BEIRUT: Several Arab League monitors have left Syria or may do so soon because the mission has failed to halt President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on a popular revolt against his rule, an Algerian former monitor said on Thursday.
Syrian opposition groups say the monitors, who deployed on December 26 to check whether Syria was respecting an Arab peace plan, have only bought Assad more time to crush protests that erupted in March, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere.
Anwar Malek, an Algerian who quit the monitoring team this week, said many of his former colleagues shared his chagrin.
“I cannot specify a number, but many. When you talk to them their anger is clear,” he told Reuters by telephone, adding that many could not leave because of orders from their governments.
He said a Moroccan legal specialist, an aid worker from Djibouti and an Egyptian had also left the mission.Their departures could not immediately be confirmed, but another monitor, who asked not to be named, told Reuters he planned to leave Syria on Friday. “The mission does not serve the citizens,” he said. “It doesn’t serve anything.”
The Arab League, which will hear a full report from the monitors on January 19, is divided over Syria, with Qatar its most vocal critic and Algeria defending steps taken by Damascus.
The mission, the first of its kind the League has mounted, is led by Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, who has come under fire from rights groups over his role in the Darfur conflict.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that the monitoring mission cannot continue indefinitely and dismissed Assad’s speech on Tuesday as “chillingly cynical”.
Assad, breaking a six-month public silence on Tuesday, disparaged the Arab League, which suspended Syria in November over its bloody handling of the unrest. Assad blamed the upheaval on “terrorists” whom he would punish with an iron fist.
The conflict in Syria, in which insurgents have joined what began as a mostly peaceful movement to end 41 years of Assad family rule, has killed more than 5,000 people, by a U.N. tally. The government says 2,000 soldiers and police have been killed. (Reuters)