Nations agreed Friday to launch a U.N.-led investigation of Syria's bloody
crackdown on its uprising, demanding that its government immediately stop the
violence, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on the news media
and access to the Internet.
In a 26-9 vote that coincided with Syrian forces again opening fire on
demonstrators, the U.N.'s top human rights body used a daylong special session
to say it "unequivocally condemns the use of lethal violence against peaceful
protesters by the Syrian authorities and the hindrance to access of medical
treatment."
Human rights groups say about 500 people have been killed since the uprising
began.
The Geneva-based Human Rights Council said it would ask the U.N. Office of
the High Commissioner for Human Rights to urgently dispatch a mission to
investigate "all alleged violations of international human rights law and to
establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes
perpetrated."
The council said it wanted reports at its next full sessions and urged Syrian
President Bashar Assad's government "to cooperate fully with and grant access to
personnel from the mission" dispatched by the U.N. office. It also requested
that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N.'s top human rights
official, Navi Pillay, provide logistical support.
A simple majority vote was required to pass the resolution. China and Russia
were among those opposed to it as political meddling. Saudi Arabia and six other
nations abstained.
The U.N. nuclear agency, meanwhile, was setting the stage for more potential
international action on Syria. Diplomats in Vienna said the agency will report
that a Syrian target bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007 probably was a secretly
built nuclear reactor meant to produce plutonium. Syria denies the unfinished
building had any such uses.
U.N. human rights deputy chief Kyung-wha Kang said the Syrian government
"risks creating a downward spiral of anger, violence, killings and chaos"
through tactics such as ordering tanks and other artillery to fire on peaceful
pro-democracy protesters and snipers to shoot people trying to help the injured
or remove dead bodies from public areas. She said around 1,800 people also have
been injured in Syria.
"Any official ordering or undertaking of attacks against the civilian
population can be held criminally accountable," she said. "Such attacks that
occur on a widespread or systematic basis may amount to crimes against
humanity."
However, Syria's U.N. ambassador, Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui, said the council was
misguided since his nation was only defending itself against extremists.
"The council is acting under the pretext of humanitarian action to meddle in
the internal affairs of a country," he told the council. "It's a return to a
colonialist mentality."
Nigerian diplomat Ositadinma Anaedu, speaking for the African Union,
cautioned that any council action could be interpreted as "political," and
Chinese diplomat Xia Jingge warned the U.N. could further complicate the
situation in Syria and undermine the council's own credibility.
Assad promised reforms last week and ditched the emergency laws the
government has been using for a half-century to detain people. But critics point
out he has continued to try to violently quell the protests that are the gravest
challenge to his family's 40-year ruling dynasty.
"To the brave people of Syria, who are demanding freedom and dignity, we are
here to say that the world stands by you, and we will not ignore your plight,
said the U.S. ambassador to the council, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe.
The United States and the European Union led the effort to send a strong
message to Assad's authoritarian regime.
It was only the second such special session the council has ever called. The
first such gathering was in late February to deal with Libya.
Angola, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar were absent from the vote on Syria; Libya did
not participate because its council membership was suspended.
Arab and African nations forced the council to remove from the U.S.-drafted
resolution some contentious items, notably any criticism of Syria's uncontested
candidacy for a seat on the council itself. A vote to elect new council members
will be held next month in the U.N. General Assembly.
"Now that the Syrian government is under investigation by the Human Rights
Council, electing Syria to the council would be like inviting the accused to sit
in with the jury," said Philippe Bolopion, U.N. director of Human Rights Watch
in New York. AP
