Syria truce holds but 6 killed in protests

Syrian forces used live fire, tear gas and clubs to beat back tens of thousands of protesters who took to the streets across the country yesterday in powerful and often jubilant displays of defiance.

But a UN-brokered truce largely held up without the widespread, bloody offensives that have pushed the nation toward civil war.

Activists said security forces killed at least six people, a lower-than-usual toll. The rallies, described as some of the largest in months, stretched from the suburbs of Damascus to the central province of Hama, Idlib in the north and the southern province of Daraa, where the uprising began in Mar 2011.

“Come on, Bashar, leave!” the crowd shouted in Daraa, linking arms and stomping their feet to the beat of a drum in a traditional Arab folk dance, according to a video posted online by activists.

The protests might have been far larger had President Bashar Assad’s regime not violated a key aspect of the truce by keeping troops, tanks and snipers in population centres instead of pulling them back to barracks.

The presence of plainclothes agents of the feared Mukhabarat security service also had a chilling effect on some of the gatherings in Damascus and elsewhere.

The demonstrations were a critical test of the ceasefire, which went into effect at dawn on Thursday, because they challenged the government’s commitment to avoid the kind of attacks that have made Syria one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Arab Spring revolts.

Regime forces tried to block protesters from occupying main squares out of fear they will form a sit-in akin to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where hundreds of thousands camped out for days in an extraordinary scene that drove longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak from power.

Many world leaders expressed doubt the truce would endure in a country where 9,000 people have been killed during the uprising, according to UN figures.

“I don’t believe Bashar Assad is sincere,” French President Nicholas Sarkozy told television station i-Tele yesterday. Observers must be sent to find out what’s happening.”

A team of UN observers was on standby to fly into Syria and monitor the truce, but the mission still needed approval from the Security Council.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the text was more complicated than he expected and that more negotiations would be needed, but said his government also wanted to act quickly to get observers on the ground.

Russia has been one of Syria’s strongest allies, shielding Assad from international condemnation out of fear it would open the door to possible Nato airstrikes like those which helped topple Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

President Barack Obama has ramped up US aid, including communications equipment and medical supplies, to Syria’s opposition in hopes of accelerating Assad’s downfall of Assad, officials said yesterday.

Despite the hitches in the ceasefire plan, Syrians poured into the streets yesterday. A protest of many thousands was reported in the sprawling Damascus suburb of Douma, where the regime conducted sweeping arrest raids in the days before the truce.

“It was an example of what a large peaceful protest can be like when the government does not intervene and fire on people,” said local activist Mohammed Saeed.

But there were violent eruptions too, as security forces fired live rounds, tear gas and beat protesters with clubs in some areas.

Activist Adel al-Omari said security forces opened fire at protesters in the southern village of Nawa as they gathered in a central square, killing at least two.

The Local coordination committees of Syria put the nationwide death toll at 13 protesters, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least six were killed.