THE WEEKEND killings of at least 108 people, including many children, in the Syrian town of Houla marks a bloody milestone in a conflict that has so far taken over 10,000 lives in the 15-month uprising. In the sheer savagery of the numbers and of the systematic killing of children it is a new low point that, not surprisingly, the regime has vainly sought to distance itself from with implausible denials.
At the UN the Syrian ambassador spoke of “terrorists”, while in Damascus foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdesi brazenly informed reporters that “women, children and old men were shot dead. This is not the hallmark of the heroic Syrian army”.
That the Syrian army was involved there can be no doubt – UN observers have confirmed as much with the finding of tank and artillery shells around the Sunni village of Houla. There is, however, also evidence that after the initial shelling by the army, it facilitated a prolonged attack by militants from the Allawite “shabbiha” civilian militias into many homes where entire families were shot at close range, axed or knifed. The attack, apparently from local Allawite villages, adds a highly dangerous sectarian dimension to the killings that ominously recalls the Bosnian Serb ethnic cleansing of Srebrenica. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad draws its main support base from the minority Allawite community, and there are real fears the conflict may now spiral into outright sectarian civil war.
The massacre exposes both the bad faith of the Damascus regime and the weakness of the six-week-old UN ceasefire plan and observer mission, now close to 300-strong. Not surprisingly Free Syrian Army rebels talk of resuming their armed struggle, while the Syrian Revolution General Commission, which co-ordinates local networks of anti-regime protesters, has called for the observer mission to leave and for opposition non-co-operation with the UN mediation team. The latter’s Kofi Annan is returning to Syria today to meet Assad, but it is not clear whether he can resurrect the largely discarded peace plan – the plan provided for a truce, the withdrawal of troops from cities, and dialogue between government and opposition.
But Annan’s mission is the “only game in town”. It deserves another strong push. While there will be talk at the UN Security Council of additional sanctions against the regime, Russia and China are unlikely to back either more robust language or further measures. Their continued, cynical protection of a brutal ally is duly noted.