[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Week – The U.N.’s condemnation of Syria won’t force Bashar al-Assad to end his bloody crackdown. But that doesn’t mean the U.N. is always toothlessIt’s easy to see why impatient critics are bemoaning the United Nations. The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution Thursday condemning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for human rights abuses, and backing Arab League efforts to end the country’s deadly attacks on anti-Assad rebels and protesters. But the measure is non-binding — it “lacks bite,” says Bloomberg. Couple that with Russia and China’s veto of a stronger Security Council resolution aiming to force Assad to surrender power, and it’s clear why commentators are calling the U.N. irrelevant. But the U.N. isn’t always ineffective. Here, a sampling of five cases where the much-maligned international body truly made a difference:
CNN reporter hiding in Syrian safe house
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: State-run media: Al-Assad plans a referendum on a draft constitution for February 26
- NEW: At least five people are killed in Syria on Wednesday, an opposition group says
- NEW: Report: Syria’s envoy to Russia says Syria will not allow international peacekeepers
- A U.N. draft resolution condemning Syria could go for a vote on Wednesday
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Homs, Syria (CNN) — A massive plume of thick, black smoke billowed from the Syrian city of Homs Wednesday, punctuating the chaos that has plagued the opposition stronghold for months.
According to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition activist group, government war planes flew over Homs and blew up an oil pipeline.
But Syrian state-run TV blamed a “terrorist group” for the assault.
Under the opaque cloud of smoke, sounds of sustained attacks — including artillery fire and automatic machine gunfire — echoed through the city of 1 million people, CNN’s Arwa Damon reported from inside Homs Wednesday.
Opposition activists say government forces are set on flattening every neighborhood that might hold dissidents calling for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
But reports of fresh violence Wednesday weren’t limited to Homs.
Three bodies were recovered from Idlib province; a 16-year-old student was killed by gunfire in Daraa province; and another person was killed in Aleppo, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
And military forces stormed the city of Hama, where explosions rattled two neighborhoods, the group said. The Observatory said landlines, cell phone communication and Internet access in Hama were cut off.
While residents across Syria grappled with the turmoil, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said al-Assad has set a date of February 26 for a referendum on a draft constitution.
Members of a committee tasked with drafting the document “reiterated their keenness on a constitution that allows … public freedoms and political plurality in a way to lay the foundation for a new stage that will enrich Syria’s cultural history,” SANA reported.
Al-Assad has previously said Syria planned to hold a constitutional referendum, but reports of bloodshed at the hands of his regime have only intensified since his statement.
Meanwhile, after repeated U.N. failures to formally denounce the Syrian government, the latest U.N. draft resolution condemning Syria could go for a vote in the General Assembly as early as Wednesday.
Though a General Assembly vote would not be binding, it would mark the strongest U.N. statement yet on the violence. Russia and China have vetoed attempts to condemn Syria for the crackdown by the U.N. Security Council, whose resolutions are binding.
The draft resolution calls on Syria to end human-rights violations and attacks against civilians immediately, and condemns “all violence, irrespective of where it comes from.”
But any U.N. action is long overdue, say opposition activists, who reported 49 deaths across Syria on Tuesday. The dead included three Syrian soldiers who defected, the LCC said.
Deaths took place in Idlib, Homs, Daraa, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, Hama, Damascus, the Damascus suburbs and Latakia, the group said.
Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said Monday most of the wounded avoid going to public hospitals for fear of being arrested or tortured. Instead, they are being treated in underground hospitals where hygiene and sterilization conditions are rudimentary and medical supplies are scarce, she said.
Pillay denounced the Syrian government’s “ongoing onslaught” against its citizens.
“The nature and scale of abuses committed by Syrian forces indicates that crimes against humanity are likely to have been committed since March 2011,” Pillay said.
Syria posted a banner on state TV Tuesday saying its Foreign Affairs Ministry “absolutely rejects all the new allegations in the new report by the human rights high commissioner.”
The Syrian regime has consistently blamed “armed terrorist groups” for the violence in Syria.
“What is happening has nothing to do with reforms, with the spread of democracy. This is the work of armed terrorist groups that are being funded from outside,” said Syria’s ambassador to Russia, Riad Haddad, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency.
He added: “Damascus will not let international peacekeepers into the country. Syria does not need peacekeepers. Syria has categorically dismissed that option.”
CNN cannot independently confirm details of events across Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.
But the vast majority of accounts from within the country indicate al-Assad’s forces are slaughtering civilians en masse, part of a brutal crackdown on protesters calling for democratic reforms.
Pillay has said at least 5,400 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, but she said it is difficult to update that number due to the turmoil on the ground. The LCC has said well over 7,000 people have been killed.
European Union diplomats said they expect new EU sanctions on Syria by February 27, targeting the Syrian Central Bank and imposing a ban on exports of precious metals and phosphates.
Victoria Nuland, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said Tuesday that increasing pressure and sanctions on al-Assad’s government was crucial.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe announced a national decision to establish an emergency relief fund for Syria, according to the website of the permanent mission of France to the United Nations. The fund, with an initial sum of ?1 million ($1.3 million), will “fund the actions of all organizations and associations wishing to help the Syrian people.”
France will propose the creation of a similar fund at the international level at the first “Friends of Syria” meeting in Tunis, Tunisia, on February 24, the statement said.
Juppe said on French radio Wednesday morning that diplomats have not given up on Russia in the Syria talks.
“We are currently renegotiating a resolution at the U.N Security Council to see if we can persuade the Russians,” Juppe told France Info.
CNN’s Nada Husseini, Hamdi Alkhshali, Mick Krever, Richard Roth, Holly Yan, Elise Labott and Saskya Vandoorne contributed to this report.
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_meast/~3/sXOQCQgfNy4/index.html
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BEIRUT/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) ? Western and Arab countries responded with outrage on Sunday after Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have backed an Arab plan urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to give up power.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the veto a “travesty.” The vote came a day after activists say Syrian forces bombarded the city of Homs, killing more than 200 people in the worst night of bloodshed of the 11-month uprising.
Russia said the resolution was biased and would have meant taking sides in a civil war. Syria is Moscow’s rare ally in the Middle East, home to a Russian naval base and a customer for its arms. China’s veto was widely seen as following Russia’s lead.
Washington’s U.N. ambassador Susan Rice said she was “disgusted” by Russia and China’s vetoes, and “any further bloodshed that flows will be on their hands.”
Britain’s Foreign Minister William Hague said Moscow and Beijing had turned their backs on the Arab world. France’s Alain Juppe said they “carried a terrible responsibility in the eyes of the world and Syrian people.”
All 13 other members of the Security Council voted to back the resolution, which would have “fully supported” an Arab League plan under which Assad should cede powers to a deputy, withdraw troops from towns and begin a transition to democracy.
The Western criticism was echoed in the Middle East, where Arab powers like Saudi Arabia and non-Arab Turkey have turned decisively against Assad in recent months.
“Unfortunately, yesterday in the U.N., the Cold War logic continues,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “Russia and China did not vote based on the existing realities but more a reflexive attitude against the West.”
Arab League head Nabil Elaraby said the body still intends to build support for its plan. The veto “does not negate that there is clear international support for the resolutions of the Arab League,” he said in a statement seen by Reuters.
The Security Council’s sole Arab member, Morocco, voiced “great regret and disappointment” at the veto. Ambassador Mohammed Loulichki and said the Arabs had no intention of abandoning their plan.
Burhan Ghalioun, head of the opposition umbrella Syrian National Council, called Moscow and Beijing’s veto “a new license to kill from these two capitals for Bashar al-Assad and his criminal regime, which just yesterday killed 300 people.”
The SNC said it held Moscow and Beijing “responsible for the escalating acts of killing and genocide.”
Protesters stormed Russia’s embassy in Libya’s capital Tripoli on Sunday, climbing on the roof and tearing down the flag. Men held up a banner saying: “Libyan revolutionaries are ready to fight with their brothers in Syria.”
MOSCOW SAYS RESOLUTION BIASED
Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vitaly Churkin, accused the resolution’s backers of “calling for regime change, pushing the opposition towards power and not stopping their provocations and feeding armed struggle.”
“Some influential members of the international community, unfortunately including those sitting around this table, from the very beginning of the Syrian process have been undermining the opportunity for a political settlement,” he said. Moscow is sending Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Damascus on Tuesday.
Clinton had met Lavrov before Saturday’s vote for what U.S. officials called “vigorous” talks.
“What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty,” she said on Sunday. “Those countries that refused to support the Arab League plan bear full responsibility for protecting the brutal machine in Damascus.”
She added: “Faced with a neutered Security Council, we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people’s right to have a better future.”
Syria says it is being targeted by the West and by hostile neighbors providing diplomatic cover for an armed insurgency steered from abroad.
Syrian U.N. envoy Bashar Ja’afari criticized the resolution and its sponsors, which included Saudi Arabia and seven other Arab states, saying nations “that prevent women from attending a soccer match” had no right to preach democracy to Syria.
He also denied that Syrian forces killed hundreds of civilians in Homs, saying “no sensible person” would launch such an attack the night before the Security Council was set to discuss his country.
State television showed live footage of Assad on Sunday praying with Muslim clerics and listening to Koranic verses in a Damascus mosque to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad.
Residents of Homs’s battered Baba Amro district, speaking by telephone, denounced the Russian-Chinese veto, some chanting, “Death, rather than disgrace.”
One resident who identified himself as Sufyan said: “Now we will show Assad. We’re coming, Damascus. Starting today we will show Assad what an armed gang is.” Assad has called his opponents “armed gangs” and “terrorists” steered from abroad.
BOMBARDMENT
If activists’ accounts are accurate, the bombardment of Homs on Friday night was one of the bloodiest episodes of the Arab Spring uprisings sweeping the region and the deadliest incident in the Syrian conflict.
Syrian activist groups gave varying tolls above 200 killed, saying tanks and artillery blasted the Khalidiya neighborhood of Homs, a restive city that has become a heartland of resistance to Assad’s rule.
Rami Abdullrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that as of late on Saturday he had a list of 128 names of people confirmed killed, which he said accounted for about half of the total death toll.
Damascus denies firing on houses and says images of dead bodies on the Internet were staged. Western governments say they believe the activists.
“Yesterday the Syrian government murdered hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children, in Homs through shelling and other indiscriminate violence, and Syrian forces continue to prevent hundreds of injured civilians from seeking medical help,” U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement before the U.N. Security Council vote.
“Any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern,” Obama said.
There were reports of more violence on Sunday. Activist Omar Shakir, in the Baba Amro district of Homs, said there was new shelling on Sunday afternoon and three people had been killed.
(Additional reporting by Joseph Logan, Mariam Karouny and Dominic Evans in Beirut, Arshad Mohammed and Stephen Brown in Munich, Ahmed el-Shimy in Cairo, Caren Bohan and Katharine Jackson in Washington, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120205/wl_nm/us_syria
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BEIRUT (Reuters) ? The United States, European Union and Arab League blacklisted Syrian VIPs and companies on Thursday to force an end to the military crackdown on protesters challenging the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
Bloodshed continued in Syria in what one United Nations official said was now a “civil war” that has cost at least 4,000 lives since March.
Six people were killed and five critically wounded during an army sweep into the restive town of al-Trimsa in Hama province, a hotbed of anti-Assad sentiment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. At least four were killed in other incidents as troops backed by tanks rounded up suspects by the score.
The Observatory, which keeps an hour-by-hour account of violent incidents, says 4,530 people have died in eight months of unrest, 1,244 of them from the security forces.
EU foreign ministers in Brussels agreed to impose new sanctions on Syria’s oil and financial sectors, and added 11 entities and 12 people to its list of those targeted by asset freezes and travel bans.
The U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted two more Syrian officials and two financial institutions.
An Arab League committee convening in Cairo listed 17 Syrian VIPs banned from travel to Arab states, including Assad’s brother Maher who commands the military’s elite Republican Guard and is Syria’s second most powerful man.
President Assad was not named in the travel blacklist.
Kuwait joined the list of Gulf countries advising nationals to leave Syria for safety reasons.
The crisis erupted in March with street protests inspired by anti-authoritarian revolts elsewhere in the Arab world. But in reaction to Assad’s iron fist policy, army units have defected with their weapons to fight loyalist troops.
The state news agency SANA said border guards killed and arrested several people from “armed terrorist groups who infiltrated over the border (from Turkey) and attacked an observation point” in the northwestern district of Idlib. A border guard died during “long clashes,” SANA reported.
It said army experts had defused two explosive devices planted in a country road near the city of Homs.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said she had told the U.N. Security Council in August “it is going to be a civil war.”
“At the moment that is how I am characterizing it. We are placing the (death toll) at 4,000, that is conservative, the reliable information coming to us is that it is much more than that,” Pillay told a news conference in Geneva.
Western and Arab governments are demanding that Assad withdraw forces from restive cities, free prisoners and start talks with the opposition on greater political freedoms.
The 27-member EU was expected on Friday to name names and cite firms on its expanded sanctions list. The Syrian state oil company General Petroleum Corporation (GPC) was among companies deemed to be supporting what the EU calls the Assad regime, diplomats said.
Oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell and France’s Total could see their Syrian ventures grind to a halt as the GPC joins the roster of sanctioned companies, diplomatic sources told Reuters.
Already blacklisted by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, GPC is responsible for supervising joint venture companies in Syria. Royal Dutch Shell and China National Petroleum Corporation are both partners of GPC through the Al-Furat joint venture.
Some diplomatic sources said the blacklisting would likely make it hard for European oil firms to keep operating in Syria.
Syria contributes less than 1 percent to daily world oil output but oil brings in a big chunk of Syrian government earnings.
Turkey, Syria’s biggest trade partner, suspended all financial credit dealings with Damascus on Wednesday and froze its assets, joining the Arab League in isolating Assad.
Western leaders show no enthusiasm for NATO intervention in Syria of the sort that helped rebels topple Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Syria has friends in Tehran and Moscow, and Assad still has support at home.
But Turkey, a NATO member with a 900-km (560-km) long border with Syria, says it does not want intervention in its fellow Muslim state. It has raised the possibility of establishing a buffer zone should there be a mass exodus of Syrians.
(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo, David Brunnstrom and Justyna Pawlak in Brussels; Glenn Somerville in Washington; Stephane Nebehay in Geneva; Erika Solomon in Beirut; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/wl_nm/us_syria
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AMMAN (Reuters) ? Syrian tanks pounded an old district in Homs on Saturday in one of the heaviest barrages since the military intensified an assault on the central city two weeks ago to crush protests and a nascent insurgency, residents said.
Several army deserters took refuge in the district of Bab Amro the day before, adding to hundreds who had already defected, they said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said initial reports indicated that one person was killed and at least five injured in the attack.
The tanks were firing anti-aircraft guns, which the military is using to hit ground targets, and heavy machineguns, residents and activists said. A Youtube video purportedly showed at least one building on fire.
The Syrian human rights group Sawasiah said the military assault on Homs had killed at least 300 civilians in the last 10 days, with 30,000 inhabitants arrested since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad and his family’s 41 year rule erupted in March.
Assad, who belongs to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, has repeatedly said he was using legitimate means to confront foreign-backed militants bent on fomenting sectarian strife. Syria is mostly Sunni Muslim.
The authorities say the military operation is designed to cleanse Homs of “armed terrorist groups.” The authorities have banned independent media from Homs and the rest of the country, making independent confirmation of events impossible.
(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom)
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