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One More Promise For Al-Assad To Ignore

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on December 19, 2011.

Al-Assad Poster "God Protects Syria" - who's protecting the Syrians?

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has announced that his government has signed an agreement with the Arab League to allow human rights monitors into the country, with amendments demanded by Damascus of course. Just since the Arab League got involved in negotiations with the al-Assad regime over the brutal crackdown on dissendents, 900 people are estimated to have died.

The Syrian opposition calls the agreement a “ploy” by which the al-Assad regime hopes to avoid the Arab League going to the United Nations the way they did with Libya. Ever since the protests started in March, President Bashar al-Assad has made promise after promise to bring about reforms and end the violence and his regime has broken every one of them. He is either clinically delusional and a pathological liar when he claims that his regime is fighting Islamist terrorists from outside Syria who are trying to take over his country.

One small piece of good news out of Syria, activist blogger Razan Ghazzawi was released Sunday evening on $300 bail. It took an international effort to effect her release, amid fears that she would end up like other prominent dissidents who have been tortured and murdered.

The crackdown has moved south again, to the Deraa province where it began, but three protesters were killed in central Damascus this weekend.

At a news conference in Damascus, Minister Muallem said that the government wants a political solution to the on-going crisis. “We want to emerge from this crisis and build a safe, modern Syria – a Syria that will be a model of democracy. The signing of this protocol is the beginning of co-operation between us and the Arab League and we will welcome monitors. He also said that the monitor would be “free” to move around the country and “under the protection of the Syrian government.” But, they would not be allowed to visit “sensitive” military or security sites. He said he was confident the monitors would verify that the government is protecting the people from foreign-backed extremists and criminal gangs. “There are many countries in the world who don’t wish to admit the presence of terrorists armed groups in Syria. They will come and see that they are present. We must not be afraid at all.”

Russia, apparently, exerted some pressure on the al-Assad regime to accept the agreement. It was Russia who drafted a United Nations resolution last week demanding an end to the violence in Syria, shocking just about everyone.

Arab League Assistant Secretary General Samir Seif al-Yazal will go to Syria this week to make the final arrangements for the arrival of the monitors. Part of the agreement calls for removal of tanks from towns and cities, cessation of violence and the release of hundreds of political prisoners.

The bottom line is simple – as long as the monitors are “protected” by security forces, no one will speak openly and honestly with them, just the way the presence of Bashar al-Assad’s personal guard prevented the father of a tortured, murdered thirteen-year-old telling al-Assad the truth about this son’s death. The security forces has done an excellent job of demonstrating just how they deal with dissidents – bodies dumped in rivers and left openly on roads, a singer who had his vocal chords cut out, a cartoonist who had his hands smashed, children beaten, raped and mutilated before being dumped on their parents’ doorsteps. No wonder the opposition thinks this is an exercise in futility.