E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Annan Urges Halt to Syria Killing, U.N. Says Civilians Face Desperate Situation
[An Nahar] International mediator Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
called Monday for an immediate halt to the killing of civilians in Syria as he arrived in Turkey for talks on the crisis.

"The killing of civilians must end now. The world must give a clear message that this is unacceptable," Annan, who is mediating on behalf of the United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
and Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
, said in comments carried by Turkey's NTV channel.

In a brief statement at Ankara airport Annan said the situation in Syria was "complex."

He urged Syrian authorities to grant free access to humanitarian aid for the civilian population in areas where anti-regime protests have flared up.

The bodies of 47 women and kiddies, some with their throats slit, were found in the restive Syrian city of Homs after a "massacre" that sent families fleeing the area, activists and the opposition said on Monday.

And activists said that the Syrian army launched a new assault in the restive northern province of Idlib and the city itself, where residents are suffering "indescribable" humanitarian conditions.

In Geneva, the president of a special U.N. Human Rights Council inquiry into human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
in Syria said unimpeded humanitarian access should be the rule and not the exception.

Annan said he was confident that talks for a settlement of the year-old Syria crisis would eventually succeed.

"We will launch a political process and we will reach a settlement," Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying, but he added that this "will not be easy."

Annan left Syria empty-handed on Sunday after failing to secure an accord.

The U.N.-Arab League envoy departed from Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
at the end of a two-day mission during which he said he presented Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
with "concrete proposals" to halt unrest that monitors say has claimed more than 8,500 lives since March last year.

Annan was to inform Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of his talks in Damascus and later confer with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

He was to leave Ankara on Tuesday morning but said he would not have time to visit Syrian refugee camps in southern Hatay province, where 12,605 Syrian have sought shelter, according to the latest Turkish figures published Monday.

Also on Monday, U.N. human rights investigator Paulo Pinheiro called for urgent action, noting that Syrian civilians face a "desperate situation."

"The exodus continues to Leb, Jordan and Turkey. The desperate situation of civilians needs to be addressed as a matter of utmost urgency," the Brazilian commissioner told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

"The intensification of armed confrontations has widened the trail of suffering," said Pinheiro, head of the Council's Commission of Inquiry, which was not allowed to enter Syria.

"The human rights and humanitarian situation becomes bleaker day after day in neighborhoods in Homs, Idlib, Hama, rural Damascus and Dar'a," he said, decrying a month of "unrelenting shelling" in Homs' Baba Amr district.

"Those who decamped the area reported summary executions and mass arbitrary arrest campaigns," Pinheiro said, adding that more than 500 children have been killed since the start of Syria's unrest a year ago.

Commissioned last August by the Human Rights Council, the U.N. panel concluded in a first report published in November that Syrian security forces committed crimes against humanity during the brutal repression of demonstrators.

Posted by: Fred 2012-03-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=340852