Bombs welcome new UN chief monitor in Syria (BOM mengalu-alukan Ketua baru PBB pantau di Syria)

Reuters/SANA

REVIEW: A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows vehicles that were damaged following blasts in the city of Idlib, northwest Syria, (Gambar nota edaran yang dikeluarkan oleh rasmi Agensi Berita Arab Syria (SANA) menunjukkan kenderaan yang rosak letupan berikut di bandar Idlib, Syria di barat laut, pada) April 30, 2012 (AFP Photo/HO/SANA)

Ketua pasukan pemerhati PBB yang baru memulakan kerja di Syria di tengah-tengah keganasan sporadis. Pada hari Isnin, pengebom berani mati berkembar membunuh sekurang-kurangnya 9 orang dan mencederakan hampir 100, menjadi bahan api keraguan tentang berapa lama gencatan senjata goyah boleh memegang. Kedua-dua penyerang berani mati yang ditolak bahan letupan direncana dengan kereta berhampiran kompaun perisikan keadaan di bandar raya utara-barat Idlib, media negeri Syria dilaporkan. Mereka membunuh sekurang-kurangnya 9 dan mencederakan hampir 100 orang, termasuk pegawai-pegawai keselamatan dan orang awam. Britain berasaskan hak asasi manusia organisasi Balai Cerap Syria meletakkan angka kematian lebih tinggi, berkata lebih daripada 20 orang telah terbunuh.

Pro-kerajaan TV al-Ekhbariya telah menyiarkan rakaman grizzly selepas, menunjukkan kereta memecahkan, puing dan kesan darah di kaki lima. Letupan mengoyakkan fasad bangunan berbilang tingkat dan rosak 4 yang lain. Puing dihantar terbang beratus-ratus meter. Tidak ada kumpulan yang segera mendakwa bertanggungjawab bagi perbuatan itu. Media menyalahkan "pengganas bersenjata", tetapi istilah ini digunakan secara berkala oleh kerajaan Syria untuk menerangkan mana-mana kumpulan pembangkang bersenjata. Perbuatan keganasan baru datang sebagai Norway Mejar Jeneral Robert Mood membuka jalan untuk penuh 300-kuat pasukan, pemantauan yang akan digunakan dalam bulan-bulan akan datang.

Pendamai veteran berusia 52 tahun, yang mengambil alih Misi Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) di Syria, adalah tidak asing ke Damsyik. Antara 2009 dan 2011, beliau mengetuai Penyeliaan gencatan senjata Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu, yang memantau Timur Tengah kebakaran-terhenti, dan melawat Syria. Ketibaan beliau menggesa kedua-dua kerajaan dan kumpulan pembangkang untuk bekerjasama dengan PBB, berkata usaha monitor sahaja tidak cukup untuk meredakan keadaan. Pada masa ini, misi pemerhati mempunyai 15 orang di atas daratan, memantau keadaan di beberapa kawasan yang paling bermasalah seperti Homs, Hama, Idlib, Derra dan pinggir bandar Damsyik.

Laporan gencatan senjata itu kadang-kadang dipatahkan oleh kedua-dua pasukan loyalis dan kumpulan pembangkang terus. Nampaknya, kumpulan pemberontak yang tidak bersedia untuk menghentikan perjuangan mereka dengan kerajaan semakin menggunakan taktik gerila. Lewat pada militan Ahad melepaskan bom tangan roket di bangunan Bank Negara, menyebabkan kerosakan yang sedikit, dan mencederakan 4 pegawai polis rondaan, televisyen negeri. 1 serangan berasingan di timur Deir ez-Zor pada hari Ahad rosak saluran paip minyak. 5 letupan telah didengar di Damsyik pada hari Jumaat. Seorang pengebom berani mati menyerang membunuh 11 orang dan berpuluh-puluh cedera, termasuk orang awam dan kakitangan penguatkuasa undang-undang.

Tentera Syria telah dijalankan serangan ke atas pasukan pembangkang bersenjata di kawasan yang berdekatan dengan sempadan Turki dan Lebanon, menurut Al-Jazeera. Serangan diikuti percubaan Sabtu oleh kumpulan militan untuk mengerahkan di kawasan pantai berhampiran Latakia, bandar pelabuhan Syria terbesar. Di negara jiran Lubnan pegawai risikan tempatan memintas sebuah kapal yang membawa 3 bekas yang dipenuhi dengan mesingan cengkerang Libya, berat, roket, pelancar roket dan bahan letupan lain mereka mendakwa telah dimaksudkan untuk kumpulan pembangkang bersenjata, Tentera Free Syria. Namun begitu pemerhati bersetuju bahawa tahap keganasan telah menurun dengan ketara selepas gencatan senjata diumumkan pada 12 April dan masih rendah.

Pada hari Isnin, lebih daripada 170 aktivis pembangkang bersetuju untuk meletakkan senjata mereka dalam pertukaran untuk pengampunan, agensi berita negeri SANA. 130 daripada mereka adalah dari Governorate Idlib, manakala yang lain yang aktif di pinggir bandar Damsyik. Agensi berkata kira-kira 1000 militan itu, yang tidak terlibat dalam jenayah besar yang diserahkan di bawah pengampunan sejak gencatan senjata diumumkan.

Kurdish impian kedaulatan bergerak ke hadapan

Syrian Kurds wave the Kurdish flag as they rally against the Syrian regime and to mark Noruz spring festivities in the northern city of Qamishli (Gelombang Kurd Syria bendera Kurdish sebagai mereka berkumpul menentang rejim Syria dan untuk menandakan perayaan musim bunga Noruz di bandar utara Qamishli pada March 21, 2012 (AFP Photo/STR)

Manakala Syria sedang mencuba untuk beralih daripada keganasan, 1 kumpulan etnik nampaknya telah mendapat manfaat daripada kegawatan dengan tidak mengambil pihak dalam konflik, laporan Boyko Oksana RT.

Hanya setahun yang lalu, walaupun Kurdish bercakap di khalayak ramai telah mendapat Kurd Syria dalam kesusahan, tetapi kini mereka boleh menyanyi secara terbuka harapan apa ada yang akan menjadi lagu untuk keadaan masa depan mereka. Kurd adalah kumpulan etnik yang terbesar di DUNIA tanpa sebuah negara dan berasa seperti orang luar di bumi sendiri. Di Syria, di mana mereka membentuk sekitar 10 % peratus daripada penduduk, Kurd selama beberapa dekad yang mengadu diskriminasi tersirat oleh pihak berkuasa. Mereka menggesa Presiden al-Assad untuk meletak jawatan tahun sebelum ia menjadi seruan pembangkang Syria.

Walaupun rungutan berjalan lama berbanding keluarga Assad, Kurd Syria telah sebahagian besarnya tinggal daripada konflik tersebut. Malah, jika terdapat mana-mana kumpulan yang telah mendapat manfaat daripada ketidakstabilan di Syria, ia mestilah mereka. Sepanjang tahun lalu, Kurd Syria telah memenangi lebih banyak konsesi daripada kerajaan berbanding 20 sebelumnya.

RT melawat sebuah sekolah Kurdish salah satu daripada kira-kira sedozen yang telah membuka pintu mereka di Syria sejak beberapa bulan yang lalu. Meja saham nenek dengan cucu dalam usaha yang ditentukan untuk mempelajari versi klasik bahasa ibunda mereka.

Jamil Sheckdahdu, prinsip sekolah, berkata, hanya setahun yang lalu, ia perlu dilakukan secara rahsia: "Kerajaan negeri tidak membenarkan mana-mana arahan dalam Kurdish. Kami digunakan untuk memberitahu bahawa kerana kita hidup di sebuah negara Arab - kita perlu bercakap Bahasa Arab. Buku, walaupun lagu-lagu dalam Kurdish - semua haram tetapi hari ini semuanya telah berubah, "jelas beliau. Ia bukan sahaja Syria di mana Kurd merasa tertekan. Di Turki, Iraq dan Iran, di mana majoriti kira-kira 40 juta Kurd kini hidup, pihak berkuasa telah lama melihat mereka sebagai 1 ancaman kepada keselamatan negara, terutamanya selepas mereka memeluk perang gerila untuk mencapai pembentukan sebuah negeri berdaulat Kurdish.

Dan di Syria pada hari ini, ia seolah-olah, sekurang-kurangnya untuk sekarang, matlamat ini telah direalisasikan. Kira-kira 1 bulan yang lalu, hidup Kurd di Aleppo membuka versi mereka sendiri dewan bandar. Terdapat potret Abdullah Ocalan, muka kemerdekaan Kurdish, tergantung di mana anda biasanya harapkan gambar Presiden.

"Kami, Kurd, tidak dengan kerajaan mahupun pembangkang. Kami berdiri sendiri. Negeri Syria mempunyai masalah yang lebih besar, jadi kami mengambil menjaga kawasan kami dan cuba untuk memerintah diri sendiri, "Kurdish ahli perniagaan Fausi Mustafa kepada RT.

Yang pada masa itu, Kurd Syria mendakwa diri tadbir urus dan hak sama rata semua mereka mahu. Ada pandangan lain, autonomi dalam Syria, sama ke wilayah Kurdistan Iraq, akan menjadi alternatif yang lebih realistik kepada kemerdekaan sepenuhnya. "Kurd Syria tidak mahu sebuah negara yang berasingan. Kami ingin hidup di Syria dalam keadaan aman dengan orang-orang Arab, orang Kristian dan orang lain. Tetapi kita tidak mahu diberi layanan yang sama dan akan diiktiraf sebagai Kurd ID kita, bukan sebagai orang-orang Arab Syria, "kata Farhad Sharif seorang ahli farmasi di Aleppo.

Namun, berpuluh-puluh penempatan Kurdish dalam Syria telah menjadi de facto negeri berdaulat mini. Mereka bukan sahaja ditadbir sendiri tetapi-policed ​​sendiri juga. Terdapat sempadan yang jelas, dengan mendaftar mata memisahkan Kurdish dan bahagian-bahagian Arab pengawal sempadan bandar dan militia. Manakala kerajaan pusat terganggu dengan perjuangan sendiri, mereka yang merebut peluang. "Sabar adalah pahit, tetapi ia mengandungi buah-buahan manis." Peribahasa Kurdish lama ini sering digunakan di Syria pada hari ini. Tetapi apa yang jelas ialah berapa lama kemerdekaan ini baru yang dijumpai boleh berlangsung.

Watch RT's report (tonton, laporan RT)

 

The head of the new UN observer team is starting his work in Syria amid sporadic violence. On Monday, twin suicide bombers killed at least nine people and wounded nearly a hundred, fuelling doubts over how long the shaky ceasefire can hold. The two suicide attackers set off explosive-rigged cars near a state intelligence compound in the north-western city of Idlib, the Syrian state media reported. They killed at least nine and wounded almost 100 people, including security officers and civilians. The Britain-based human rights organization Syrian Observatory puts the death toll higher, saying more than 20 people have been killed.

Pro-government al-Ekhbariya TV aired grizzly footage of the aftermath, showing smashed cars, debris and blood stains on the pavement. The explosions tore the facade off of a multi-storey building and damaged four others. Debris was sent flying hundreds of meters. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the act. The media blamed “armed terrorists”, but the term is routinely used by the Syrian government to describe any armed opposition group. The new act of violence comes as Norwegian Major General Robert Mood is paving the way for a full 300-strong monitoring team, which is to be deployed in the coming months.

The 52-year-old veteran peacemaker, who takes over the UN Mission in Syria, is no stranger to Damascus. Between 2009 and 2011 he headed the UN Truce Supervision Organization, which monitors Middle East cease-fires, and visited Syria. On arrival he called on both the government and opposition groups to co-operate with the UN, saying the effort of the monitors alone is not enough to defuse the situation. Currently the observer mission has 15 people on the ground, monitoring the situation in some of most troubled areas like Homs, Hama, Idlib, Derra and the Damascus suburbs.

Reports of the ceasefire being occasionally broken by both loyalist forces and opposition groups continue. Apparently, rebel groups not willing to stop their struggle with the government are increasingly resorting to guerrilla tactics. Late on Sunday militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Central Bank building, causing slight damage, and wounding four patrolling police officers, state television reported. A separate attack in eastern Deir ez-Zor on Sunday damaged an oil pipeline. Five explosions were heard in Damascus on Friday. A suicide bomber attacked killed 11 people and injured dozens, including civilians and law-enforcement personnel.

The Syrian Army has carried out attacks on armed opposition forces in areas close to the Turkish and Lebanese borders, according to Al Jazeera. The offensive followed Saturday’s attempts by a militant group to deploy in the coastal area near Latakia, Syria’s largest port city. In neighboring Lebanon local intelligence officials intercepted a ship carrying three containers filled with Libyan heavy machine guns, shells, rockets, rocket launchers and other explosives they claim was intended for the armed opposition group, the Free Syria Army. Nevertheless observers agree that the level of violence has dropped sharply after the ceasefire was announced on April 12 and remains relatively low.

On Monday, more than 170 opposition activists agreed to lay down their arms in exchange for an amnesty, SANA state news agency reported. A hundred and thirty of them were from the Idlib Governorate, while the others were active in the Damascus suburbs. The agency says about a thousand militants, who were not involved in major crimes surrendered under the amnesty since the ceasefire was announced.

Kurdish sovereignty dream moved forward

While Syria is trying to move away from violence, one ethnic group seems to have benefited from the turmoil – by not taking sides in the conflict, RT’s Oksana Boyko reports. Just a year ago, even speaking Kurdish in public could have got Syrian Kurds into trouble; but now they can sing openly what some hope will become the anthem for their future state. The Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group without a nation and have felt like outsiders in their own land. In Syria, where they make up around 10 percent of the population, Kurds have for decades complained of tacit discrimination by the authorities. They called on President al-Assad to step down years before it became the rallying cry of the Syrian opposition.

Despite long running grievances against the Assad family, Syrian Kurds have largely stayed out of the conflict. In fact, if there is any group that has benefited from the instability in Syria, it must be them. Over the past year, Syrian Kurds have won more concessions from the government than in the previous twenty.

RT visited a Kurdish-language school – one of about a dozen that have opened their doors in Syria over the past few months. Grandmothers share desks with grandchildren in a determined attempt to learn the classic version of their mother tongue.

Jamil Sheckdahdu, the school's principle, says, just a year ago, it had to be done in secret: “The state didn't allow any instruction in Kurdish. We used to be told that since we are living in an Arab country – we should speak Arabic. Books, even songs in Kurdish – were all forbidden but nowadays it all has changed,” he explained. It's not only Syria where Kurds felt pressured. In Turkey, Iraq and Iran, where the majority of about 40 million Kurds now live, the authorities had long seen them as a threat to national security, especially after they embraced guerrilla warfare to achieve the creation of a sovereign Kurdish state.

And in Syria these days, it seems, at least for now, this goal has been realized. About a month ago, Kurds living in Aleppo opened their own version of a city hall. There the portrait of Abdullah Ocalan, the face of Kurdish independence, hangs where you’d usually expect a picture of the President.

“We, the Kurds, are neither with the government nor with the opposition. We stand alone. The Syrian state has bigger problems so we are taking charge of our areas and try to govern ourselves,” Kurdish businessman Fausi Mustafa told RT.

For the time being, Syrian Kurds claim self-governance and equal rights are all they want. Some say, autonomy within Syria, similar to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, would be a more realistic alternative to full-fledged independence. “Syrian Kurds don’t want a separate state. We want to live in Syria in peace with the Arabs, Christians and everybody else. But we do want to be treated equally and to be recognized as the Kurds on our IDs, not as Syrian Arabs,” said Farhad Sharif a pharmacist in Aleppo.

Yet, dozens of Kurdish settlements within Syria have already become de facto mini sovereign states. They are not only self-governed but self-policed as well. There are well-defined borders, with check-points separating Kurdish and Arab parts of town and militia border guards. While the central government is distracted with its own struggle, they are seizing the opportunity. "Patience is bitter, but it bears sweet fruit.” This old Kurdish proverb is frequently used in Syria these days. But what's unclear is how long this new found independence may last.