SYRIA: REIN IN SECURITY FORCES AFTER VIOLENT CRACKDOWN

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must rein in his security forces and prevent further unlawful killings, Amnesty International said today, as the coastal city of Banias remained under virtual lockdown and the army was reported to have detained all males over 15 in the nearby village of al-Baydah.

“The human rights crisis in Syria is growing by the day, almost by the hour,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“The government appears intent on trying to crush all dissent using the most repressive means – shooting peaceful protesters, carrying out mass arrests and locking down areas where people have dared to call for reform. This has to stop. Syria’s President must make it stop.”

Amnesty International has received lists naming at least 200 people who have been killed since protests began in Syria on 18 March, but the true number may be much higher. Most of the dead were shot by the security forces or men in plain clothes acting alongside them using live ammunition, though the government claims that opposition “armed gangs” are the chief culprits.

“The government’s claims and denials do not ring true. They are strongly contradicted by eyewitness accounts that we have received from the centres of unrest – Dera’a, Damascus, Latakia and now Banias – which speak of government snipers shooting protesters and other use of lethal force, resulting in unlawful killings,” said Malcolm Smart.

“The way to determine the truth is to ensure that an independent, full and thorough investigation is urgently conducted. This is what international law requires when such grave human rights violations are reported, but the Syrian authorities have yet to order such an inquiry and live up to their international obligations.”

International law also requires that those responsible for unlawful killings and other serious violations be brought to justice in fair trials.

“In practice, Syria’s security forces have been allowed over many years to commit torture and unlawful killings with impunity,” said Malcolm Smart.

“It is high time that they were brought to heel and made fully accountable under the law.”

The coastal city of Banias has been caught in the grip of protests since 8 April and has been virtually besieged by the security forces since the evening of 9 April with security checkpoints controlling entry and exit to the city and reports of electricity and water supplies cut off. In particular, the security forces are said to have targeted predominantly Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods and villages, including al-Baydah, al-Basatin and Beit Jnad.

In al-Baydah, at least 200 men and boys aged 15 and over were reportedly rounded up in a house-to-house search on 12 April and detained by armed men in plain clothes acting under Syrian army supervision. One witness told Amnesty International the armed men had their faces covered and opened fired at times during the raid. The detainees are said to have been beaten, handcuffed and made to chant pro-government slogans. It is unclear how many are still detained.

The protests in Banias appear to have started out peacefully but to have turned violent at some point amid conflicting reports of what occurred. According to SANA, Syria’s official news agency, the Interior Ministry says the trouble began when members of an armed group opposed to the government fired on a bus carrying soldiers, killing nine of them. Other sources allege that some soldiers were killed by other members of the army when they refused to turn their guns on protesters.

Despite consistent calls from Amnesty International to investigate mass political killings carried out in the past, Syrian authorities have never made public any details of investigations or disciplinary measures carried out.

Source: Amnesty International

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China challenges US predominance in Asia-Pacific

WASHINGTON (AP) — When China launched threatening war games off Taiwan 15 years ago on the eve of an election on the self-governing island, the U.S. deployed two aircraft carriers, and China quickly backed down.

FILE - In this July 26, 2010, file photo rleased by China's Xinhua News Agency on July 29, 2010, a warship launches a missile during a live-ammunition military drill held by the South China Sea Fleet of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the South China Sea. During the past two decades, China has developed air, naval and missile capabilities that appear focused on undercutting America's superiority in China's backyard. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Pu Haiyang) NO SALES.

Things don't seem so one-sided any more.

China's military has been on a spending spree at a time that the debt-ridden U.S. government is looking to cut defense costs. On Friday, China announced a 12.7 percent hike for this year, the latest in a string of double-digit increases.

That trend has triggered worries in Congress and among security analysts about whether the United States can maintain its decades-long military predominance in the economically crucial Asia-Pacific.

While the U.S. military has been drained by 10 years of costly conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, China has developed air, naval and missile capabilities that could undercut U.S. superiority in China's backyard.

China is still decades away from building a military as strong as the United States. It has not fought a major conflict since a border war with Vietnam in 1979 and is not a Soviet-style rival threatening American soil.

But the shift raises questions about whether the U.S. can meet its commitment to maintain a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific for decades — a matter not just of global prestige but also seen as critical for safeguarding shipping lanes vital for world trade and protecting allies.

China already has an innate geographical advantage in any conflict in the west Pacific. One expert posits that with its military buildup, China could conquer Taiwan by the end of the decade even if the U.S. military intervenes.

China regards Taiwan as part of its territory. Relations between the two, long seen as a potential flash point, have warmed in the past two years. But China's assertion of territorial claims in the South China Sea, which it has declared as a "core interest" — essentially something it could go to war over — has spooked its neighbors and fortified their support for a strong U.S. presence in the region. Even former enemy Vietnam is forging military ties with the U.S.

Last week, the Philippines deployed two warplanes after a ship searching for oil complained it was harassed by two Chinese patrol boats in the South China Sea. Japan scrambled F-15 fighter jets after Chinese surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft flew near disputed islands in the East China Sea.

"As China's military has gotten more capable and China has behaved more aggressively, a number of countries are looking at the U.S. as a hedge to make sure they can maintain independence, security and stability," said Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

But those allies question whether the U.S. can retain its freedom to operate in the region, and whether its economy — highly indebted to China and struggling to recover from a recession — can sustain its high level of military spending, said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center of Strategic and International Studies think tank.

The U.S. Pacific Command has 325,000 personnel, five aircraft carrier strike groups, 180 ships and nearly 2,000 aircraft. Tens of thousands of forces stay on China's doorstep at long-established bases in South Korea and Japan.

China's defense spending is still dwarfed by the United States. Even if China really invests twice as much in its military as its official $91.5 billion budget, which some analysts believe, that is still only about a quarter of U.S. spending. It has no aircraft carriers and lags the U.S. in defense technology. Some of its most vaunted recent military advances will take years to reach operation.

For example, China test flew its stealth fighter in January, months earlier than U.S. intelligence expected, but U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says China will still only have a couple of hundred of these "fifth-generation" jets by 2025, when the United States should have 1,500.

But China's growing array of aircraft, naval and submarine vessels, ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-satellite and cyber war capabilities already enable it to project power beyond its shores. It plans new submarines, larger naval destroyers and transport aircraft that could expand that reach further.

Roger Cliff, a respected defense researcher who recently testified before a congressional hearing on China, says many of the missiles and strike aircraft have a range of about 900 miles, which put them within attacking distance of virtually all U.S. air and naval bases in the region. They include the DF-21D missile which is designed to target aircraft carriers. It employs technology that no other U.S. rival has mastered. It does not appear to have been tested yet against a maneuvering target at sea.

Cliff said if trends continue, China should have sufficient missiles and precision bombs by the end of the decade to render inoperable for a week or more all airfields on Taiwan and U.S. air bases in Okinawa, Japan, and possibly others farther away. He said there are between 40 and 50 Chinese air bases within 500 miles of Taiwan, each generally hosting a squadron of 24 aircraft, which could overwhelm superior U.S. aircraft through sheer numbers. If China acquired amphibious landing vehicles, he forecast it could conquer Taiwan.

If U.S. military planners are worried about that possibility, they aren't showing it. They say plans to cap defense spending within five years won't derail modernization plans. Pacific Command chief Adm. Robert Willard said last month that while the U.S. carefully watches China's growing military capabilities — and urges greater openness from China about them — the United States does not need to change its strategy.

China maintains it does not have offensive intentions, and analysts say that military action in the region would hurt its export-driven economy which could threaten what its government prizes above all else — domestic stability. The U.S. military presence may also benefit China as it restrains neighbors like South Korea and Japan from seeking nuclear weapons.

As U.S. and Chinese forces increasingly rub up against each other in the west Pacific, the U.S. says it wants to promote military ties with China to prevent a chance skirmish and for China to develop as a "responsible major power." To date, China has been reluctant to engage meaningfully after the recent restoration of military ties that were cut over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

"This is not the Cold War with two rival camps facing each other," said Michael Schiffer, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia. "We are seeking a military-military relationship that is broad and deep enough to manage our differences while expanding on areas of common interest."

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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