Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The failure of the UN Security Council to pass a resolution on Syria has encouraged Damascus to step up its assault on the opposition and launch an "indiscriminate attack" on Homs, the UN human rights chief said.
"The failure of the Security Council to agree on firm collective action appears to have emboldened the Syrian government to launch an all-out assault in an effort to crush dissent with overwhelming force," High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the UN General Assembly.
On Feb 4, both Russia and China vetoed a European-Arab drafted resolution condemning the Syrian government’s suppression of anti-government demonstrations and endorsing an Arab League plan for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside.
Pillay’s speech to the 193-nation assembly came after Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari, backed by delegates from Iran and North Korea, tried unsuccessfully to block her from addressing UN delegations by citing procedural arguments.
Pillay’s speech raised the possibility that the Syrian government, which for 11 months has been cracking down on protesters opposed to Assad, may have committed increasingly serious human rights violations.
"I am particularly appalled by the ongoing onslaught on Homs," she said, noting Assad’s forces have been using tanks, mortars and artillery in the assault on the city.
"According to credible accounts, the Syrian army has shelled densely populated neighbourhoods of Homs in what appears to be an indiscriminate attack on civilian areas," Pillay said.
It is difficult to establish how many people have died in the Syrian conflict, though the figure was more than 5,400 and was rising every day, she said.
Pillay has urged the Security Council to refer the Syrian repression to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as it did in the case of Libya last year. But council diplomats say that veto-holders Russia and China oppose the idea.
Syria ignored a new Arab initiative to end the bloodshed, with its troops pounding the protest hub of Homs as Russia said a ceasefire is needed before peacekeepers can be deployed.
The pan-Arab bloc agreed on Sunday to ask the UN to send a joint peacekeeping force to Syria. The embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad swiftly rejected the initiative.
And hours after the Arab League decision, Assad’s troops resumed shelling Baba Amr, a rebel bastion in the beleaguered central city of Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Regime forces killed eight civilians, among them three in Homs and two in nearby Rastan, including a 13-year-old girl killed in shelling after clashes between army defectors and soldiers. Three troops also died.
The security forces also raided homes to arrest people in Daraa province in the south, cradle of the Arab Spring-inspired 11-month uprising against Assad’s iron-fisted rule.
The assault on Homs began on the same day Russia and China vetoed a second UN Security Council resolution on Syria.
That move prompted the Arab League to ask the UN for a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission to the strife-torn country.
European nations welcomed the plan. Russia said it was studying it, but cautioned it had questions about certain points.
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