Syria’s territorial integrity must be preserved in order to avoid an “Iraqi scenario”, according to Rafik Abdessalem, the Tunisian foreign minister.

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UN body to debate draft resolution supporting Arab League plan, which calls for President Assad to relinquish power.

The United Nations Security Council is expected to discuss the violent unrest in Syria during a closed-door session, the French mission to the UN says.

Diplomats will discuss possible next-steps to be taken during the session on Friday, and will probably debate a draft resolution to be presented by Morocco, UN diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

The draft resolution supports the Arab League’s call for Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to transfer power to his deputy and set up a transition unity government to hold elections in the next two months.

“They [Morocco] are planning to circulate a draft resolution that represents the view of the vast majority of countries on
the Security Council,” a diplomat said.

The 15-member Security Council could vote as early as next week on the new draft resolution, which diplomats from the United Kingdom and France are crafting in consultation with Qatar, Morocco, the United States, Germany and Portugal, envoys said.

Richard Murphy, a former US ambassador to Syria, told Al Jazeera that if the Arab League’s proposal was backed by most Arab states, it would send “a very powerful message”.

“If there is a unified Arab position, this will be a very powerful message in New York for the security council powers to consider. If this turns into a revival of the old Cold War fights between Russia and the United States, then the people in Syria …  are going to suffer. It need not happen that way,” he said.

‘Political transition’

The draft resolution calls for “a political transition” in Syria, but does not mention sanctions against Damascus, according to a copy of the document obtained by the Reuters news agency.

The draft’s supporters hope for a vote by next week, but will have to convince Russia and China, both permanent members of the body who used their veto powers to kill an earlier proposal.

The current draft resolution will replace one moved by Russia last month.

“There’s going to be a lot of negotiation back and forth,” Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler reported from the UN.

“Based on what this is saying, [the Russian delegation] will have issues with several [sections], one in particular: a line that says voluntary prevention of any arms transfer into Syria. We know that Russia has had problems with that in the past, and also some of the wording of that Arab League document that came out on Sunday.”

Nabil ElAraby, the secretary-general of the Arab League, and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, the prime minister of Qatar and the head of the bloc’s Syria committee, are expected to brief the council on the situation in Syria and the League’s proposals early next week.

Elaraby and Hamad are expected to depart for New York, where the UN headquarters is located, on Saturday, and to hold meetings with officials starting on Monday.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said endorsement from the UN would “embolden” activists inside Syria.

“[The Arab League] is hoping that there will be a vote later in the week,” she said.

She also said that Russia, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, wants dialogue, a peaceful resolution to Syria’s crisis and is opposed to any military intervention, such as that which occurred in Libya.

Assad and his government have fiercely rejected the Arab League proposal, accusing the regional bloc of being part of a “conspiracy” against Syria.

The Arab League has been pushing for a Security Council resolution to end the Syrian government’s violent crackdown on protesters, which has killed thousands of people since demonstrations calling for reform began in March.

Hamad told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that elevating the Syria issue to the UN was “the only option”.

Monitors withdrawn

Elaraby’s latest announcement on Syria came after Gulf Arab observers, deployed to Syria as part of a previous Arab League initiative, began to pull out on Wednesday after their governments said they were “certain the bloodshed and killing of innocents would continue”.

“The departure of the GCC [Gulf Co-operation Council] countries will not have an impact on the mission’s work. We are all professionals here and we can do the job,” Hamad said.

In other Syria-related developments, Navi Pillay,  the UN human rights chief, said on Wednesday that the UN could not keep track of the death toll in Syria’s crackdown on dissent that has already cost more than 5,400 lives.

On Thursday, violence between armed pro- and anti-Assad forces continued.

“The toll for [Thursday] has risen to 34 civilians killed by the security forces in several regions of Syria, mostly in Homs,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based opposition group, said.

Seven deserters and eight regular soldiers died in clashes, SOHR said, among them a colonel killed in Homs, a protest hub in central Syria.

The SOHR said the army launched an offensive on Thursday evening in the Karm al-Zeitoun district of Homs, killing 26 civilians, including nine children, and wounding dozens.

And in the city of Hama, also in central Syria, where the army launched a major assault on Tuesday, four civilians were killed, including a 58-year-old woman shot dead by snipers, the SOHR said.

Civilian killed

Elsewhere in Syria, one civilian reportedly died in the northwestern province of Idlib, and two others were killed in the suburbs of Damascus, activists said.

In the southern province of Deraa, cradle of the uprising, a teenager was killed when security forces fired indiscriminately on a student demonstration in the town of Nawa, the SOHR said.

Just north of Damascus, security forces attacked Douma, another flashpoint town that activists say was in the hands of army defectors last week before a withdrawal.

“Violent clashes pitted security forces against groups of deserters at the Misraba bridge near the town of Douma, which was rocked by strong explosions,” the SOHR said.

It said more than 200 arrests were made in the town during the assault, although there was no independent confirmation of the reports as foreign media are restricted in their coverage of Syria’s unrest which erupted in mid-March.

A delegation from the Syrian National Council (SNC), headed by Dr. Burhan Ghalioun, met on Tuesday January 3, 2012 with the Foreign Minister of Portugal, Mr. Paulo Portas. The SNC delegation briefed Mr. Portas on the latest developments with regard to the difficulties the Arab League observers are facing, and the Syrian regime’s continued practice of killing and torture. The SNC delegation also requested that Portugal work with the European Union to assure international protection for civilians and to dedicate funds for relief assistance for those Syrians negatively impacted by the regime’s practices.

The SNC delegation also provided a summary of last month’s General Assembly meetings in Tunisia, and explained that the General Assembly represents all sects and ethnicities in Syria in addition to activists on the ground. The delegation urged the government of Portugal to demand Assad’s ouster and to leverage its economic, cultural, and political influence on Brazil that continues to support Assad.

The Foreign Minister expressed his view that the optimal solution would be Assad’s ouster. He indicated that large-scale defections from the regime and the army would not occur unless the International Community and the Arab World exerted significant pressure to accomplish this goal.

The meeting took place in the context of the SNC’s ongoing work to refer the Syrian situation to the United Nations to secure the required protection of Syrian civilians and to put an end to the killing.

For commentary, please contact Ausama Monajed, Advisor to the Secretary General of the Syrian National Council. Email: amonajed@gmail.com
 

The UN Human rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay told the world on Monday that more than 5000 civilian have been killed by the Syrian security forces since March. At least 300 children have been killed.

Pillay said she recommended that the council refers the Syrian regime to the International Criminal Court, the permanent war crimes tribunal, for investigation of possible crimes against humanity.

US ambassador Susan Rice said Pillay’s briefing “underscores the urgency of the present moment.”

“Through condemnations issued by the UN general assembly and human rights council and bold steps taken by the Arab League and the government of Turkey, international bodies are starting to match their severe disapproval of Syria’s bloody crackdown with concrete steps to bring it to an end,” Rice said.

“It is past time for the UN security council to do the same.”

The representatives of France, Britain and Portugal also said it was time for the council to take strong action on Syria.

Two months ago, Russia and China vetoed a western-backed UN Security Council Resolution condemning the bloodshed in Syria.

I stated previously in other articles that Russia and China are not known for their respect of human rights. Frankly they don’t give a damn. For China, commercial interests are more important than principles. For Russia a naval base in the Syria coastal town of Tartous is more important than the lives of thousands of Syrians.

In January 2007 Russia and China vetoed a resolution against the Burmese military junta in Myanmar. In July 2008 both Russia and China rejected sanctions against the Robert Mugabe’s odious regime in Zimbabwe. In October 2011 they vetoed a resolution condemning Syria which would have been the first such legally binding move adopted by the Security Council since the Syrian Regime began using its military machine against protesters in mid-March in the town of Deraa.

The European sponsors of the resolution had tried to avoid a veto by watering down the language on sanctions three times, to the point where the word “sanctions” was deleted. India, South Africa, Brazil and Lebanon abstained. The four abstainers have some explaining to do.
China’s ambassador, Li Bandong, said his country was concerned about the violence and wanted reforms but opposed the resolution because sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, do not help the situation in Syria but rather complicates the situation.”

Of course such justifications are feeble lies. Russia and China feel confident that Bashar al-Assad will survive, cling to power and continue to be a good friend with both powers. In October when Russia and China blocked the UN Security Council resolution some 3200 people have been killed. The number is now 5200 and rising daily. Does the figure have to climb to 10 or 15 thousands before Russia and China decide enough is enough?

What message does this double action give to the people of Syria? What does it tell the Arab Street about Russia and China?

The Syrians are seething with anger at the Russian and Chinese’s stance.
The people of the Middle East see it like this; both Russia and China are giving the green light to the butchers of Damascus to carry on killing pro-democracy demonstrators. Russia and China stand with the tyrant against the people.

By their actions Russia and China will have no place in a new democratic Middle East. Their action has debunked the myth that only the USA and Western Europe are propping up the dictators of the Middle East.

Russia and China have lost Libya because they supported Muammar Gaddafi until the last minute then switched their support to the National Transitional Council when they realised that their man was doomed. By then it was too late for them to redeem their tarnished image.

The Arab Street has been disillusioned. Russian and Chinese flags have been burnt in various Syrian towns.

The Libyan and Syrian people have now discovered who their real friends are. In the final analysis Russia and China are the real losers because of their short-sighted policies of defending the killers of Damascus.

You will be forgiven if you think that China and Russia have learnt their lesson from the Libyan experience. No, they have not. They are repeating the same catastrophic errors with Syria. The Syrian regime is going to fall sooner or later. It has lost the support of its people and most of the Arab Street. Russia and China have decided to stand against the Arab Spring Tsunami and stop the clock.

The US Administration together with the UK and France has said the right things. I still believe that should Russia and China continue with their obstructive attitude, President Obama with his EU colleagues should take the lead to help the Syrian people get rid of the tyrant ruling over them. Do we have to witness large scale genocide before the world moves with or without the benefit of a UN Security Council resolution? Silence is the worst possible option. I recognize that neither China nor Russia are champions of democracy and human rights, but common sense and simple PR rules, demand that they take into account the Arab world’s public opinion and their own image in the eyes of Arabs and Muslims everywhere.

For many decades the Arab people in general looked at Russia and China as champions of the third world, the poor and the oppressed. This is no longer the case. Now we know better.

France’s UN envoy said Monday that the UN Security Council is “morally responsible” for killings in Syria by failing to condemn the government crackdown on protests.

But in a sign of growing divisions within the 15-member council over Syria, Russia’s ambassador accused western nations of seeking “regime change” in the Middle East nation and discouraging a political settlement.

French envoy Gerard Araud condemned what he called the “scandal” of the council’s silence after UN rights chief Navi Pillay said that more than 5,000 people have now been killed in the crackdown.

“The Security Council is morally responsible for what is happening today in Syria, the suffering of the Syrian people,” Araud told reporters after the closed meeting.

“France and other members of the Security Council consider that the silence of the council is a scandal. It is scandalous that the council, because of the opposition of certain members and the indifference of others, could not act to exercise pressure on the Syrian authorities.”

Araud said that Pillay’s briefing to the council had been “the most horrific” he had heard in more than two years.

Russia and China vetoed a council resolution condemning the Syria violence in October. The council has taken no action since an August 3 statement, which carries less weight than a resolution.

Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and the United States are waiting for the result of Arab League meetings on Syria in coming days to decide their next move at the Security Council.

Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the whole council was “greatly troubled by the tragic developments in Syria in the past few months” but he hit out at the West’s motives in calling for action.

Churkin said Russia has urged negotiations but since the August statement, events had seen the western nations “switch gears and turn into regime change mode, discouraging dialogue, discouraging dialogue within Syria, discouraging dialogue between the Arab League and Syria.

“This is very dangerous,” Churkin told reporters.

“In fact they make no secret of the fact that they want regime change. In numerous statements you can trace their policy, which cannot be conducive to a political process,” the Russian ambassador said.

Churkin did not say whether Russia would block a new resolution as none has been proposed.

© ANP/AFP

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:54a.m.

Navi Pillay says at least 300 children are among the dead as US ambassador Susan Rice urges security council to act