest­ing. The Local Coor­di­na­tion Com­mit­tees activist net­work reported 32 were killed. The dif­fer­ing death tolls could not be imme­di­ately reconciled.

The Arab League plan, which Syria agreed to Dec. 19, demands that the gov­ern­ment remove its secu­rity forces and heavy weapons from cities, start talks with the oppo­si­tion and allow human rights work­ers and jour­nal­ists into the coun­try. It also calls for the release of all polit­i­cal prisoners.

Pro-Assad groups turned out for ral­lies in Dam­as­cus and sev­eral other cities, wav­ing por­traits of the pres­i­dent, in an appar­ent bid to show that the regime has pop­u­lar support.

Also Fri­day, the rebel Free Syr­ian Army said it has stopped its offen­sive against gov­ern­ment tar­gets since the observers arrived, in a bid to avoid fuel­ing gov­ern­ment claims that it is fac­ing armed “ter­ror­ists” rather than peace­ful protesters.

“We stopped to show respect to Arab broth­ers, to prove that there are no armed gangs in Syria, and for the mon­i­tors to be able to go wher­ever they want,” break­away air force Col. Riad al-Asaad, leader of the FSA, told the AP by tele­phone from his base in Turkey.

“We only defend our­selves now. This is our right and the right of every human being,” he said, adding that his group will resume attacks after the observers leave.

The Free Syr­ian Army says it has about 15,000 army defec­tors. The group has claimed respon­si­bil­ity for attacks on gov­ern­ment instal­la­tions that have killed scores of sol­diers and mem­bers of the secu­rity forces.

Posted by AP News on Dec 30 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.