A failed mission?

Syria's President Bashar Assad joined thousands of his supporters on Wednesday in an extremely rare public appearance, telling a pro-regime rally in the capital Damascus that the "conspiracy" against his country will fail. He made no reference to allegations by the Algerian Arab League observer Anwer Malek of serious crimes against the Syrian people. Malek said he resigned because of what he saw. The mission was falling apart.

"The mission was a farce and the observers have been fooled," Malek told Al-Jazeera in an interview broadcast late Tuesday. "The regime orchestrated it and fabricated most of what we saw to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime."

The Arab observers are supposed to monitor the withdrawal of government troops from Syrian cities and the release of political prisoners. Most importantly, they are supposed to help end the violence between the Syrian regime and the opposition.

The observers have not succeeded yet. Since they arrived in Syria at the end of December, the regime appears to continue clamping down on its opponents with all means. According to UN estimates, over 5,000 people have been killed since the mass protests began in March 2011.

The observers' lack of success in stemming the violence has a reason, said Anja Zorob, a junior professor at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics at Berlin's Free University.

"The Syrian leadership never took this mission seriously," said Zorob, who has been following the situation in Syria very closely. "Assad views this mission as a measure to win more time."

Doomed to fail?

This is just one reason why representatives from the Syrian protest movement have declared the observer mission has failed. The bloodshed in Syria continues - and the Arab League observers can do nothing about it. The opposition criticized that the League's interim report presented on January 8 was too vague. It accuses the observers of merely being a fig leaf of the Assad regime and glossing over the bloody reality.

"The Arab League has certainly discredited itself in the ranks of the opposition," said Ulrich Tilgner, a correspondent for Swiss television and Middle East expert. The League's member states were not pulling together. As opposed to the oil-rich Gulf nations, which were standing up against Assad, countries such as Sudan were seeking a compromise with the Syrian regime.

"The Gulf states finance the opposition for the large part and support them in the media," Tilgner said. "Neither Sudan nor the military in Egypt on the other hand want Assad to fall quickly, for that could be a signal for the development in their own countries."

The opposition is also angry that the head of the observer mission, Sudanese General Mohammed Ahmed Al-Dabi, commended the Assad regime already at the end of December. Al-Dabi's nomination had already been sharply criticized, for he is considered a representative of Sudan's President Omar Bashir. The International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Bashir's arrest for charges of genocide and war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.

Al-Dabi was from the start a compromise to head the Arab delegation. Syria had previously rejected several representatives from other countries. It appears the regime in Damascus didn't want to accept anyone with close ties to countries like Saudi Arabia or Qatar, which had pushed forward sanctions against Syria.

Successful completion unlikely

President Assad has taken advantage of the differences within the Arab League on two levels. For one, he hardly has to fear a continuation of the mission under Al-Dabi. Secondly, countries like Sudan give him the opportunity to criticize the Arab League. In his first public speech since June, Assad earlier his week tellingly questioned how countries which themselves had immense problems were supposed to teach Syria about democracy.

With a good week to go until the mission is expected to issue its report, it looks as if the Arab League will not be able to implement its goals. For Zorob this doesn't necessarily mean the mission has been an abject failure.

"Maybe a 'failure' of the mission and with it the conclusion that the Syrian government is not fulfilling the conditions put forth is even the better alternative," Zorob said. The consequences of this scenario, however, are still completely unclear.

Author: Anne Allmeling / sac
Editor: Michael Knigge