Syrian Deputy Oil Minister Abdo Hussameldin has announced his defection on YouTube, becoming the first high-ranking civilian official to abandon President Bashar al-Assad since the uprising against his rule erupted a year ago.
"I Abdo Hussameldin, deputy oil and mineral wealth minister in Syria, announce my defection from the regime, resignation from my position and withdrawal from the Baath Party," Hussameldin said in the video.
"I join the revolution of this dignified people," he said in the video seen early on Thursday.
He said he had been in government for 33 years but did not want to end his career "serving the crimes of this regime", adding: "I have preferred to do what is right although I know that this regime will burn my house and persecute my family."
Syrian security forces have killed more than 7,500 civilians during the crackdown on pro-democracy protests, according to the United Nations, and the outside world has proved powerless to halt the killing.
While saying very preliminary military planning was under way, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday defended U.S. caution in trying to end the violence, despite criticism from legislators who questioned how many people would have to die before the Obama administration used force.
U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos saw a scene of devastation and near desertion on Wednesday when she visited the Baba Amr district of the city of Homs that was shelled by the military for nearly a month after becoming a rebel holdout.
Assad appointed Hussameldin, 58, to his current position through a presidential decree in 2009. He said the country's economy was "near collapse". There was no mention of the defection on Syrian state media.
Opposition sources say the government, controlled by Assad's minority Alawite sect that has dominated power in Syria for the past five decades, has effectively stopped functioning in provinces that have been at the forefront of the uprising, such as Homs and the northwest province of Idlib.
But public defections have remained rare among the civilian branches of the state, despite thousands of the mostly Sunni soldiers and conscripts who make the bulk of the army deserting since the uprising broke out last March.
A convoy from the International Committee of the Red Cross has been unable to enter Baba Amr since arriving in Homs on Friday, a day after the district fell to the Syrian military.
Russia, one of Assad's few remaining allies, has, with China, blocked U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for him to step aside. Its U.N. envoy on Wednesday accused Libya's new rulers of running a training centre for Syrian rebels and arming the fighters in their battle to overthrow Assad.
In another effort to stop the violence, former U.N. chief Kofi Annan plans his first visit to Damascus as joint envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League on Saturday.
