Global meeting on Syria faces pressure

February 23, 2012, 4:11 am | World

Desperation and a rapidly growing death toll serve as a backdrop for a new effort dozens of countries are launching in hopes of finally stemming the brutal crackdown under way in Syria.

At a meeting Friday in Tunisia, world leaders will look to mount pressure against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The meeting with the “Friends of Syria” group is “part of our ongoing efforts with our friends, allies, and the Syrian opposition to crystallize next steps to halt the slaughter of the Syrian people and pursue a transition to democracy in Syria,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

More than 70 countries were invited.

Russia, which recently vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, is not taking part.
China, which also vetoed the resolution, has not announced a decision. “If, in fact, China chooses to accept the invitation, that will certainly be a positive sign of its willingness to work with the rest of us to try to end the violence,” Nuland said.
The meeting’s location is particularly significant. Tunisia was the first country in the “Arab Spring” to undergo a revolution last year.

The death toll in Syria is edging toward 9,000, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC).
Thirty-five people were killed Wednesday including two journalists — one American, one French — according to the LCC. The deaths included 20 in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, eight in Hama, two in Idlib, one in Daraa, two in Aleppo, and two in Damascus suburbs.

Some of the worst violence was in the besieged city of Homs, where many residents have been unable to move and have been without critical supplies for weeks.

The LCC reported 106 deaths Tuesday.

U.N. officials have said updating a death toll is nearly impossible given current conditions.

We cannot independently verify opposition or government reports because the Syrian regime has severely limited access to the country by foreign journalists.

“This level of brutality is something that I haven’t ever seen in my life,” activist Wissam Tarif told CNN Wednesday. He is in Beirut, in contact with many on the ground in Syria.

There is an urgent need for ambulances to be allowed into stricken areas, he said.

Particularly in Baba Amr, many injured people are being denied access to medical care, he said.

The two Western journalists were killed in Homs amid heavy shelling from government forces, opposition activists said.

The Sunday Times of London said one of the journalists was reporter Marie Colvin, the only British newspaper journalist inside Baba Amr.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe confirmed journalist Remi Ochlik was killed in a bombing.

Syrian state TV showed a banner Wednesday saying the ministry of information had no knowledge of the presence of the journalists, and it requested that officials in Homs look for them.

The night before, Colvin was on air with CNN describing the horrific onslaught in Homs.

Deaths highlight danger in Syria Syrian doctors prepare for next attack Homs food supplies critically low Syrian government officials assassinated

“The Syrian army is shelling the city of cold, starving civilians,” she said.
Colvin, a veteran correspondent who also covered last year’s Libyan civil war, said the Syrian crisis was the worst conflict she had covered, partly because of the volume of ammunition and shelling falling on Homs.

“There’s a lot of snipers on the high buildings surrounding the Baba Amr neighborhood. You can sort of figure out where a sniper is, but you can’t figure out where a shell is going to land,” she said.

The deaths Wednesday followed that of New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid, who was reporting in eastern Syria when he died last week, apparently from an asthma attack, the newspaper said.

Syria routinely blames the violence on “armed terrorist groups.” The state-run news agency SANA said Wednesday that “competent authorities” had killed three members of such a group Monday and arrested five in Idlib. Also, a group assassinated an engineer and wounded his 16-year-old son in Hama, the SANA report said.

Five members of the army and law enforcement were buried Wednesday, SANA said.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday the conflict under al-Assad’s regime demands reaction.
“We believe that we are in a situation where we — the international community — need to act in order to allow for the transition from Assad to a more democratic future for Syria to take place before the situation becomes too chaotic,” Carney told reporters Tuesday.

Asked about calls in recent days by Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, for the United States to consider arming the opposition, Carney said, “We don’t want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarization of Syria, because that could take the country down a dangerous path.

“But we don’t rule out additional measures that, working with our international partners, that the international community might take,” he added.

Nuland, of the State Department, said, “We don’t believe that it makes sense to contribute now to the further militarization of Syria. What we don’t want to see is the spiral of violence increase. That said, if we can’t get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures.”

The vast majority of accounts from inside Syria indicate al-Assad’s forces are slaughtering civilians in an attempt to wipe out opposition members, who are demanding his ouster and democratic reforms.

Colvin, in her interview the night before her death, described the heartbreak of watching a young boy die after being struck in the chest by shrapnel — one of the many children killed in the conflict.

She said it was important to share his story and images.

“That little baby is one of two children who died today,” Colvin said. “That baby probably will move more people to think, what is going on, and why is no one stopping this murder in Homs that is happening everyday?”

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