Calls for measures against Syria crackdown

EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS yesterday called for “strong measures” to counter the crackdown on protests in Syria.

France and Italy urged the European Union and United Nations to exert pressure on Damascus to halt military action against opponents, while Britain called on Syria to end “violent repression”.

Last night a European Union diplomat said the union was discussing possible sanctions against the leadership, and there would be further discussion at a meeting of ambassadors from member states in Brussels on Friday.

Three people were reportedly shot dead by snipers in the coastal town of Jabla while black-clad security forces were said to be deploying in the hills around the city of Baniyas. Shootings, household raids, and arrests were continuing in the hotbeds of revolt, the southern city of Deraa and the Douma suburb of Damascus.

Local human rights organisations say dozens of activists have been detained across the country, and Deraa residents claim bodies remain in the streets of the town because relatives cannot leave their homes to collect the dead.

At least 350 people are estimated to have died, 500 to have been detained, and 120 to have disappeared since demonstrations erupted in Deraa in mid-March.

The government announced that truckloads of weapons had been seized while attempts were being made to smuggle them across Syria’s borders. It said an unspecified number of officers and troops had been killed on Monday when troops, backed by tanks, occupied Deraa, which indicates troops faced armed resistance.

Although Damascus and its embassy quarter remained quiet, the US has decided to withdraw non-essential embassy staff and has warned citizens to defer travel to the country. Washington, which has not yet recalled ambassador Robert Ford, has condemned Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for using force against protesters. It threatened fresh sanctions but has not called for the ousting of President Assad’s.

In Geneva, Rupert Colville, spokesman for UN Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillai, said she was considering an invitation to send a mission to Syria to investigate killings and human rights abuses once conditions were “acceptable”. In Damascus, Bishop Philoxenos Mattias, spokesman for the Syriac Orthodox church, announced that Christians had a staunch friend in the president. “We are with the government and against the movements that oppose it,” he said. Syrian Christians, who have always backed the secular Baathist regime, fear that radical Muslims, such as those in Iraq, could persecute their communities if the country is destabilised.

US expert on Syria Joshua Landis observed in his blog, Syria Comment, that tanks lent “an element of ‘shock and awe’” to the military operation and demonstrated “the determination of the president” to contain the revolt.

Dr Landis did not believe the army could crush the opposition which, he argued, would have to resort to “armed struggle” to succeed. However, he remarked, “If the military and middle classes stay loyal to the government, the opposition will have an uphill battle” to overthrow the regime.

So far, the military and the middle classes have remained in the regime’s camp.