- NEW: More deaths are reported
- The U.S. is consulting and engaged with the mission
- Russia urges the Syrian government to allow the observers free movement
- Security forces fire tear gas at Hama demonstrators, activists say
Cairo (CNN) -- An Arab League observer trekking through the seething city of Homs steps into a mosque and spots the tiny "martyr," one of thousands who have been slain throughout Syria for more than nine months.
He is 5 years old. His name is Ahmad Mohammed al-Ra'i. His body is swathed in a blanket and laid out on a rug.
The scene came in a video said to be out of Homs, the western city besieged for weeks by Syrian security forces and engulfed in angry protests. CNN cannot verify such reports and videos from inside Syria because the government has restricted access to the country.
But this is the latest in a wave of grisly images emerging from the cauldron of Syria.
The orange-vested observer is welcomed in. He takes pictures of the boy and is shown his bullet wound.
"Once I buried 22 martyrs," said a voice on the video. "And today I buried three people."
This comes as the Arab League mission visiting Homs gets ready for a trip on Thursday to other cities -- Daraa, Idlib, Hama and Damascus.
The Arab League fact-finding team is monitoring an Arab League initiative that calls for President Bashar al-Assad's security forces to withdraw from cities, release detainees and end violence.
The mission started in Homs on Tuesday, where thousands of people turned out for anti-government demonstrations when the monitors arrived. The city, an epicenter of the Syrian protest movement, had been under a military siege for days.
Alaa Shalaby, a member of the Arab League advance team, said the monitors were in the volatile neighborhood of Baba Amr on Wednesday and were planning to enter other parts of the city, such as Khalidiah and Clock Square -- the sites of the massive demonstrations on Tuesday.
Another Arab League source told CNN that 75 monitors are on the ground in Syria and more expected to join them in the coming days. A permanent team will remain in Homs, where they are working to set up offices and a workplace, said the source, who asked not to be named.
Sudanese Lt. Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa Al-Dabi, the head of the observer mission, will be on the ground with team members on Thursday.
"We have received one report so far from the monitors regarding their findings. They have faced challenges on the ground from Assad's men but no major issues that will affect their mission. When they arrived, many residents rushed at them and some invited them to their homes," the Arab League source said.
A U.S. State Department spokesman was asked about his reaction to reported statements by observers that they found nothing disturbing so far.
Spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday it's just "day one" and the reported comments involved "just one small area of Homs."
"It's important that we let them get themselves squared away on the ground, get their mission up and running," Toner said.
The United States thinks it's important "that the monitors have access to all areas in order to carry out a full investigation and are able to do their job to the fullest capacity, that they go to all areas and seek to observe as many of the protests as possible, engage with as many members of the opposition as possible and really pursue their mission," he said.
Toner said Washington is confident in the mission.
"Through our embassy in Damascus and Ambassador (Robert) Ford, while we are not in touch with the monitors themselves, we are working with the Arab League embassies there and we are, of course, engaging in Cairo with the Arab League headquarters there so we are consulting with them and we are engaged but this is an independent monitoring mission and we're going to let them carry out their duties," Toner said.
The Arab League monitors were planning to visit Daraa, Idlib and Hama on Wednesday, but have postponed their trips until Thursday for logistical reasons, Shalaby said.
"Our teams are well-organized and give priorities to the cities or towns that seem to have the most tension," Shalaby said.
Netto: Arab League concerns in Syria Ahead of the monitors' visit in Daraa, violence erupted. Four Syrian forces members were killed and 12 wounded after defectors ambushed their convoy, according to the opposition activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The observatory said security forces arrested more than 20 people in Daraa, where the Syrian government crackdown began in mid-March.
The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition group with a network of contacts across the country, said security forces tear-gassed demonstrators in Hama and 7,000 demonstrators in Homs turned out to mourn two slain people. The group also said demonstrations took place in Damascus and its suburbs, as wells as in Idlib, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor.
Along with the four security forces dead in Daraa, the LCC said at least 14 people died across the country on Wednesday, five in Homs, two in Aleppo, two in Hama, two in the Damascus suburbs and one in Daraa, Idlib and Latakia.
Bernard Valero, French Foreign Ministry's spokesman, said the observers haven't yet grasped the "reality of the situation in Homs."
"Their presence did not prevent the ongoing bloodshed of repression in this city where large demonstrations were violently repressed causing approximately 10 deaths," he said.
He said the monitors must be permitted "to circulate freely and have full access to the population." He said world powers "will be vigilant against any attempt of concealment or manipulation."
"The international community will only be reassured once violence has ceased, the army returns to its barracks, political prisoners are released and foreign journalists obtain visas to enter Syria," Valero said.
The government is releasing 755 detainees "who were involved in the recent events" but whose hands were "not stained with the blood of the Syrians," Syrian state TV said on Wednesday.
But a report from Human Rights Watch says authorities have moved possibly hundreds of detainees to military sites to hide them from observers.
"Syria has shown it will stop at nothing to undermine independent monitoring of its crackdown," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Syria's subterfuge makes it essential for the Arab League to draw clear lines regarding access to detainees, and be willing to speak out when those lines are crossed."
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told the British newspaper The Independent last week that the international monitors could move around the country "under the protection" of the government but would not be permitted to visit sensitive military sites.
Human Rights Watch said it was told by a Syrian security officer in Homs that his prison director had ordered him to transfer about 400 to 600 detainees from his detention facility to other places.
"The transfers happened in installments," the official said, according to the group. "Some detainees were moved in civilian jeeps and some in cargo trucks. My role was inside the prison, gathering the detainees and putting them in the cars. My orders from the prison director were to move the important detainees out," the official said, according to Human Rights Watch.
He said that officials told him the detainees were being taken to a military missile factory in Zaidal, outside of Homs.
The Syrian security officer also said the government has issued police identification cards to military officials, according to the human rights group. Providing police IDs to military personnel violates the Arab League initiative, which calls on the Syrian government to withdraw armed forces from cities and residential areas, Human Rights Watch said.
"The Arab League needs to cut through Syrian government deception by pushing for full access to anywhere Syria is holding detainees," Whitson said.
Opposition groups have criticized the Arab League for choosing al-Dabi as the head of the observer mission, citing his high position in a government responsible for atrocities in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
More than 5,000 people have died since al-Assad began the crackdown on anti-government protesters calling for his ouster, the United Nations said this month. But activist groups, such as Avaaz and LCC, put the toll at more than 6,000.
World powers such as the Arab League, Turkey, the European Union and the United States have put pressure on the al-Assad regime to end its crackdown. The U.N. Security Council, however, hasn't initiated a stiff resolution on the issue because of the threat of vetoes by Russia, a Syrian ally, and China.
But if the monitoring mission "relaxes the situation [in Syria] and helps create conditions for an inclusive dialogue" and a settlement of the problem, it could remove "the necessity of U.N. Security Council resolutions," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
In remarks reported by state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Lavrov urged the government to permit the observers "to visit any parts of the country and any residential areas in order to forge its own independent opinion about the situation."
CNN's Joe Sterling is reporting from Atlanta and Journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy is reporting from Cairo. CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali, Yasmin Amer, Karen Smith and Jill Dougherty also contributed to this report.
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_world/~3/-VAK_cSi2go/index.html
cnn world news opening cnn world news pastor eddie long cnn world news report cnn world news rss cnn world news streaming
No comments:
Post a Comment