Nations pledge millions for Syrian opposition

BRADLEY KLAPPER

CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA

Asso­ci­ated Press

ISTANBUL — A coali­tion of more than 70 part­ners, includ­ing the United States, pledged Sun­day to send mil­lions of dol­lars and com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment to Syria’s oppo­si­tion groups, sig­nal­ing deeper involve­ment in the con­flict amid a grow­ing belief that diplo­macy and sanc­tions alone can­not end the Dam­as­cus regime’s repression.

The shift by the U.S. and its West­ern and Arab allies toward seek­ing to sway the mil­i­tary bal­ance in Syria car­ries regional risks because the cri­sis there increas­ingly resem­bles a proxy con­flict that could exac­er­bate sec­tar­ian ten­sions. The Syr­ian rebels are over­matched by heav­ily armed regime forces.

The sum­mit meet­ing of the “Friends of the Syr­ian Peo­ple” fol­lows a year of failed diplo­macy that seems close to run­ning its course with a trou­bled peace plan led by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

Indeed, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton and other par­tic­i­pants at the con­fer­ence in Istan­bul uni­formly expressed con­cern that Annan’s plan might back­fire, spec­u­lat­ing that Syr­ian Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad would try to manip­u­late it to pro­long his hold on power.

Clin­ton said she was wait­ing for Annan’s report to the U.N. Secu­rity Coun­cil on Mon­day on the sta­tus of his peace plan.

“There can­not be process for the sake of process. There has to be a time­line. If Assad con­tin­ues as he has, to fail to end the vio­lence, to insti­tute a cease-fire, to with­draw his troops from the areas he has been bat­ter­ing … then it’s unlikely he is going to ever agree,” she said. “Because it is a clear sig­nal that he wants to wait to see if he has totally sup­pressed the oppo­si­tion. I think he would be mis­taken to believe that. My read­ing is that the oppo­si­tion is gain­ing in inten­sity, not losing.”

Clin­ton said the United States is pro­vid­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions equip­ment to help anti-government activists in Syria orga­nize, remain in con­tact with the out­side world and evade regime attacks.

The Syr­ian regime agreed last week to Annan’s plan, which calls for an imme­di­ate cease-fire, human­i­tar­ian access to besieged civil­ians and a polit­i­cal nego­ti­a­tion process led by Syr­i­ans. Since then, there have been daily reports of vio­lence, includ­ing shelling Sun­day in the cen­tral city of Homs that activists said killed more than two dozen people.

The upris­ing began in March 2011 as part of the Arab Spring with peace­ful protests call­ing for polit­i­cal reforms. Assad’s regime sent tanks, snipers and thugs to try to quash the revolt, and many in the oppo­si­tion have taken up arms to defend them­selves and attack gov­ern­ment troops. The United Nations says more than 9,000 have died.

Con­fer­ence par­tic­i­pants in Istan­bul said Saudi Ara­bia and other Gulf coun­tries are cre­at­ing a fund to pay mem­bers of the rebel Free Syr­ian Army and sol­diers who defect from the regime and join oppo­si­tion ranks. One del­e­gate described the fund as a “pot of gold” to under­mine Assad’s army.

Par­tic­i­pants con­firmed the Gulf plan on con­di­tion of anonymity because details were still being worked out. One said the fund would involve sev­eral mil­lion dol­lars a month. It is said to be ear­marked for salaries, but it was not clear whether there would be any effort to pre­vent the diver­sion of money to weapons pur­chases, a sen­si­tive issue that could prompt stronger accu­sa­tions of mil­i­tary med­dling by for­eign powers.

The deliv­ery of human­i­tar­ian aid to Syria’s belea­guered civil­ians is a key pro­vi­sion of Annan’s plan. Clin­ton announced $12 mil­lion in addi­tional aid for Syria’s peo­ple — dou­bling the total U.S. assis­tance so far.

The Saudis and other Arab Gulf states have pro­posed giv­ing weapons to the rebels, while the U.S. and other allies have balked out of fear of fuel­ing an all-out civil war. Wash­ing­ton hasn’t taken any pub­lic posi­tion on the fund, but it appears that it has given tacit sup­port to its Arab allies.

Mohammed al-Said, a Syr­ian activist in the town of Duma, north­west of Dam­as­cus, said salaries might encour­age fur­ther defec­tions, but that only arms would turn the tide against Assad.

“What is clear to us is that only fight­ing can make this regime leave,” he said via Skype, adding the oppo­si­tion wanted arms more than mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion so they could top­ple Assad themselves.

Fayez Amru, a rebel who recently defected from the mil­i­tary and is now based in Turkey, wel­comed the deci­sion as a “human­i­tar­ian step in the right direc­tion” but also said weapons were needed.

“We feel let down by the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity. I don’t know why there is hes­i­ta­tion by the West … maybe this will help at least keep the rebels on their feet,” Amru said.

In Dam­as­cus, Syria blasted the con­fer­ence, call­ing it part of an inter­na­tional con­spir­acy to kill Syr­i­ans and weaken the coun­try. A front-page edi­to­r­ial in the offi­cial Al-Baath news­pa­per said the meet­ing was a “regional and inter­na­tional scram­ble to search for ways to kill more Syr­i­ans, sab­o­tage their soci­ety and state, and move toward the broad objec­tive of weak­en­ing Syria.”

Rus­sia and China have twice pro­tected the Assad regime from cen­sure by the U.N. Secu­rity Coun­cil, fear­ing such a step could lead to for­eign mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion. Syria’s inter­na­tional oppo­nents have no plans to launch a mil­i­tary oper­a­tion sim­i­lar to the Libya bomb­ing cam­paign that ousted Moam­mar Gad­hafi, espe­cially with­out U.N. sup­port, but they are slowly over­com­ing doubts about assist­ing scat­tered rebel forces.

The debate over arm­ing or fund­ing the rebels is being dri­ven partly by the sec­tar­ian split in the region. The upheaval in Syria presents an oppor­tu­nity for the Sunni Mus­lim states in the Gulf to bol­ster their influ­ence, con­sol­i­date power and pos­si­bly leave regional rival Iran, led by a Shi­ite theoc­racy, with­out crit­i­cal alliances that flow through Damascus.

Assad’s regime, which counts Iran among its few allies, is led by the minor­ity Alaw­ite sect, an off­shoot of Shiism.

Last year, Saudi Ara­bia sent tanks to help fel­low Sunni lead­ers in Bahrain crush a largely Shi­ite rebel­lion there, indi­cat­ing that sec­tar­ian inter­ests some­times trump calls for demo­c­ra­tic change in the Mid­dle East.

Turkey hosts 20,000 Syr­ian refugees, includ­ing hun­dreds of army defec­tors, and has floated the idea of set­ting up a buffer zone inside Syria if the flow of dis­placed peo­ple across its bor­der becomes over­whelm­ing. Parts of the south­ern Turk­ish region near Syria are infor­mal logis­tics bases for rebels, who col­lect food and other sup­plies in Turkey and deliver them to com­rades on smug­gling routes.

Del­e­gates to the Istan­bul meet­ing talked of tighter sanc­tions and increased diplo­matic pres­sure on Assad, and Syr­ian oppo­si­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives promised to offer a demo­c­ra­tic alter­na­tive to his regime. Yet the show of sol­i­dar­ity at the con­fer­ence was marred by the absence of China, Rus­sia and Iran.

Turk­ish Prime Min­is­ter Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan said mil­i­tary options might have to be con­sid­ered if Syria does not coop­er­ate with Annan’s plan and the U.N. Secu­rity Coun­cil does not unite against Assad.

“If the U.N. Secu­rity Coun­cil fails once again to bring about its his­toric respon­si­bil­ity, there will be no other choice than to sup­port the Syr­ian people’s right to self-defense,” Erdo­gan said.

Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the oppo­si­tion Syr­ian National Coun­cil, called for the strength­en­ing of Syr­ian rebel forces as well as “secu­rity cor­ri­dors” in Syria, a ref­er­ence to inter­na­tion­ally pro­tected zones on Syr­ian ter­ri­tory that would allow the deliv­ery of aid to civil­ians. How­ever, the nations meet­ing in Istan­bul failed to agree on such an inter­ven­tion, which could involve the deploy­ment of for­eign secu­rity forces.

“No one should allow this regime to feel at ease or to feel stronger by giv­ing them a longer maneu­ver­ing area,” he said, reflect­ing fears that Assad would try to use the Annan plan to pro­long his tenure. “It’s enough that the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity has flirted with the regime in Syria. Some­thing has to change.”

The Syr­ian National Coun­cil said weapons sup­plies to the oppo­si­tion were not “our pre­ferred option” because of the risk they could esca­late the killing of civil­ians, but it appealed for tech­ni­cal equip­ment to help rebels coordinate.

“For these sup­plies to be sent, neigh­bor­ing coun­tries need to allow for the trans­fer via their sea ports and across bor­ders,” the coun­cil said.

The one-day meet­ing fol­lowed an inau­gural forum in Tunisia in Feb­ru­ary. Since then, Syr­ian oppo­si­tion fig­ures have tried to con­vince inter­na­tional spon­sors that they can over­come their dif­fer­ences and shape the future of a coun­try whose auto­cratic regime has long denied the free exchange of ideas.

In Istan­bul, police used tear gas and batons to dis­perse a group of about 40 Assad sup­port­ers who tried to approach the con­fer­ence build­ing. Many held por­traits of the Syr­ian leader. One man waved Chi­nese and Russ­ian flags.

Posted by AP News on Apr 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.