United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling the Syrian conflict a “catastrophe,” drew parallels between the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda and possible war crimes in a “vicious” battle for control of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city.
“The acts of brutality that are being reported may constitute crimes against humanity,” Ban told the UN General Assembly. “What is especially tragic about Syria is that this catastrophe was avoidable,” and now all “dire predictions have come to pass.”
In the General Assembly, more than two-thirds of the 193 member nations voted today in favor of a non-binding resolution condemning President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown and the Security Council’s inability to stop it. There were 133 votes in favor, 12 against and 31 abstentions. Russia, which has used its veto three times to protect Assad in the Security Council, was among the nations that voted against the measure.
A day after UN special envoy Kofi Annan abandoned his effort to broker a cease-fire, fighting intensified between Syrian forces loyal to Assad and rebels in several provinces, underscoring the international community’s inability to stop an 18-month conflict that’s evolving into a protracted civil war.
Far from New York, where attempts to keep diplomacy alive have reached a dead end, the future of Syria is being settled on the ground.
[h=2]Many Clashes[/h]Clashes broke out in Hama, Aleppo, Daraa and the suburbs of Damascus, the Local Coordination Committees in Syria said in an e-mail. The activist group reported heavy government shelling of these areas. It said 105 people were killed in the violence today, including 69 in the Arbaeen neighborhood in Hama and 13 in Damascus and its suburbs. The report could not be confirmed independently.
Aleppo is the biggest test yet of opposition fighters’ capabilities against the artillery and air power used by Assad’s forces. The Syrian regime is sending massive reinforcements to Aleppo, Col. Abdul-Latif Abdul-Latif, deputy commander of the opposition Free Syrian Army, said in an interview from the city with Al Arabiya television. That could not be independently confirmed, either.
Assad’s troops have been using artillery, helicopter gunships and fighter jets to drive out the rebels, who moved into the city last month.
In his speech, Ban evoked memories of two 1990s tragedies the UN failed to prevent in Bosnia and Rwanda. “The conflict in Syria is a test of everything this organization stands for,” Ban said. “I do not want today’s United Nations to fail that test. I want us all to show the people of Syria and the world that we have learned the lessons of Srebrenica.”
[h=2]Bosnia, Rwanda[/h]In 1993, the UN declared the largely Muslim Bosnian city of Srebrenica a safe area, but in July 1995 a force of some 400 Dutch peacekeepers failed to prevent Serb forces from rounding up and killing more than 8,000 people there.
In Rwanda, Tutsis and Hutus lived together before the 1994 genocide that claimed as many as 800,000 lives in about three months, mostly from the Tutsi minority. Annan was director of UN peacekeeping operations in Rwanda in 1994 and withheld troops, a decision he said a decade later he regretted.
Anti-Assad protests were reported in several cities and towns across Syria following Friday prayers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees said in e-mails.
Palestinian refugee communities in Damascus and its suburbs are “experiencing, more than ever, the effects of the escalating armed conflict in Syria,” the UN Relief and Works Agency said in a statement today from Geneva. It said initial, unconfirmed reports suggest that about 20 people were killed and scores were wounded in Yarmouk Camp on the outskirts of Damascus yesterday when it was struck by artillery shells.
To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in United Nations at [email protected]; Donna Abu-Nasr in Manama at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at [email protected]
“The acts of brutality that are being reported may constitute crimes against humanity,” Ban told the UN General Assembly. “What is especially tragic about Syria is that this catastrophe was avoidable,” and now all “dire predictions have come to pass.”
In the General Assembly, more than two-thirds of the 193 member nations voted today in favor of a non-binding resolution condemning President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown and the Security Council’s inability to stop it. There were 133 votes in favor, 12 against and 31 abstentions. Russia, which has used its veto three times to protect Assad in the Security Council, was among the nations that voted against the measure.
A day after UN special envoy Kofi Annan abandoned his effort to broker a cease-fire, fighting intensified between Syrian forces loyal to Assad and rebels in several provinces, underscoring the international community’s inability to stop an 18-month conflict that’s evolving into a protracted civil war.
Far from New York, where attempts to keep diplomacy alive have reached a dead end, the future of Syria is being settled on the ground.
[h=2]Many Clashes[/h]Clashes broke out in Hama, Aleppo, Daraa and the suburbs of Damascus, the Local Coordination Committees in Syria said in an e-mail. The activist group reported heavy government shelling of these areas. It said 105 people were killed in the violence today, including 69 in the Arbaeen neighborhood in Hama and 13 in Damascus and its suburbs. The report could not be confirmed independently.
Aleppo is the biggest test yet of opposition fighters’ capabilities against the artillery and air power used by Assad’s forces. The Syrian regime is sending massive reinforcements to Aleppo, Col. Abdul-Latif Abdul-Latif, deputy commander of the opposition Free Syrian Army, said in an interview from the city with Al Arabiya television. That could not be independently confirmed, either.
Assad’s troops have been using artillery, helicopter gunships and fighter jets to drive out the rebels, who moved into the city last month.
In his speech, Ban evoked memories of two 1990s tragedies the UN failed to prevent in Bosnia and Rwanda. “The conflict in Syria is a test of everything this organization stands for,” Ban said. “I do not want today’s United Nations to fail that test. I want us all to show the people of Syria and the world that we have learned the lessons of Srebrenica.”
[h=2]Bosnia, Rwanda[/h]In 1993, the UN declared the largely Muslim Bosnian city of Srebrenica a safe area, but in July 1995 a force of some 400 Dutch peacekeepers failed to prevent Serb forces from rounding up and killing more than 8,000 people there.
In Rwanda, Tutsis and Hutus lived together before the 1994 genocide that claimed as many as 800,000 lives in about three months, mostly from the Tutsi minority. Annan was director of UN peacekeeping operations in Rwanda in 1994 and withheld troops, a decision he said a decade later he regretted.
Anti-Assad protests were reported in several cities and towns across Syria following Friday prayers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees said in e-mails.
Palestinian refugee communities in Damascus and its suburbs are “experiencing, more than ever, the effects of the escalating armed conflict in Syria,” the UN Relief and Works Agency said in a statement today from Geneva. It said initial, unconfirmed reports suggest that about 20 people were killed and scores were wounded in Yarmouk Camp on the outskirts of Damascus yesterday when it was struck by artillery shells.
To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in United Nations at [email protected]; Donna Abu-Nasr in Manama at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at [email protected]