Filipina OFW set for repatriation from Syria dies

An overseas Filipino worker (OFW), who was getting ready to be repatriated back to the Philippines, died in Syria after being hit by a vehicle.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Assistant Secretary Raul Hernandez said Violeta Cortez was found lying unconscious on a bridge in Damascus on January 5. She died in a hospital 3 days after the accident.

"Nakikiramay po tayo sa pamilya ni Violeta kasi pumanaw na si Violeta... Ang hinala ay biktima siya ng hit-and-run. Kaaagad dinala siya ng isang good samaritan sa hospital [We sympathize with the family of Violeta because Violeta passed away... We suspect that she was a victim of a hit-and-run. She was brought to a hospital by a good samaritan]," said Hernandez in an interview with Noli de Castro on dzMM, Tuesday morning.

According to Hernandez, the Syrian employer said Cortez left their home and only found out about the accident when police summoned them.

Last January 3, de Castro was able to talk to Cortez on his radio program.

During that phone interview, Cortez said she really wanted to go home but her employer did not want to release her even if the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) was willing to pay the deployment cost.

However, Hernandez said the embassy was able to negotiate with her employer and finally agreed on paying $2,000 as deployment cost.

"Handa na silang pumunta sa embahada para sa repatriation. Nagkasundo na yung embassy na i-repatriate at dadalhin si Violeta sa embahada for repatriation sana this week. Ang pinagkasunduan ay $2,000. Last January 8, dapat dadalhin na doon sa embassy si Violeta kasama na yung exit visa para for repatriation [They were ready to proceed to the embassy for repatriation. The embassy had made an agreement to repatriate and bring Violeta to the embassy for repatriation suppose to be this week. The settlement was $2,000. Last January 8, Violeta was to be brought to the embassy along with her exit visa for repatriation]," he added.

The DFA spokesperson said it may take a month before Cortez' remains are repatriated since the case is still under investigation.

"This is still under investigation pero ang ginawa po ng embahada ay ini-relay sa Ministry of Foreign Affairs para tingnan at gawin yung kumpleto at mabilis na imbistigasyon para malaman natin yung katotohanan sa kanyang pagkamatay at masiguro nating walang foul play [This is still under investigation but what the embassy did was relay it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to look and make a complete and quick investigation to determine the truth behind her death and to make sure there is no foul play]," said Hernandez.

"Gusto din natin na ang magbabayad ng repatriation cost ay yung employer at kung halimbawa may mga compensation na kailangang bayaran nila [We also want the employer to pay for the repatriation cost and for example there are compensation they need to pay], we will also demand that."

Hernandez said he got in touch with Cortez's family in San Pedro, Laguna, as well as with her sister, Emma, who is also working in Syria.

"Mukhang gusto nang sumabay ni Emma na kasama yung labi ni Violeta sa repatriation [It seems Emma also wanted to be repatriated along with the remains of Violeta]," he said.

It was also known that Violeta was sent to work abroad by an illegal recruiter. The government also plans to penalize the person responsible for her illegal departure for Syria.

Syrian activists urge mass rally amid observer visit

Syrian activists have called for massive street demonstrations on Friday against President Bashar al-Assad, as Arab observers continue their mission.

Correspondents say the presence of the monitors has emboldened the protesters, despite further killings.

Up to 40 died on Thursday, activists said, mostly after security forces shot at crowds gathered in areas expecting a visit from the Arab team.

According to BBC News, at least 5,000 are believed to have died since the revolt began in March 2011.

The Arab League peace plan calls for a complete halt to the violence, the withdrawal of all armed forces and the release of all detainees.

According to Jim Muir of BBC News, Beirut, in many places the observers have found themselves surrounded by large crowds of demonstrators calling for the regime to go and for President Assad to be executed.

The presence of the monitors has encouraged protesters to come out on to the streets in bug numbers, and it has also emboldened them to take risks they might have shied away from before.

Shootings and deaths were reported from all the areas which the observers were visiting on their third day. The casualty figures put out by various activist coordination groups may be open to debate and cannot be independently confirmed, but they all suggest that the violence has got worse since the Arab observers began their mission on Tuesday.

The Arab mission has faced criticism for being led by Sudan's Gen. Mustafa al-Dabi, who Amnesty International has accused of carrying out human rights violations in his own country.

But the League says Gen. Dabi has full support, and the US has urged detractors to allow the team to finish its work.

Activists have called for massive protests on Friday - the traditional day of demonstration.

"On Friday we will march to the squares of freedom, bare-chested," the Syria Revolution 2011 Facebook group said, according to the Associated Press.

"We will march as we did in Homs and Hama where we carried olive branches only to be confronted by [President Bashar al-Assad's] gangs who struck us with artillery and machinegun fire."

Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the Arab League's initiative is "the only ray of light" there is for Syrians.

"The presence of the observers in Homs broke the barrier of fear," he said.

One activist in Hama told Reuters: "We know that just because they are here, it doesn't mean the bloodshed will stop. But at least they will see it."

Correspondents say that despite the presence of the Arab monitors - who are being escorted by state security officials - there has been little let-up in the ferocity of the response to protests.

At least 120 people have died since observers arrived in the country on Monday, according to activists.

The monitors have traveled to the central province of Homs, Idlib in the north, Deraa in the south, Hama and then the capital, Damascus.

On Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least four people were killed when security forces opened fire outside a mosque in Douma, a suburb of Damascus.

Monitors were arriving at the city hall there when security forces fired on "tens of thousands" of protesters outside the Grand Mosque, the UK-based group said.

It reported further deaths in other suburbs of the capital - Aarbin and Kiswah - as well as in Idlib and Hama. The US State Department said it was concerned by the continuing violence.

"We are concerned that even though we have monitors on the ground, and they are playing a role in some places, we also have the continuation of the violence," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Casualty figures and other information are hard to verify as most foreign media are barred from Syria.

The Arab mission is headed by Gen. Dabi, whose appointment has roused controversy due to his role as military intelligence chief in Sudan in the 1990s.

Gen. Dabi worked for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his actions over Darfur.

One Arab League official in Cairo told AP that Gen. Dabi had the support of all its members, saying: "The mission and its final report will decide the future of Syria and this is not a small matter."


Source BBC News

Syrian forces accused of machine-gunning hundreds of deserting soldiers

Protesters demonstrate against Bashar al-Assad in Homs.

According to a news from The Telegraph, Syrian forces have been accused of perpetrating one of the deadliest massacres of the country's nine-month uprising after scores of soldiers were gunned down by machine-gun fire as they attempted a mass desertion.

The dramatic breakout from an army base in northern Syria could have been a pivotal moment in the growing rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, the country's president. Instead it ended in disaster and bloodshed.

Throwing down an unprecedented challenge to his regime, hundreds of soldiers at an encampment in Idlib province made a desperate scramble for freedom on Monday. Their intention, according to opposition forces, was to make a dash for the Turkish border to join the Syrian Free Army, a rebel force made up of fellow defectors.

But the plan was either ill-judged or loyalist forces were too prepared.

As they ran, volley after volley of machinegun fire was aimed at their retreating backs. At least 60 were killed. Those who managed to escape were mercilessly hunted down yesterday.

Loyalist soldiers surrounded the deserters in the countryside between two villages, picking them off one by one in an intense firefight that raged for much of the day.

"After clashes that broke out this morning with the regular army, 100 deserters were besieged then killed or wounded between the villages of Kafruwed and al-Fatira," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The army also surrounded dozens of civilians and activists suspected of giving succour to the deserters. The Observatory appealed to the Arab League to intervene immediately to prevent a massacre.

An advance team of Arab League monitors arrived in Damascus on Tuesday on a mission to observe the Assad regime's implementation of a peace plan which calls for the withdrawal of the Syrian army to barracks and the launching of negotiations with the opposition.

But with up to 50 civilians reportedly killed by the security forces in the past two days, Mr. Assad's government has shown little inclination of ending the violence. It insists that the country is facing a rebellion by "terrorist" groups taking their orders from unspecified foreign powers.

State media reported on Tuesday that a law came into effect imposing the death penalty on anyone arming "terrorists."

More than 5,000 civilians have been killed since the uprising began in March, the vast majority of them unarmed protesters, according to human rights groups.

But in recent months, the government has also faced growing armed resistance from defectors within the armed forces who have recoiled at the bloodshed they have been asked to inflict on Mr. Assad's opponents.

The defectors have coalesced under the command of Col. Riad al-Asaad, a former air force officer, who leads the Free Syrian Army from a base along the Syrian-Turkish border.

The rebels claim to have more than 10,000 fighters within their ranks, a member many observers say is probably exaggerated.

Even so, the group has shown itself to be increasingly potent, launching a series of ambushes on Syrian army convoys, although this month it agreed to limit itself to protecting civilians at the urging of the country's main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council.

The Assad regime has taken draconian but effective measures to staunch the flow of defections. According to opposition sources, battalions have been split up in an effort to ensure that soldiers from the same villages or towns do not serve alongside each other.

Only strangers are allowed to share barracks, while conversations in groups are strictly prohibited. Soldiers have also had their mobile telephones confiscated.

The policy is designed to ensure loyalty among the rank and file of the army, which, like the bulk of the protest movement, is mainly drawn from Syria's Sunni Arab majority. The officer class is overwhelmingly drawn from President Assad's Alawite Shia minority and is considered unshakeably loyal.

Until this week, the strategy has proved largely successful in preventing the 200,000-strong armed forces from disintegrating. The regime will hope that the ferocity with which the attempted desertions were suppressed will, the regime hopes, serve as a chilling warning to other units contemplating doing the same.

Source: The Telegraph

Syria signs law imposing dealth penalty on those arming 'terrorists'

Soldiers of the Free Syrian Army, formed by army deserters,
take up positions in an undisclosed location in Syria.
Credit: Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/AFP/Getty Images

The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has signed into effect a law imposing the death penalty on anyone arming "terrorists", according to state media amid mounting clashes with rebel troops.

"The law provides for the death penalty for anyone providing weapons or helping to provide weapons intended for the carrying out of terrorist acts," the official SANA news agency said.

The decree also imposes life imprisonment with hard labor for arms smuggling "for profit or to carry out acts of terrorism," and 15 years' hear labor for arms smuggling for other purposes.

The Syrian authorities contend that protests raging since March are the work of "armed terrorists" not civilian demonstrators as maintained by Western governments and human rights groups.

The UN General Assembly on Monday overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning human rights abuses during the authorities' crackdown on the protests, which the world body says has left more than 5,000 people dead.

It comes as Syria was accused of engaging in a time-buying ruse on Monday after it agreed to allow the Arab League to send observers into the country, temporarily averting a threat by regional powers to refer Damascus to the UN Security Council.

The body of Tamer Mutlaq is carried in a coffin through the
streets of Homs. Credit: AP

After weeks of equivocation, the Syrian government formally signed a protocol permitting the deployment of 500 Arab League monitors tasked with monitoring the implementation of a peace plan meant to end months of deadly violence in the country.

Walid al-Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, hailed the beginning of a new era of "cooperation" between his government and the Arab League but few observers held out much hope that the apparent breakthrough would end the bloodshed.

President Bashar al-Assad has on several occasions promised to abide by the terms of the Arab League's peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of all army troops from the streets of Syrian cities and the beginning of negotiations with the opposition.

But he has shown little appetite for implementing the terms of the deal, with Syria's security forces accused of carrying out atrocities on a daily basis. More than 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in the past month alone, bringing the overall civilian death toll since the beginning of the uprising in March to at least 5,000, according to the United Nations.

Mr. Assad's intransigence has angered the Arab League, which has responded by suspending Syria's membership and imposing economic sanctions.

A still taken from an amateur video of soldiers walking down
the street in Daraa, Syria.

The Assad regime had made several verbal promises to allow observers into Syria, only to erect numerous obstacles to their deployment that the bloc saw as unacceptable.

Its climb-down yesterday came two days before the expiry of another Arab League deadline to accept the monitors. Qatar, which leads the bloc's Syria monitoring group, had threatened to refer Damascus to the Security Council if it failed to comply, paving the way for possible UN sanctions against Mr. Assad and his ministers.

Russia and China have so far blocked Security Council resolutions on Syria, but any initiative backed by the Arab League would have been harder for them to resist, observers say.

Despite the regime's apparent change of heart, Syria's main opposition coalition warned that Mr. Assad had no intention of ending the violence.

"The Syrian regime is maneuvering to try to prevent the Syrian file being submitted to the UN Security Council," said Burhan Ghaliun, leader of the Syrian National Council. "This is just a ploy. They have no intention of implementing any initiative."

How much independent access the observers will be given to Syria's most restive cities remains far from clear.

While Mr. Moallem promised they would be "free" he also insisted that they would operate "under the protection of the Syrian government." He also predicted that the mission would vindicate the regime's insistence that it was fighting a "terrorist" insurgency.

"These are many countries in the world who don't wish to admit the presence of terrorist armed groups in Syria," he said. "They will come and see that they are present. We must not be afraid at all."

In an effort to shore up its authority, the government organized a large loyalist demonstration in central Damascus.

Opposition protesters who gathered elsewhere in the capital came under fire. At least two were killed, with more than 10 deaths reported yesterday across Syria.

Observers said there was little chance of Mr. Assad ordering his troops off the street, a move that could well trigger mass demonstrations, increasing pressure on the president to resign. At the same time, he is facing a growing armed rebellion, with army defectors clashing with the security forces and loyalist militiamen on an increasingly frequent basis.

A senior rebel officer claimed that the government was planning to execute 21 opposition fighters imminently, a move that would raise tensions significantly.

While the Arab League has won praise in the West for its robust response to Syria's crisis, the bloc's actions were dismissed as a "joke" yesterday by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

"Some regional countries, which have never held an election, have come together to pass resolutions against another country, saying: 'why don't you hold an election'?" he said.