Pressure on Syria as Arab League approves sanctions

Before the vote yesterday, Damascus slammed the vote as a betrayal of Arab solidarity. Besides punishing an already ailing economy, the sanctions are a huge blow for a Syrian regime that considers itself a powerhouse of Arab nationalism.

At a news conference in Cairo, Qatari foreign minister Hamad bin Jassim said 19 of the League’s 22 member nations approved the sanctions, which include cutting off transactions with the Syrian central bank and halting Arab government funding for projects in Syria. Iraq and Lebanon abstained.

“We aim to avoid any suffering for the Syrian people,” bin Jassim said.

Bin Jassim Sheikh Hamad added that foreign powers might intervene if they did not consider Arabs “serious” in their bid to end the crisis.

“All the work we are doing is to avoid this interference,” he said, adding that the League could itself seek international intervention “if the Syrians do not take us seriously”.

Other sanctions include: the freezing of VIP and state officials’ assets held in Arab states; the halting of flights of Arab airlines to Syria; and a block on financial and trade agreements with the Syrian government.

The Arab League has for decades avoided imposing sanctions on its members but has been spurred into action by the scale of bloodshed during Syria’s crackdown and by the failure by Damascus to implement an Arab peace plan.

The new sanctions are the latest in a growing wave of international pressure pushing Syria to end its violent suppression of protests against president Bashar al-Assad, which the UN says has killed more than 3,500 people since March.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said the bloc will reconsider the sanctions if Syria carries out an Arab-brokered peace plan that includes sending observers to the country and pulling tanks from the streets.

“We call on Syria to quickly approve the Arab initiative,” he said.

The state-owned Al-Thawra newspaper ran a front-page headline yesterday saying the Arab League is calling for “economic and commercial sanctions targeting the Syrian people.” It said the measure is “unprecedented and contradicts the rules of Arab co-operation.”

Since the revolt began, the regime has blamed armed gangs acting out a foreign conspiracy for the bloodshed.

It is not clear whether Arab sanctions will succeed in pressuring the Syrian regime into ending the violence that has killed dozens of Syrians, week after week. Until recently, most of the bloodshed was caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protests. Lately, there have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting Assad’s forces – a development that some say plays into the regime’s hands by giving government troops a pretext to crack down with overwhelming force.

Yesterday, activists reported fierce clashes in the flashpoint city of Homs, in central Syria, pitting soldiers against army defectors.

Many of the attacks against Syrian security forces are believed to be carried out by a group of army defectors known as the Free Syrian Army. The Arab League’s recommendations for sanctions specified that the Arab bloc will assist Syria with emergency aid through the help of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, working with local civilian groups to deliver goods.

There have been widespread concerns that the unrest in Syria could spill outside its borders, sending unsettling ripples across the region.