16:53 . 31/05
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accuses Russia for the deepening of the conflict between the opposition and Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria. The accusation comes after Russia and China renewed opposition to tougher UN Security Council action: the veto is not liable to change.
The rebels of the so-called Free Syrian Army have given Bashar al-Assad’s government 48 hours to implement Kofi Annan’s peace plan. Damascus was given the deadline through a video material publicized in the internet. In the video material Qasim Sadedi, who presents himself as an official of Syrian Free Army, says the government must bring all the tanks, heavy weapons from the Syrian cities and villages till Friday. Otherwise, the rebels announce their army will not consider itself bound by Annan’s plan and will start defending the peaceful population.
The US permanent representative to the UN, Susan Rice also addresses another warning to Damascus. If the Syrian government fails to implement Annan’s six-point peace plan, particularly, if it fails to cease the attacks in Syrian cities, to withdraw troops and to negotiate with the opposition on passing the authority, no alternative remains but to take definite steps.
“The members of the Security Council and members of the international community are left with the option only of having to consider taking actions outside the Annan plan and the authority of this Council,” Susan Rice has said.
Rice didn’t go into details as to what actions are meant. But it is already clear. In the past, as it was in the case of Kosovo and Iraq, US resorted to military intervention, which was authorized not by the UN Security Council but by NATO. In her speech Susan Rice also accused Iran for arming the Syrian governmental forces.
There is one more important fact. American analyst doctor Webster Tarpley agreed with the opinion expressed by a number of politicians and local population before that, and expressed his own opinion that the massacre in Syrian city of Houla was organized by NATO. According to the analyst, “NATO death squads have been brought in, in large numbers, armed by the NATO states”, these fighters came in and started targeting the local population and the Armenian Christians and the Catholics. These are the same methods used by the Nazi Germany in Gleiwitz on the Polish border accusing the Poles of the attack. It is incredible that the authority troops would enter the city, open fire on the hospital and peaceful districts, then would withdraw allowing the media to enter the territory and witness more than hundreds dead.
Tarpley is sure their aim was realized: a hysteria rose in the international press, and Bashar al-Assad was considered the only one to blame for the massacre. Moreover, the facts were presented distorted. While covering the information of the killings in Houla BBC News website used a photo taken in Iraq in 2003 picturing killed children.
