until Monday 25 March unless Bashar is gone
Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has warned that Western action against his country would cause an “earthquake” that would “burn the whole region”.
In his first interview with a Western journalist since Syria‘s seven-month uprising began, President Assad told The Sunday Telegraph that intervention against his regime could cause “another Afghanistan”.
Western countries “are going to ratchet up the pressure, definitely,” he said. “But Syria is different in every respect from Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen. The history is different. The politics is different.
“Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake … Do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?
“Any problem in Syria will burn the whole region. If the plan is to divide Syria, that is to divide the whole region.”
Thousands of anti-government demonstrators took to the streets in two Syrian cities on Friday to demand the imposition of a Libyan-style no-fly zone over the country. According to the United Nations, at least 3,000 civilians, including 187 children, have been killed during protests against the regime. Thousands more have been imprisoned. The government says 1,200 members of the security forces have also died.
President Assad admitted that “many mistakes” had been made by his forces in the early part of the uprising, but insisted that only “terrorists” were now being targeted.
“We have very few police, only the army, who are trained to take on al-Qaeda,” he said. “If you sent in your army to the streets, the same thing would happen. Now, we are only fighting terrorists. That’s why the fighting is becoming much less.”
On Friday alone, however, opposition groups claimed that 40 people were killed by the regime, and government troops shelled a district of Homs, a centre of opposition.
Seventeen soldiers also died in overnight clashes with suspected army deserters in the city, which foreign journalists are forbidden to enter.
Syria was condemned yesterday by Arab League foreign ministers for its “continued killings of civilians”.
The number of protesters appeared to fall earlier this month, but has increased again after the death of Col Gaddafi gave opposition groups new heart. A general strike affected much of the southern part of the country.
President Assad insisted that he had responded differently to the Arab Spring than other, deposed Arab leaders. “We didn’t go down the road of stubborn government,” he said. “Six days after [the protests began] I commenced reform. People were sceptical that the reforms were an opiate for the people, but when we started announcing the reforms, the problems started decreasing e_SLps This is when the tide started to turn. This is when people started supporting the government.”
Some Damascus-based opposition leaders say the reforms, which include laws ostensibly allowing demonstrations and political parties, are a start, but not enough. However, the leaders of the main protests say they are meaningless and President Assad must go.
“The problem with the government is that their dialogue is shallow and just a tool to gain time,” said Kadri Jamil, of Kassioun, a Damascus-based opposition group. “They have to act to begin real dialogue because the security solution has failed. We have one to two months before we pass the point of no return.”
One Homs-based opposition activist said: “Killing people is not an act of reform. We aren’t calling for economic or even political reform under Assad, but for the departure of this bloodstained president and free elections.”
President Assad said: “The pace of reform is not too slow. The vision needs to be mature. It would take only 15 seconds to sign a law, but if it doesn’t fit your society, you’ll have division … It’s a very complicated society.”
He described the uprising as a “struggle between Islamism and pan-Arabism [secularism], adding: “We’ve been fighting the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1950s and we are still fighting with them.”
In interviews in Damascus, some without government minders, secular Syrians and members of the country’s substantial Christian and Alawite minorities said they supported the Assad regime for fear of their positions under a new government. Those attending a large demonstration in support of the regime last Wednesday did not appear to be coerced, according to independent observers.
However, interviews, even some with minders present, revealed widespread and vocal discontent over corruption and living standards.
N.Z. | “Joshua has never claimed to be a Revolutionary.”
Dear Annie, Absolutely not! In fact he is the opposite of Father Paulo. Father Paulo is a humanitarian, and a first class Syrian ambassador- who wants justice, dignity and freedom for all Syrians. He sees Syrians as one people, as we see each other. Paulo is pro-revolution, and he is a revolutionist. I fully agree with your premise.
“… by focusing on the fear and uncertainty of the Christians they interview, they give the impression that only Christians are afraid of a changed Syria – or rather that they are the only ones who have something to fear in a post-Assad Syria. Christians are treated as separate from the rest of Syrian society, as if revolution has not affected the lives of other Syrians.
…
There is also often an underlying assumption that Christians in Syria are ‘special’ and thus should be singled out for focused reports, because their suffering or plight is different or more acute than that of other Syrians. One of the worst examples of this is a USA Today article in May 2012, which tells us that “the uprising has hurt Christians’ standard of living. Foreign visitors are nowhere to be seen in the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma in central Damascus.” This seems to imply that only Christians are being impoverished by the revolution, or rather their impoverishment is somehow different or more significant than that of other Syrians, … Another careless remark (In the Washington Post) is: “many Christians simply do not want to upset their way of living in a country where their fate will always be decided by Muslims.” This is sloppy, biased journalism at its worst. It portrays Christians as living in a bubble, disconnected and blind to the adverse situation of their fellow Syrians.”
Doreen Khoury
.. anyone,anyone, whether he is elakhdar or elahmar, citizen or non-citizen, subjective or bias…who wants to taint this popular Syrian Revolution of ours will be dismissed as “racist or orientalist”.
In his latest post, he cuts and paste from Aron Lund’s paper, Syrian Jihadism, and refers to it as excellent?
“The Syrian civil war is a sectarian conflict – among other things. It is also a conflict along socio-economic and urban-rural lines, a classic countryside jacquerie against an exploitative central government, albeit internally divided by the country’s religious divisions, which cut across other patterns of identity and loyalty. Then there is a political dimension to the struggle, with Bashar el-Assad’s loyalists battling to preserve the current power structure against demands for democratization and economic redistribution. And, last but not least, the conflict has transformed into a proxy war for influence among several regional and international powers, adding another layer of complexity. “
Dear Annie “vocabulary” matters a great deal. The right terms used to describe any subject has to be sound -language/terminology…THE WEST BANK (INCLUDING JERUSALEM) IS OCCUPIED, NOT “DISPUTED”. The term “disputed” started by CNN, now widely used.
In Syria, a Popular Revolution is unfolding. It is not A CIVIL WAR, nor A SECTARIAN CONFLICT, or CRISIS or DISPUTE…we have activists, revolutionaries, freedom fighters…who dared to ask for their rights after so many years of humiliation and oppression.
“In the abstract, of course, peaceful resistance is morally preferable to fighting, but we are not free to pick and choose as we like. This is reality, a reality that has forced countless Syrians to defend themselves against a regime that generated violence and hatred as part of its very nature and not, as one bloated Syrian minister recently claimed, ‘out of necessity’ or in response to ‘popular demand’.” Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Lund’s description of the hyenas,whether loyalists battling to preserve status quo or regional and international powers who are worried from the Arab Awakening does not concern revolutionaries an iota. Syrians are paying dearly to live in dignity, they are not concerned with regional or international powers, with orientalists or racists and their spews. Their revolution is not an ideological one. The Arab Awakening in Syria started the moment they chanted الموت و لا المذله It is not going to be easy, it will not stop. The misuse of language specially by professors-and not lay people- is alarming.
Abdullah can’t understand why his fellow Syrian went home to fight with rebels after working for a year in Sudan.
“I tell him, he shouldn’t go,” says Abdullah. “He is Islamist… I don’t know what happened in his head.”
While more than 200,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring countries from the nearly 18-month revolt against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, an unknown number like Abdullah and his compatriot have also reached Sudan in North Africa.
But Abdullah doesn’t consider himself a refugee.
He says he came to Sudan because he got a contract to manage a business, although the job offer arrived about the same time he saw protesters shot early last year in Daraa, an initial hub of Syrian dissent.
Many others have also reached safety in Sudan, says a businessman with family and relatives in Syria.
“They don’t say they come here as refugees. They say they come here for investment,” he tells AFP, adding nobody knows the number because they do not need a visa.
Although Sudan is beset by its own troubles, with unrest in the far-western Darfur region and rebellions in the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, the capital Khartoum is peaceful.
For the latest developments on Syria, follow @NOW_Syria on Twitter or click here.
Only 25% of a given NOW Lebanon article can be republished. For information on republishing rights from NOW Lebanon: http://www.nowlebanon.com/Sub.aspx?ID=125478
band annie's Weblog 