People Want Bashar!

"LandepNews"

People Want Bashar!

Syrian state television on Thursday broadcasted images from the coastal city of Latakia, where thousands were been showed holding the Syrian national flags and portraits of Bashar al-Assad in another rally in support of the president. This rally is the second this week, after tens of thousands took it to streets on Wednesday in the centre of Damascus, carrying flags and portraits of the beloved leader and expressing their unconditioned support for him.

While the people in central Damascus were expressing their devotion toward the president, 12 were being killed by the security forces in the restive city of Homs, and another three in other parts of the country, where security forces swept the villages and towns in search of defectors and leaders of the rebellion.

The city of Latakia itself was bombed a few months ago from the warships at sea, causing thousands of Palestinian refugees to flee the zone and the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to say he could not trust someone who is bombing his cities from the sea.

These manifestations of support for the president are meant to show the world that the situation in Syria is not merely as bad as the international media and the activists’ reports depict it.

Bashar al-Assad wants the world to see that there are people in the country that support his actions and his policies and that the way toward reconciliation has started. He has always maintained that what was going on in his country was no more than an international conspiracy executed with the help of some inner traitors he called “thugs,” and that the situation will soon be restored.

On Wednesday the president of Syria was visited by a delegation of the Arab League, which is attempting to mediate the conflict between the regime and the citizens of the country.

The meeting happened hours after the meeting in Damascus was organized by the regime, and the people participating in it shouted “The people want Bashar Assad.” In a meeting organized in the city of Aleppo soon after the Arab League requested the regime to end the bloodshed in two weeks the people went as far as to shout: “We love you, Bashar!”

The leader of the Arab ministerial committee that arrived in Damascus said that he had a very frank and friendly discussion with the president, that he showed openness and seemed committed to change and reconciliation.

The Qatar Prime Minister said that the regime in Damascus seems determined to work toward reaching a solution and that the Syrian delegation and the Arab League delegation would meet again on Sunday, either in Syria or in Qatar, in order to foster the process.

Pro-Regime Rally

The PM said that the important thing is for the killing to stop on both sides. He spoke about his hope that the “Syrian brothers” would reach a decision that would please the people.

It was not clear whether Assad concurred to the Arab League proposals. Syrian president has rejected former attempts made by the Arab League to find a solution for this conflict.

It was not clear either whether the Syrian brothers meant to the opposition as well, since the opposition leaders said that they would not engage in any talks with the regime and that they were not happy about the idea of a dialogue mediated by the Arab League, which in their opinion does not make a difference between the victim and the executioner in this case.

Two weeks ago the Arab League attempted to expel Syria from the organization but the vote did not go as planned because of the opposition to the plan of some leaders from Arab restive countries.

Arab League demanded that Syria put an end to the conflict and the violent crackdown and engage in talks with the people of the country. It was not clear what would happen if Syria did not comply.

It is possible, according to experts, that Bashar al-Assad apply the same strategy he used with the Turkish delegation, and with the UN Human Rights activists and with all the countries that visited him to tell him to stop the crackdown.

In August he was visited by the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who had about the same impression when he left and promised that within two weeks the problem would have been solved.

In September Davutoglu had to bitterly admit that he had been lied to, and that Bashar al-Assad was not to be trusted.

The same kind of warnings delivered Bashar Russia and China, which vetoed a UN resolution that was condemning Syria, but then warned him to stop the violence and engage in talks.

After the resolution was thwarted at the UN, Assad organized his first massive rally since the beginning of the unrest.

Human Rights Watch reports that since the Arab League fixed the Syrian president a two-week deadline 186 people lost their lives in the violence in the streets of Syria.

On Wednesday the people of the major cities staged counter-demonstrations in the province of Hama and even in other neighborhoods of Damascus. On a banner the Arab League was being asked how were the people expected to negotiate with a murderer that should not be negotiated with but put on trial.

The representatives of the Syrian National Council announced that there is no possibility of a negotiation with the regime for as long as the crackdown continues and that if there were to be a negotiation, it would only be about the way to peacefully transfer the power.

These developments come at a time when the American ambassador Robert Ford was extracted from Damascus after information came to the US authorities that his life was in danger.

Soon after this decision to withdraw the ambassador, Syria pulled its own ambassador out, even though the US announced that the withdrawal of Ford was strictly motivated by safety concerns, and it did not mean the closing of the embassy, which was reopened in January 2011, after years of breaking off of ties.

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