The Middle East

Syria: Massacre of Adults and Children in Houla

By Mark McMurray
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DAMASCUS, Syria — On Saturday, more than ninety civilians, including at least thirty-two children under the age of ten, were killed in the Syrian village of Houla, located near the city of Homs.  The deaths occurred during an artillery bombardment.

UN observers meet with victims of the Houla massacre. (Photo Courtesy of The Guardian)

General Robert Mood, head of the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), confirmed the killing after UN observers viewed the victims’ bodies.  UN observers also confirmed artillery and tank shells were fired at Houla after examining ordnance found in the area.  According to Al Jazeera, witnesses have reported that government forces attacked Houla with mortars following anti-government protests.  Following the shelling, pro-government thugs known as Shabiha raided the area, killing men, women, and children.

The government of Syria denied involvement.  Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told the official Syrian news agency, SANA, that the government “has categorically denied responsibility of the Syrian forces for the massacre.”  The government blamed the killing on “armed terrorist groups [where] clashes led to the killing of several terrorists and the martyrdom of several members of the special forces.”  Furthermore, it claimed that “brutal killing doesn’t belong to the ethics of the Syrian army.”

A statement released by the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) announced “that unless the UN Security Council takes urgent steps for the protection of civilians, Annan’s plan is going to go to hell.”  The FSA said it could no longer commit to the U.N.-brokered ceasefire, which went into effect on April 12, unless there was a swift response to the violence.  The massacre was one of the single deadliest incidents to have taken place during the fourteen-month-old uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Joint Special Envoy of the UN and the League of Arab States for Syria, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, released a joint statement declaring that “this appalling and brutal crime involving indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force is a flagrant violation of international law and of the commitments of the Syrian Government to cease the use of heavy weapons in population centres and violence in all its forms.”  Additionally, the statement declared that “those responsible for perpetrating this crime must be held to account.”

In response to the violence in Syria, the Security Council created UNSMIS in April 2012.  However, the violence and bloodshed have yet to stop, even after 270 unarmed military observers were deployed in support of Annan’s six-point plan.  The plan calls for “an end to violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need, the release of detainees, the start of inclusive political dialogue that takes into account the aspirations of the Syrian people, and unrestricted access to the country for the international media.”  Over the past fourteen months, the UN estimates that more than 9,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria, with tens of thousands having been displaced.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – UN confirms ‘massacre’ of children in Houla – 27 May 2012

The Washington Post – Syrian government denies blame in attack that killed dozens, including 32 children – 27 May 2012

BBC News – Syria crisis: Houla child massacre confirmed by UN – 26 May 2012

United Nations News Centre – Syria: UN officials deplore ‘brutal’ killing of civilians near Homs – 26 May 2012

Syrian Revolution Digest: 14 May 2012

Syrian Revolution Digest – May 14, 2012

The dithering is beginning to have an impact on neighboring countries. Pandemonium paves way to spillover, and spillover to regional chaos.

Syrian cartoonist, Ali Ferzat's interpretation of the Syrian opposition and international support (Photo Courtesy of Syrian Revolution Digest)

 

Casualty Report:

In total 22 deaths occurred on Monday:

1o Homs City
1 Hama
1 Damascus
1 Rural Damascus
1 Deir Ezzor
9 civilians, 23 Assad troops Homs Province (in a clash when the soldiers tried to retake the town from rebels)

 

Abuses and Rights Violations

50 Syrian refugees who took part in a hunger strike (staged in protest of the living conditions in local refugee camps and the restrictions on their freedom to move that stopped them from accessing medical care) were expelled by Jordanian authorities.  They were driven to the border with Syria and left there after the officials confiscated their papers.  Local recruits of the FSA saved the refugees and escorted them back to Daraa City.

 

News Stories

Fox News – Turkish Reporter Describes Syrian Detention – 14 May 2012

MSNBC – Syria Violence Spills Into Streets of Lebanon’s Tripoli – 14 May 2012

Reuters – Tunisian Islamists Join Jihad Against Syria’s Assad – 14 May 2012

Day Press – Russia: Without Damascus Agreement; UNSMIS Mission Would not be Peacekeeping – 14 May 2012

 

Blog

Nonviolence & the Syrian State Current
As Deborah Amos noted in her NPR report yesterday, there is indeed a wide-scale arrest campaign targeting local activists, especially those leading the nonviolent movement. The problem with her report is that the main figures that were interviewed in this regard, that is, to represent these nonviolent activists, are those who belong to the Building the Syrian State Current, AKA Syrian State Current or occasionally Binaa Syria.

Founders and leaders of the SSC are coming more and more under the spotlight of late, getting invited to attend conferences and meetings with officials abroad, basking in the glow of being domestic opposition, hence, legitimate. But that’s a very troubling assessment, and reflects a continuing misunderstanding of the nature of the protest movement. The movement is too indigenous and grassroots to be represented by the urban elites of Damascus and Aleppo, and the founders of SSC are mostly from there or have been living there for last few years or decades.

Despite the fact that some of them have long histories in nonviolence advocacy, they have never developed any major popular bases and have never managed to engender more than a vague awareness of the literature of nonviolence. Their goal was more evolution than revolution. In this, they were no different than traditional opposition figures and movements: they failed to see that the momentum building around them was more revolutionary than evolutionary.

By comparison to traditional opposition figures and parties, they were to some extant more connected to the grassroots, but not by much. They exhibited the same elitist tendencies. Their minds belonged to Ghandi but their hearts and souls to Marx. And no serious attempt was ever made at indigenization of the thoughts of either men, despite occasional individual endeavors in this regard that failed to generate much interest. Ghandi’s philosophy was meant as a way of life, a model to be put into practice, but they sought to teach it as doctrine, hence they made it and kept it as an elitist exercise. And Marx’s input lent itself to countless interpretations, but there was little debate of that.

Since the beginning of the revolution, most attempts at reaching out made by SSC leaders were aimed at an international audience rather than local communities, where they have little influence. For all their talk about nonviolence and basic rights, they had nothing but indignation to the “average” Syrian. They had the mentality to stewards and trustees, rather than public servants.

For this, and despite occasional harassment and arrests, SSC founders and leaders are often allowed to meet and travel freely. Why? They oppose international intervention and the increasing militarization of the revolution, and that suits the Assads rather well.

The fact that people are demanding intervention and have chosen the course of armed insurrection after many months of violent crackdown by the Assads, does not matter. After all, the flock needs a shepherd, and the ignorant masses are being exploited by all those external opposition members who have their own agendas. So, the mentality of SSC leaders is not that different than their “enemies” represented by the SNC: they all claim what is rightfully not theirs, and will never be: ownership of the revolution, and the right to represent a populace that they all at heart fear and disdain.

The likeability and western temperament of some of the founders of SSC should not blind international policymakers and journalists to the realities of who they are. After all, westrn veneers and likeability were the main reasons why so many in the international community thought of Assad and Asma as the reform-minded couple.

The international community should be on a search not for the likeable and the westernized, for the relevant and pragmatic. Some likeable westernized figures will emerge and need to be engaged and empowered, but only inasmuch as they are or can be made to be relevant. Irrelevant figures cannot keep a country together, no matter how well-intentioned they are.

Until members of our intellectual elite learn to view themselves as public servants, and the people as being worthy of service, not entities to be controlled, for all their shortcomings, they will remain part of the problem not the solution. You have to be truly “of the people” to serve the people, and that’s a reference to state of mind, not social class.

Syria Human Rights Violations Report: 10 May 2012

Dar’aa | An-Na’ema

Shelters are filled with women and children suffering from shelling attacks at the hands of regime forces.

 

Dar’aa | Al-Mahata

The regime’s security forces break the locks on residents’ shops to punish them for striking.

 

Dar’aa | Bosra Ash-Shaam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz6vWH5WVM8&feature=youtu.be

These former detainees bear the marks of torture on their bodies after being held in the regime’s prisons.

 

Homs | Al-Khalidiye

This is the only way residents are able to remove the wounded and dead from the streets – this man is injured but had to be dragged in because snipers and gunfire fill the skies. It is painful to watch.

 

Casualty Report

37 confirmed casualties killed by the regime in Syria on Monday, 7 May 2012.

*Including three children, two women, five defected soldiers and two victims tortured to death.*

Dar’aa: 1
Deir Azzour: 7
Hama: 8
Homs: 13
Damascus & Damscus Suburbs: 4
Al-Hasaka: 2
Idleb: 2

 

24 confirmed casualties killed by the regime in Syria on Wednesday, 9 May 2012.

Latakia: 2
Homs: 12
Damascus & Damscus Suburbs: 3
Aleppo: 1
Idleb: 3
Hama: 2
Lebanon borders: 1

 

Videos and Statistics Courtesy of :

Syrian Network of Human Rights – Casualty Report – 9 May 2012

Syrian Network of Human Rights – Violations Report – 8 May 2012

Syrian Network of Human Rights – Casualty Report – 7 May 2012

Syrian Network of Human Rights – Violations Report – 5 May 2012

 

Syria Human Rights Violations Report: 25 April 2012

Damascus Suburbs | Douma

Two pickups belonging to the regime’s forces are captured here full of detainees after an arbitrary and warrantless arrest campaign in the town.

 

Homs | Joret Ash-Shayah

This unidentified man is stuck under the rubble after the regime’s forces completely destroyed the hospital.

 

Dar’aa | Al-Mahata

All that is left of this school is the frame, after the regime’s forces arbitrarily destroyed it.

 

Hama | Masha’ At-Tayar

(WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)

A girl no older than three years is pulled from under the rubble after the regime’s forces levelled more than 25 homes during a shelling campaign which killed at least 70 residents, most of them women and children.

 

Videos Courtesy of: 

Syrian Network of Human Rights – Violations Report – 25 April 2012