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In Syria, Annan's cover is too short

By TARIQ ALHOMAYED We are now witnessing Kofi Annan's mission in Syria officially failing -- as I said yesterday -- as Bashar Assad fails to abide by any of the points of Annan's initiative.

However rather than seeing decisive international positions being taken against Assad, we find that everybody today -- whether the Assad regime itself or the international community -- is trying to wrap themselves in Annan's cover, namely his initiative; however this cover is short, and will always leave something exposed.

Annan himself said that it was too early to say that his plan had failed, urging everybody to wait until April 12 to judge the initiative. Indeed, Annan also said that it would be wrong to withdraw his initiative now unless there is another initiative on the table. However this is absurd, for Annan's mission has cost the Syrians close to 1,000 lives in over 10 days, so must the Syrians now bear more suffering with the extension of Annan's mission, or in order for a new initiative to be put forward which will result in the deaths of another 1,000 Syrians? This is truly absurd, particularly as the Syrian death toll is verging on 11,000! Here it is clear that Annan's "cover" is not even sufficient to cover his own mission!

It is also clear that internationally, everybody wants to wrap themselves in Annan's mission. Washington said that "if" Annan announces his mission's failure, then the United Nations (UN) must take action at this point, whilst France said that the claims that Assad forces had withdrawn from Syria's cities was a "flagrant and unacceptable lie". For its part, the European Union (EU) also asserted that Assad had not implemented Annan's plan. Everybody is repeating the same thing, but nobody is saying "what next!" This isn't rushing to conclusions, but due to the fact that innocents are being killed every day in Syria: so why do the lives of the Syrian people have no value? This is not just puzzling, it is sickening!

Walid Muallem tried to do the same thing in Moscow, especially when he boastfully and arrogantly stated that the Assad regime had taken action to show its goodwill, however if "goodwill" is killing men, women and children and destroying homes, then we would hate to see their ill will! Muallem did not stop here; for he also said that his country was committed to implementing Annan's plan...Muallem was repeating these lies whilst Arab satellite television was reporting the number of Syrians who had been killed that day at the hands of Assad regime forces, which stood at 50 at the time of writing!

Here we see that even Muallem was trying to wrap himself in Annan's cover, which cannot possibly cover him, not just because of his size, but also the size of the "flagrant and unacceptable" lies of his regime, according to the French.

Here we find that everybody is trying to wrap themselves with Annan's cover, however -- as we stated -- this cover is short and will always leave something exposed. Therefore it is shameful that the international community should continue keeping pace with the Assad regime's flagrant lies, and its heinous crimes against the Syrian people. What we should see today is real action on the ground to end this dark period in our region, as well as end the suffering of the Syrian people at the hands of the tyrant of Damascus, Bashar Assad!

© Arab News 2012

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