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Arab League Rightly Imposes Sanctions on Syria
Arab foreign ministers agreed a raft of sanctions against Damascus in a meeting in Cairo yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime pressed ahead with a crackdown on dissent.Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said 19 of the Arab League's 22 members voted to ban prominent Syrian regime officials "from travelling to Arab countries and to freeze their accounts in Arab countries."The bloc's members will also stop dealing with the Syrian Central Bank and suspend economic trade with the Damascus government, with the exception of foodstuffs, he said.The decision also called on Arab central banks to monitor transfers to Syria, except remittances from Syrians abroad to their families.Iraq had abstained from the vote, and refused to implement it, while Lebanon "disassociated itself" from the decision.It is the first time that the Arab League has taken such a decision against one of its members.The sanctions, combined with those already imposed by EU and US will have a disastrous impact on Syrian economy which depends on its Arab neighbors for half of its exports and a quarter of its imports.
This is a long overdue decision of Arab League. Syrian dictatorship has killed about four thousand civilian peaceful protesters by this time in the last seven months. Basher like his father is a vicious dictator who is in power by the support of Alawite minority and fraudulent elections. There is no democracy and no human rights. He has repeatedly disobeyed Arab league to make reforms and allow league monitors. We have no doubt that days of Basher and his clique is numbered. It will end sooner than we think. The people and now a part of Army is in revolt. His end will be very painful.
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