●シリア情勢、民衆弾圧と制裁措置の包囲網

VOAの音声はこちらからどうぞ。
リビアのカダフィ体制が崩壊しましたが、リビアに比肩する独裁国家にして反政府運動に弾圧を行っているのがシリアのアサド政権です。
アメリカはアサド政権の退陣を要求し、政権幹部のアメリカ内の金融資産を凍結。またEUはシリアからＥＵ域内への石油関連製品の輸入の禁止措置を行いました。
VOAのニュース記事の要約です。
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ラマダン（イスラム教の断食月）初日にシリアで数万人規模の反政府デモが行われ、政府の武力行使により少なくとも15名が殺されたと言われます。
3月から始まった民主化運動への政府の攻撃で2万人以上が殺害されたと推定されます。
アメリカのクリントン国防長官は、他の国々にシリア制裁に加わるように呼びかけました。
「アメリカによる制裁では影響力が十分ではありません。ヨーロッパやその他諸国の協力が必要です。我々の声を大きくしてアサドの弾圧政権にプレッシャーを与える必要があります」
クリントン長官は国連の安全保障理事会で「シリア政権による暴力的で広範囲な人権侵害と一般市民への武力行使」を強く非難する声明を発表しました。
アメリカとヨーロッパは安全保障理事会にリビアに対する制裁決議案を発するように呼びかけました。
しかしロシア、中国、インド、ブラジル、南アメリカはそれに反対しました。なぜならそれはリビアに対して行ったのと同様に国連軍の発動につながると懸念するからです。
シリアはアメリカに対して複数政党を容認することを含む改革の約束をしていましたが、それは期限内には実行に移されませんでした。
シリアではアサド親族が率いるバース党だけの単一政党による支配が長年にわたって維持されています。
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アメリカはシリアが北朝鮮と核開発で協力しているという公式見解を発表しています。
またシリアは歳入の約25%を石油関連が占め、石油輸出の9割がEU向けであるため、今回のEUの制裁措置は市民への生活にも大きな影響を及ぼすとみられます。
また欧米だけでなくアラブ連盟も民衆デモ弾圧について「シリア国民の権利を尊重するよう強く求める」という声明を発表しました。
アラブの春は、まだまだ終わりを告げそうにありません。
Tens of thousands of Syrians demonstrated against the government on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Late in the day, witnesses and activists said at least fifteen people were killed when government forces fired on demonstrators. They said most of the deaths happened around Damascus. Protests also took place in other Syrian cities.
Demonstrators called for President Bashar al-Assad to resign.
The city of Hama has been under military attack since Sunday. A political activist in Hama told VOA that government forces have been raiding the homes of activists and carrying out arrests and killings. Still, he said, there were protests in Hama on Friday.
The Syrian government launched a violent campaign against pro-democracy protesters in March. American officials estimate that more than two thousand people have been killed in the attacks on protesters. On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on other countries to join the United States in taking action.
HILLARY CLINTON: “But not just US sanctions because, frankly, we do not have lot of business with Syria. We need to get Europeans and others. We need to get the Arab states. We need to get a much louder, more effective chorus of voices that are putting pressure on the Assad regime, and we’re working to obtain that.”
Secretary Clinton said a statement Wednesday by the United Nations Security Council was a first step. The statement condemned the “widespread violations of human rights and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities.” It urged restraint on both sides in Syria.
The government has blamed much of the violence on what it calls terrorists and militants. The official news agency SANA reported Friday that unidentified gunmen had killed two security officers.
The United States and European countries had pressed the Security Council for a resolution. A resolution is stronger than the presidential statement it approved. But Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa blocked those efforts. They feared that a resolution could lead to a situation similar to the international military action in Libya.
The United States dismissed a promise this week by the Syrian president to permit reforms. These include letting opposition parties operate for the first time.
Syria has long had a single-party system led by the Ba’ath party of the Assad family.
In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak appeared in a hospital bed in a cage in a courtroom on Wednesday. The former president denied the charges against him. These include ordering the killing of protesters during the eighteen days of political unrest that forced him out. More than eight hundred people were killed.
Reuters
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is seen through wire mesh in the courtroom for his trial at the Police Academy in Cairo, August third.
Raina el Malky is a newspaper editor. She says that if anyone had predicted this trial last year, she would have thought they were crazy.
RAINA El-MALKY: “I would have said they are living in Mars or Neptune or somewhere outside Earth because this was unthinkable. I think what happened is a miracle and the way everything has happened since the fist day, since January twenty-fifth, has been a miracle.”
What became known as the Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East ousted the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia. Yemen’s president was wounded by an explosion in June and remains in Saudi Arabia, recovering.
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