By Lauren Williams
BEIRUT: Syria’s deputy oil minister appeared to resign Thursday, becoming the highest ranking civilian official to defect, as the U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan urged more diplomacy rather than militarization to end the year-long crisis in the country.
 
The apparent defection buoyed opposition supporters’ hopes of a political solution to the crisis, as they contend that high profile political defections are key to an internal erosion of the Syrian state.
 
“I do not want to end my life servicing the crimes of this regime,” Husameddine said in a video posted on YouTube by Syrian activists, adding that he was joining “the dignified people’s revolution.”
 
Dressed in a suit and tie and apparently reading from a paper, Husemeddine said he had “chosen to join the voice of righteousness, knowing that this regime will burn my home, persecute my family and come up with a lot of lies. I advise my colleagues who have been silent in the face of crimes for a year to abandon this sinking ship which is about to drown.”
 
Husemeddine identified himself as an “assistant” to the oil minister and a member of the ruling Baath Party who has served 33 years in government.
 
It was not clear when or where the video was made and there was no comment from Damascus.
 
While the authenticity of the video could not be independently verified, a photograph appearing to be the same man as the one in the video appears on a Syrian oil website, posted in 2009, describing him as deputy minister for oil and mineral resources and director of the general association for oil refinery. The website, in Arabic, says Husemeddine graduated from the Baath University with a degree in engineering.
 
President Bashar Assad’s forces have suffered a stream of army defectors, now believed to number in the thousands, but civilian government officials have remained largely loyal.
 
Opposition Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun welcomed the news, saying he expected other government officials to follow suit.
 
The U.S. State Department also greeted the defection as “very good news” if true.
 
“That would be absolutely in keeping with the kind of calls that the secretary and the president have been making for senior members of the regime to break with Assad,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
 
“We are seeing an uptick over the last couple of months of military defections. They seem to be in the rank and file primarily,” Nuland said. “But once these things get going, they tend to increase. So let us hope that we are at the beginning of a trend.”
 
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday Washington was looking at delivering non-lethal aid to Syria’s rebels, hinting at the first direct U.S. assistance to opposition forces. “I can tell you that we’re considering an array of non-lethal assistance,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
 
Britain announced Thursday it would follow suit.
 
“I also don’t rule out giving more non-lethal help, but we haven’t countenanced doing that beyond groups that are, so far, located outside Syria and are trying to pursue a peaceful, democratic transition,” Foreign Secretary William Hague told members of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee.
 
“We always consult closely with the United States,” he added.
 
Meanwhile the U.N. is preparing a 90-day aid plan of roughly $100 million for Syria with food stocks for 1.5 million people, officials said. The announcement came a day after U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos got the first independent access to the Baba Amr district of central Homs following a deadly month-long siege, describing conditions as “devastated.”
 
The military took control of Baba Amr on March 1, but Amos was allowed in only Wednesday. Activists charge that Syrian forces conducted cleanup operations there, including executions and arrests.
 
The aid plan was discussed as part of a daylong session for diplomats from about 60 nations pressing for more access for relief workers to Syria and comes as support for a militarized campaign against Assad forces gains momentum.
 
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have voiced support for arming the rebels and the Syrian National Council last week announced the formation of a defense wing to unify militarized groups in the country and coordinate arms deliveries from other states.
 
Syria’s ruling Baath party – who marked the 49th anniversary of the coup that first brought it to power Thursday – contend Syria is the victim of a “worldwide conspiracy” saying the country is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorists.” Russia and Iran, key allies of Syria, accuse Western-backed fighters of disrupting the country.
 
Russia’s deputy ambassador Mikhail Lebedev said Assad is battling Al-Qaeda-backed “terrorists” including at least 15,000 foreign fighters who will seize towns across Syria if government troops withdraw. Iran’s newly appointed envoy, Ali Ahani, accused Arab countries of financing and supplying mercenaries and weapons there.
 
Against that backdrop, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan urged calm, warning against militarization.
 
“I believe further militarization will make the situation worse,” Annan told reporters after talks with Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elarabi in Cairo.
 
Annan, who is due to arrive in Damascus Saturday, warned of “the possible impact of Syria on the region if there is any miscalculation.”
 
Activists and residents on the ground in Syria have voiced fears that Assad’s forces are planning an imminent assault on other cities following the Homs siege that killed hundreds.
 
Activists in the Idlib province told The Daily Star tanks and armored vehicles were massing around the city and that Syrian officials had given them two days to hand over rebel elements. A little girl in the village of Khan Shaykhoun, in the Idlib province, was among 56 people killed in violence across the country, according to activist group the Local Coordination Committees.
 
The LCC said 47 people, including whole families, were killed in the Jobar district of Homs in what it described as a reprisal “massacres” by security forces and Shabbiha militia against activists.
 
Troops also shot dead a man in the Jabal al-Zawiyah district of the province, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
 
Two civilians died in clashes in the town of Al-Mayadin, in the eastern province of Deir Ezour, another died in Daraya village, in Damascus province, and two were killed at a checkpoint in Homs province, Abdel Rahman said. In the flashpoint central province of Hama, he said a 44-year-old man was shot dead by the Shabbiha.
 
In the capital, dozens of people were arrested after a funeral turned into an anti-regime demonstration. “Security forces have arrested dozens of people in the Mezzeh district of Damascus who attended the funeral of a young man killed recently,” the Observatory said.
 
In the northern province of Aleppo, explosions hit two security force buildings in the town of Aazaz, which was heavily bombarded by troops Wednesday, the Observatory said.
 
Concerns were also mounting in the rebel-held Zabadani and Wadi Barada regions, north of Damascus, where several towns have dislodged an army presence. Communications to the region were severed Thursday and residents reported a buildup of forces nearby.
 
Speaking to The Daily Star a day earlier, one Wadi Barada resident said the peaceful movement was no longer viable.
 
“I would gladly take up arms to protect my family,” he said.