DAMASCUS, Jan 15, (Agencies): UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday urged Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to stop killing his own people, saying the path of repression was a “dead end,” as Damascus announced a general amnesty for crimes committed during the unrest.
“Today, I say again to President Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people. The path of repression is a dead end,” Ban said in a keynote address at a conference in Beirut on democracy in the Arab world.
“The winds of change will not cease to blow. The flame ignited in Tunisia will not be dimmed,” he added.
Ban’s comments came as the Syrian president announced a general amnesty for crimes committed during the popular unrest that has rocked the country over the past 10 months.
“President Assad issued a decree stipulating a general amnesty for crimes committed during the events between March 15, 2011 and Jan 15, 2012,” the official SANA news agency reported.
But it qualified the announcement by saying the amnesty covered infringements of the law on peaceful demonstrations, the possession of unlawful weapons and army desertion.
The opposition Muslim Brotherhood dismissed the amnesty, describing it — the third of its kind since the uprising began — as “neither serious nor credible.”
“The regime is trying to make its unrealistic plans for reconciliation and national dialogue credible, and it is in this context that it is making such announcements, for propaganda purposes,” the group added.
Releasing prisoners is one of the key conditions of an Arab League roadmap approved by Syria in November to end the country’s crisis, which the UN estimates has claimed more than 5,000 lives.
Since November, the regime has announced that it will release nearly 4,000 prisoners “without blood on their hands.”
Syria’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters has brought increased pressure from its former allies.
The emir of Qatar said in an interview with US network CBS that he favoured dispatching Arab troops to Syria to “stop the killing,” a proposal described by former Arab League chief and Egyptian presidential hopeful Amr Mussa as “very important.”
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s interview with “60 Minutes” is the first public call by an Arab leader for an Arab military presence in Syria.
The comments by the emir, whose wealthy nation once enjoyed cordial ties with Damascus, come with the Arab League set to review the work of its Syria monitoring mission later this month, amid increasing concern about its failure to stem the killing.
“There has been partial progress until now but there is daily bloodshed in Syria that the League aims to end,” League chief Nabil al-Arabi told AFP in Oman, adding that the mission will be reviewed at a Jan 21 meeting in Cairo.
Syrian opposition activists have expressed disappointment at the mission, with critics saying it has been out-maneuvered by the government in Damascus.
On the political front, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe decried the “silence” of the UN Security Council on Syria’s deadly crackdown, two days after Britain sharply criticised Russia for refusing to support Security Council moves against Assad.
“The massacre continues, the silence of the Security Council too. This situation is becoming intolerable,” he said on Sunday, during a visit to Myanmar.
Yemen
Elsewhere, al-Qaeda militants have seized a small town southeast of Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Sunday in another setback to efforts to restore order after President Ali Abdullah Saleh formally handed over power following almost a year of mass protests against his rule.
A police source and witnesses said the militants met little resistance from a small police force when they entered the town of Radda in al-Baydah province, 170 kms (105 miles) from Sanaa, on Saturday night, seizing an ancient citadel and mosque.
The capture of Radda expanded al-Qaeda control outside the southern province of Abyan, where they have taken over several towns since the uprising against Saleh began.
Underscoring the continued lawlessness in Yemen, a Norwegian working for the United Nations was kidnapped in Sanaa at the weekend, Norway’s foreign ministry said.
A tribal source said the Norwegian was abducted by tribesmen from oil-producing Maarib province demanding the release of a suspect accused of killing two members of the security forces.
Residents in Radda, which has a population of around 60,000, said the militants who took over the town were led by Tareq al-Dahab, who had been handed over by Syria to Yemen recently after being detained while trying to slip into Iraq.
Dahab is a brother-in-law of a US-born, Yemen-based Muslim cleric linked to al-Qaeda killed in an air strike last year.
Egypt
Meanwhile, Nobel peace prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei’s decision to quit the race for the presidency was seen in Egypt as a slap in the face for military rulers and one depriving liberals of a key force.
The ex-UN nuclear watchdog chief made the surprise announcement Saturday, days before Egypt is set to celebrate the first anniversary of the Jan 25 revolution that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.
“My conscience does not allow me to run for the presidency or any other official position unless there is real democracy,” ElBaradei said in a statement.
He charged that old regime figures still ruled the country, accused them of repressive tactics and criticised what he said were “botched” moves to draw up a constitution after the election later this year of a new president.
The banner headline in the government daily Al-Akhbar compared ElBaradei’s decision to a “bomb” while the independent Al-Shorouk and Al-Masry Al-Youm papers said it targeted the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).
“ElBaradei has stripped bare the former regime and withdraws from the presidency,” Al-Shorouk said in a banner headline. Al-Masry Al-Youm said: “The ElBaradei bomb explodes in the face of the military.”
The SCAF has repeatedly pledged to cede full powers to civilian rule when a president is elected by the end of June, but there is widespread belief that the military wants to maintain a political role in the future.
The military has also come under fire over its human rights record and faced accusations that it has resorted to Mubarak-era tactics to stifle dissent.
Presidential hopefuls like former Arab League chief Amr Mussa and opposition figures like Ayman Nur lamented ElBaradei’s decisions with some fearing that it could destroy the aspirations of liberals to reform Egypt.
Mussa, one of 10 contenders for the presidency, expressed confidence that ElBaradei “will pursue his efforts to rebuild the country.”
Libya
In other news, twelve moderate Islamist parties in Libya have rejected a proposed election law because it encourages voting along tribal lines and gives undue influence to the wealthy, they said late on Saturday.
The draft law, published by the National Transitional Council (NTC) on Jan 2, will set the rules of a vote for the national assembly in June. The body will be charged with writing a constitution and forming a second caretaker government.
“The proposed electoral system does not lead to true representation of all sectors of society, instead it would produce a representation overwhelmed by tribal consideration and the influence of the rich,” the Forum of National Parties said in the joint statement.
Wasila al-Ashiq, head of one of the parties, al-Umma, told Reuters on Sunday the draft law would force candidates to run as independents because Libya has no law regulating political parties. That would mean candidates would rely on tribal power and affiliation to win seats, she said.
“We should not be voting for x or y, but candidates should join a party with clear political objectives,” she said. “Otherwise, the larger tribes will gain all the seats and minorities such as the Berbers will be ignored.”
It is not clear how much support the 12 parties will muster among Libyans, for whom multiparty democracy is a new concept after 42 years of rule by Muammar Gaddafi.
The proposals have been widely criticised for reserving only 20 seats for women in the 200-member national assembly and not tackling the contentious issue of dividing Libya into constituencies.