Earlier that evening, the Free Syrian Army had attacked two military checkpoints, killing around ten regular Syrian army soldiers, and capturing thirteen others.
In apparent retaliation, the Syrian army launched shells and rockets on the Khaldiya neighborhood, as well as five others.
At least four buildings have collapsed. There are still people under the rubble. It’s the middle of the night. They can’t get to them, Dima Moussa, a Syrian-American member of the Syrian National Council, living in the US, told the WP.
Witnesses report that 36 houses, occupied by entire families, were destroyed.
We were sitting inside our house when we started hearing the shells. We felt shells were falling on our heads, a resident named Waleed told The Guardian.
It’s a real massacre in every sense of the word. I saw bodies of women and children lying on roads, beheaded. It’s horrible and inhuman. It was a long night helping people get to hospitals, a resident of Khaldiya told the NYT.
I’ve been told that the main public hospital is completely overwhelmed and people have set up makeshift clinics in mosques. They are running low on supplies of blood. Several buildings have been destroyed, Mysa Khalaf of Aljazeera reported.
After this, no one in the world can blame us for fighting, even if we have to use kitchen knives, Abu Omar, a Homs resident, told the NYT…
The attack ceased around 1am Saturday.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in London, 217 people were killed. Some 700 others were injured.
From the 19 of March until now, this is the bloodiest day in Syria, declared Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Observatory.
The onslaught also occurred on the day the United Nations Security Council was to vote on a resolution seeking to resolve the political crisis in Syria, and thirty years after the elder Assad shelled the rebellious city of Hama, killing at least 10,000 Syrian civilians.
As the French ambassador to the UN told the Council, l’horreur est héréditaire à Damas (« horrific acts run in the family in Damascus »).
The proposed UN Security Council resolution on Syria emphasizes the Council’s commitment to resolving the Syrian crisis peacefully and that nothing in this resolution authorizes measures under Article 42 of the Charter.
In other words, foreign military intervention to resolve the crisis is out of the question.
The resolution also condemns gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, and calls for an end to such abuses; condemns the use of force against civilians, and all violence in general, irrespective of where it comes from.
It also demands that Syria honor its commitment to apply the Arab League peace plan of November 2, 2011, that is to say:
End the military assault against the Syrian people; release all prisoners detained since the beginning of the uprising; withdraw all military forces from the country’s cities and villages; guarantee the right to demonstrate peacefully; allow monitors and journalists to operate freely inside Syria and initiate a free and open dialogue with all Syrian opposition forces.
In order to forestall Russian opposition, therefore, the resolution does not specifically call for regime change and dismisses any notion of foreign military intervention in Syria.
The political process is to be led by the Syrians themselves.
Finally, the resolution refrains from calling for an arms embargo on the country.
Syria is a major client for Russian weaponry…
The resolution however, also fully supports in this regard the League of Arab States’ 22 January 2012 decision to facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system.
This proposal moreover, entailed the resignation of Assad.
We ask that the Syrian regime leave and hand over power. We are one with the Syrian people, with the will and with their aspirations, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, the Qatari foreign minister told Reuters on January 22.
Did the UN resolution hence, demand Assad’s departure?
Not explicitly…
In addition, the Russians were demanding that the resolution hold the Syrian opposition equally responsible for the violence wracking the country.
This was rejected as unacceptable by other members of the Council.
In the end however, the Russians refused to approve even this watered -down version of the resolution. Nor did it see fit to abstain during the vote.
The Russians, meekly followed by the Chinese, voted no, thereby vetoing the resolution.
Incidentally, the final tally was 13 in favor and 2 against, Russia and China…
Why did the Russians vote no, considering that many of their objections had been addressed?
They considered that the resolution was one-sided, designed to favor the opposition.
Russian foreign minister Lavrov objected to the imposition of the terms and conditions of the dialogue, which must be started without prejudging the results…Measures must be taken to influence not only the government but also the armed groups, because unless you do it both ways, you are taking sides in a civil war.
Lavrov knows that the Syrian National Council, for one, will not negotiate with Assad, considering he has far too much blood on his hands, and thus morally disqualified to lead, a point President Obama highlighted as well (Assad has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community, he said., accusing Assad of having murdered hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children).
The Syrian National Council notified the Russian authorities accordingly when the latter invited them to negotiate with the Syrian regime in Moscow.
Furthermore, the Russians are deliberately attempting to attenuate the responsibility of the Assad regime in the current crisis.
An armed opposition would never have emerged had the Assad regime not responded to peaceful demonstrations with brutal military force.
The Russians, naturally, are fully aware of this, but are loath to publicly support a brutal tyranny, and thereby hope to shift at least part of the responsibility for the atrocious violence to the opposition, the initial victims of it…
Russia would like to portray itself as an impartial observer, and potential peace broker…
Yet, what is a Syrian opposition activist to do if the simple act of marching in the streets, chanting slogans and holding placards transforms him or her into a legitimate military target?
We have not heard Mr. Lavrov on this subject…
The people have the right to defend themselves.
The Russians clearly intend to do whatever it takes to prevent their client Assad from being overthrown.
Paradoxically, the absence of a credible political process that the resolution was hoping to initiate makes that prospect more likely.
The Russians would presumably support a process of democratization in Syria, provided that Assad dictate its terms…
Vitaly Churkin, Russian ambassador to the UN, defended the veto, arguing that the resolution sent an unbalanced signal to the Syrian parties.
He criticized the sponsors of the resolution (Morocco, France, the UK, the US, Germany, Portugal, Colombia, Togo, Libya, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Turkey), claiming that they were calling for regime change, pushing the opposition towards power.
The Russians, much like the Chinese, do not want to see the UN Security Council’s jurisdiction extend to internal conflicts.
As far as they are concerned, such meddling is a gross violation of national sovereignty.
The autocrats in power in Moscow (no one has forgotten how they dealt with the aspirations of the Chechens…) and the tyrants in Beijing (who killed thousands in Tiananmen, rather than loosen their grip on power) fear that, one day, the UN Security Council may examine how they treat their citizens, and espouse regime change in their homelands!
Hence, their current obtuse refusal to entertain the notion of condemning the savagery of the Assad regime.
We are not friends or allies of President Assad, Lavrov was brazen enough to claim. We try to stick to our responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council and the Security Council by definition does not engage in domestic affairs of member states.
What of his responsibility towards the beleaguered Syrian people?
The sponsors of the resolution were clearly angered by the veto.
There is nothing in this text that should have triggered a veto. We removed every possible excuse. The reality is that Russia and China have today taken a choice: to turn their backs on the Arab world and to support tyranny rather than the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people, Mark Lyall Grant, UK ambassador to the UN, said.
It’s a sad day for the council. It’s a sad day for Syria…History has compounded our shame, Gerard Araud, the French ambassador, declared.
The US is disgusted by the veto.
A couple of members of this council remain steadfast in their willingness to sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant, fumed Susan E. Rice, the US ambassador.
By ostentatiously refusing to take sides and thus vetoing the resolution (thereby preserving the status quo), the Russians were in fact endorsing the Assad regime’s strategy for handling the crisis: brutal military repression.
With the UN Security Council divided and thus powerless, Assad has no incentive to refrain from killing en masse his own people…
It’s quite clear-this is a license to do more of the same and worse.
The regime will take it for granted that it can escalate further. We’re entering a new phase that will be far more violent still than what we’ve seen now, Peter Harling a Syria expert at the International Crisis Group, told the NYT.
It seems that the regime has read the stalling by the Russians as a license to stomp this out very quickly and then try to dictate the process of dialogue with the opposition, Andrew Tabler, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the WP.
Assad, rescued yet again by the Russians and Chinese, wasted no time in seizing the opportunity afforded by the defeat of the UN Security Council resolution to escalate his military campaign, particularly in Homs.
It’s a massive attack-a new massacre is happening here. Nobody can go out, we don’t know how many homes have been hit or how many people died, Abu Abdo Alhomsy, a Homs activist, told Aljazeera Monday morning (as of noon, around 50. A further 31 were killed throughout the country on Sunday).
It has been terrible. There is non-stop bombing with rockets, mortar bombs and tank shells. There are more than 50 people injured in Bab Amr (a rebellious Homs neighborhood). I saw with my own eyes kids with no legs, and a kid who lost his whole bottom jaw. It is terrible, Danny Abdul Dayem, another Homs resident, told Aljazeera.
What happens now?
Civil war seems inevitable…
Things are slipping out of control on the ground so much that I’m not sure that (the resolution) could have stopped the killing, Andrew Tabler, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the WP.
Europe intends to do what it can to increase the pressure on the regime, and support the opposition. Europe will again harden sanctions imposed on the Syrian regime. We will try to increase this international pressure and there will come a time when the regime will have to realize that it is completely isolated and cannot continue, French foreign minister Alain Juppé said on Sunday.
Juppé added that French president Sarkozy will strive to bring together all those who consider the current situation absolutely intolerable.
Russian foreign minister Lavrov is to fly to Damascus on Tuesday for talks with Assad.
Yet, since a credible, political solution to this crisis is nowhere in sight, the military option seems to be the sole remaining one.
We were hoping they would change their opinion. Unfortunately they used their veto. The people here are not so much disappointed. We will rely on Allah, the Holy God, and after Allah, we will rely on the Free Syrian Army, Abu Rami, a Homs activist, told the WP.
The commander of the Free Syrian Army, Col. Riad al-Assad, also believes that armed resistance is the only way to prevail.
Only military options are on the table. The political options have failed. This regime won’t end except through force, he told Anthony Shadid of the NYT.
In the end, Assad is wasting his time. His regime is doomed, for he has spilled far too much blood to play a prominent role in the country’s future.
It does not seem that they get it. Even if they kill 10 million of us, the people will not stop until we topple him, an activist from Khaldiya told The Guardian.
Perhaps this shall give even Mr. Lavrov food for thought…
(the photograph of the young demonstrator in al-Qsair, south-west of Homs, is by Alessio Romenzi AFP/Getty)
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