Middle East News

Russia, China UN resolution veto seen as 'betrayal' of Syria

By dpa correspondents Feb 4, 2012, 20:18 GMT

Protesters clash with the police in front of the Syrian embassy in London, Britain, 04 February 2012.On the second day of demonstrations against the regime in Syria, protesters clashed with the police and threw stones and bottles at the embassy building. EPA/BOGDAN MARAN

Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution to end the violence in Syria, hours after the death toll in Homs climbed to 260 and US President Barack Obama strongly condemned 'the Syrian government's unspeakable assault' against citizens in the dissident province.

As the vote was underway in New York, footage posted online by opposition activists showed row after bloody row of bodies being prepared for burial in Homs, called the 'capital of the revolution' against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The remaining 13 Security Council members voted in favour of the resolution, whose passage required the endorsement of nine members on the condition that none of the five permanent members - China, Russia, Britain, the United States, and France - use its veto right.

The Security Council's inability to agree on a resolution had undermined the role of the UN, said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, 'in this period when the Syrian authorities must hear a unified voice calling for an immediate end to its violence against the Syrian people.'

The United States immediately warned that the veto would lead to the greater likelihood of civil war.

'It is difficult to imagine that, after the bloodiest day yet in Syria, there are those who would prevent the world community from condemning this violence,' US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the Munich Security Conference.

'I know what will happen. More bloodshed, increasing resistance by those whose families are being killed and a greater likelihood that Syria will descend into civil war. That is the outcome everyone must avoid,' she said.

A revised draft, which had been weakened Friday to meet Moscow's demands, said the Security Council 'fully supports' the Arab League's initiatives, which call for a transitional government in Syria.

'This veto came at the expense of the Syrian people and their blood,' Naji Tayyara, the head of foreign affairs at the opposition National Syrian Council, told dpa.

'I think the Syrian regime knew in advance that Russia was going to veto the resolution and that is why the regime committed the massacre in Homs,' he added.

Activists said government troops used mortar shells, tanks and heavy machine guns in the attack on Homs that started Friday.

Russia, which is the largest supplier of arms to Syria, said earlier that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would visit Damascus on Tuesday for talks with al-Assad.

Later, Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said he regretted the outcome, but called the draft biased against the government in Damascus. He claimed Russia had hoped to find a compromise, but had been undermined by countries intent on regime change.

But the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, described Russia and China as holding the council 'hostage' and said it was 'shameful' that 'at least one of these members continues to deliver weapons to (al-)Assad.'

'The United States is disgusted that a couple of members of this council continue to prevent us from fulfilling our sole purpose here - addressing an ever-deepening crisis in Syria and a growing threat to regional peace and security,' Rice said.

China's ambassador, Li Baodong, called for an immediate end to the violence and said that while China understood international concerns, Syria's sovereignty must remain undisturbed.

The criticism of the double veto came in swiftly from across the world.

'They have failed in their responsibility as permanent members of the Security Council and they have done so on the most shameful day of the Syrian killing machine's 300 days of repression,' said Britain's UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant.

'We removed every possible excuse. The reality is that Russia and China have today taken a choice: To turn their backs on the Arab world and to support tyranny rather than the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people,' said Grant.

Earlier Saturday, in a statement on the bloodshed in Homs, Obama said that 30 years after 'his father massacred tens of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women, and children in Hama, Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated a similar disdain for human life and dignity.'

Al-Assad 'has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community,' Obama said.

International human rights groups saw the vetoes as a 'betrayal' of Syria's protesters, thousands of whom have died since the uprising against al-Assad started in mid-March. The UN puts the toll from the government crackdown at more than 5,400.

Amnesty International said the Russia-China move was a 'shockingly callous betrayal' of the Syrian people, while Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the vetoes 'incendiary.'

HRW accused Russia of 'unapologetically arming a government that is killing its own people (and) also providing it with diplomatic cover.'

Omar Idlibi, the spokesman for the Syrian Local Coordination Committees, told dpa in Beirut that the death toll in Homs could rise as there were an estimated 1,050 people wounded, some in critical condition without proper medical facilities.

Syrian state media denied that a massacre had taken place in Homs and accused Arab broadcasters of fabricating the news.