Les observateurs de la Ligue arabe ne voient pas les affrontements à حمص Homs, حماة Hama et ailleurs – 28 décembre 2011

Clashes as Syria monitors fan out

thedailystar.net

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Arab League monitors overseeing compliance with a peace plan have been fanning out to cover various parts of Syria amid continuing anti-government violence.

Activists reported at least 10 deaths on Wednesday in the cities of Homs, Hama and elsewhere.

The monitors visited Homs for a second time, to be met by angry residents.

The team’s head said he had so far seen « nothing frightening », dismaying some activists and Western observers.

Meanwhile, Syria released 755 people detained during the nine-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule. State TV said their « hands were not stained with blood ».

‘No benefit’

The monitors are spreading out to cover Hama, the north-western province of Idlib, and the southern province of Deraa, where the uprising began.

Activists on Wednesday reported deaths in all of those flashpoint areas, saying that almost 40 people had now died in the two days since the monitors arrived.

In one part of Homs, in a video posted on the internet by activists, a crowd of angry mourners gathers around the bonnet of a white vehicle, which has the insignia of the Arab League emblazoned on it and appears to belong to the observers.

They lay the lifeless body of a small boy on the bonnet – the commentator shouts that it belongs to five-year-old Ahmad. « These are our martyrs, » he shouts to the Arab League, « and they’re being killed in front of your observers. »

Activists say the violence has continued despite the presence of the observers. But despite the reservations of many activists about the Arab mission, and some glitches on the ground, the observers do seem to have got through, unaccompanied by Syrian official security escorts, to some of the worst-affected quarters of Homs. Read more…