A few days earlier, Russia, along with China, had vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning human rights abuses committed by the regime, and endorsing an Arab League plan to resolve the crisis peacefully.
Mr. Lavrov characterized his meeting with Assad as very useful.
In particular, President Assad assured us that he is fully committed to the task of a cessation of violence from whatever source it comes, he added.
An yet, Homs is in its second week of continuous shelling, casting doubt on the effectiveness of Russian diplomacy, the wisdom of its veto, and Assad’s willingness to resolve the conflict peacefully.
Indeed, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon himself concluded that the Russian veto encouraged the Syrian government to step up its war on its own people.
I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighborhoods, is a grim harbinger of worse to come, he added.
I am appalled by the Syrian government’s willful assault on Homs and its use of artillery and other heavy weaponry in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, declared Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She believes Syria should be referred to the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and will address the General Assembly on Monday.
We believe, and we’ve said it and we’ll keep repeating it, that the case of Syria belongs in the International Criminal Court. This would give a very, very strong message to those running the show, Ms. Pillay’s spokesman, Rupert Colville told The Guardian.
Human rights groups are currently compiling evidence, should the UN request the ICC’s involvement, which is highly unlikely at this stage due to Russian and Chinese opposition…
Since the onslaught began in Homs ten days ago, 400 civilians have been killed.
The Syrian army is shelling the town, and particularly the rebellious Baba Amr district, using tanks and artillery from three different positions, the university and the police and air force academies, out of reach of the Free Syrian Army, which is devoid of heavy weaponry.
The regime hopes that this strategy of indiscriminate bombing will drive the inhabitants of Homs to repudiate the resistance in exchange for peace.
They are trying to weaken the social cradle that has embraced the Free Syrian Army in those neighborhoods and to turn the residents against them, Omar Idilbi, a member of the opposition group Local Coordination Committees, and living in Lebanon, told the NYT.
The indiscriminate shelling is killing mostly civilians. Assad cannot push his troops into street fighting so he is content with shelling Homs to bits until civilian losses pressure the Free Syrian Army to withdraw and regime troops can enter these neighborhoods without taking any serious losses, Fawaz Tello, a member of the Syrian National Council who lives in Egypt, told Reuters.
In areas of the city that harbor few Free Syrian Army members, security forces move from house to house and arrest all those considered suspect.
Predictably, living conditions in Homs have sharply deteriorated.
We are seriously dying here. It isn’t war between two armies. It’s between the army and civilians. You hear the rockets and explosions. You feel you are at the front… The situation for civilians is pitiful, Waleed Farah, an inhabitant of Homs, told The Guardian.
Al-Khaldiyeh, the neighborhood through which supplies reach Baba Amr, has been sealed off.
We can’t go out into the street because of snipers. So we have to knock down the walls in between buildings or dig tunnels to move between homes without going outside. We’re mainly looking for bread and medicine. We’re hungry, we’re cold and we’re forced to scavenge for food scraps in rubbish bins. Most of the stores have been destroyed…It‘s impossible to leave the neighborhood-we are surrounded by troops, Abou Rami, who lives in Khaldiyeh, told France24.
It’s impossible to transfer the injured to the hospitals. And there is no more basic medicine left, just a few painkillers. Almost no bread either, so we’re sharing what little remains in the neighborhood. But we’re reaching the end of it, Rami H., also from Khaldiyeh, told the French network.
Violence has also spread to Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and commercial capital.
Last Friday, two car bombs targeting military and police facilities exploded, killing 28 and wounding 235, according to the Syrian health ministry.
Syrian television repeatedly broadcast grim images of the carnage.
The regime quickly blamed the attacks on what it called armed terrorist gangs.
Yet, residents indicated that these facilities were well protected and under constant surveillance.
This has led some in the opposition to speculate that the Assad regime itself organized the attack to deflect attention form the siege of Homs.
Intelligence analysts in Washington did some speculating of their own, and laid the blame on al-Qaeda in Iraq Jihadists.
In any case, the attack buttressed the regime’s case.
It has been arguing from the outset of the uprising that it is confronting terrorist fanatics bent on overthrowing the regime and persecuting the nation’s religious minorities (Alawite and Christian in particular), and not peaceful pro-democracy activists.
The latter were dismayed by the Aleppo attack.
We are trying to win over Aleppo. Why would we attack it? There is no benefit for us in attacking the city, an activist in Homs told the LAT.
Regardless of who is ultimately responsible for the attack, violence is escalating in the country and may now be impossible to quell.
On Saturday, and for the first time since the uprising erupted last March, a member of the Alawite ruling elite was assassinated in Damascus.
Three individuals gunned down Dr. Issa al-Khouli, a brigadier general and head of the Hameish military hospital, as he was leaving his house.
His uncle had been an adviser to the current president’s father, President Hafez al-Assad, who ran the country from 1971 until his death in 2000.
In the next few months, Syria will transition from civil conflict into civil war. Assad’s power and control over the country will diminish and civilian casualties on both sides are expected to rise, Kamal Ayham, an analyst at Eurasia Group, told Reuters.
International efforts to try to resolve the crisis continue however, notwithstanding last week’s United Nations Security Council setback.
The Arab League is to meet on Sunday in Cairo to discuss the Syria issue.
Whether or not to recognize officially the Syrian National Council may be on the agenda.
Turkey is attempting to assemble a group of Friends of Syria, pointedly excluding both Russia and China, to promote the Arab League’s peace efforts.
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia will be presenting to the General Assembly (since the Security Council is paralyzed thanks to the Russian and Chinese veto) a resolution closely resembling the one that was vetoed last week, and supporting the Arab League’s January peace plan, calling for Assad to cede his powers to the Syrian vice-president, and the formation of a unity government to oversee fair elections.
Although honorable, there efforts seem unlikely to modify Assad’s strategy, which, in essence, boils down to this: survival, whatever the cost…
This is a doomed regime as well as a murdering one.
There is no way it can recover it’s credibility internationally, British foreign secretary William Hague told the House of Commons last week.
Nothing however, will change unless and until the Russians and Chinese share this point of view.
Meanwhile, the Syrian people’s prospects look grim.
Violence will prevail until Assad leaves, for it is now unlikely that the Syrians can be cowed into submission after all they have already endured.
More than 6,000 have already died (although the UN, as of last month, ceased compiling casualty figures since it is now too dangerous to do so), and over 400 children, according to UNICEF.
There are reports of children arbitrarily arrested, tortured and sexually abused while in detention, the organization stated.
What now?
What is going to happen is more killing and more brutality, this I am sure of. He (Assad) will not leave unless we kick him out by force. Protests are necessary but not enough. I see no other choice.
Negotiation, sharing, politics are useless with such a regime.
He came to power by force and won’t leave it any other way, an inhabitant of Homs called Omar told Anthony Shadid of the NYT.
How many Syrians will have to die until what seems now inevitable, Assad’s fall, actually occurs?
(the photograph above of a young Syrian refugee is by Joseph Eida AFP/Getty Images)
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