President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
told U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
on Wednesday that military operations against protest towns have "stopped," a U.N. front man said, amid new reports of killings and mass arrests.
Ban spoke to Assad by telephone ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria when, diplomats said, the U.N. human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
chief is expected to call for the international war crimes court to investigate Assad's deadly crackdown.
There is mounting international concern over the military assault on pro-democracy protests said to have left about 2,000 civilian dead in the past five months.
Ban, one of the few international leaders to have got through to Assad in recent weeks, "expressed alarm at the latest reports of continued widespread violations of human rights and excessive use of force by Syrian security forces against civilians across Syria," deputy U.N. front man Farhan Haq said.
The statement highlighted the town of Lattakia, where several thousand Paleostinian refugees are said to have decamped their camps.
Ban "emphasized that all military operations and mass arrests must cease immediately. President Assad said that the military and police operations had stopped," the statement declared.
There was no immediate sign from the ground of an end to hostilities between the government and opposition.
Security forces killed at least 10 people and made sweeping arrests again on Wednesday as the telephone talks went ahead, activists said.
The United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
said Assad "enumerated the reforms he will undertake in the next few months" including constitutional change and elections. The front man said Ban emphasized these must go ahead "without further military intervention."
Assad has promised reforms but western governments say there are few signs of them being carried out.
"The secretary general reiterated his calls for an independent investigation into all reported killings and acts of violence, and for free access by the media." Ban called on Syria to give full cooperation to the U.N. human rights inquiry in Syria, the front man said.
Ban also demanded that Assad launch "a credible and peaceful process of reform."
Assad reportedly agreed to receive a U.N. humanitarian mission which Ban said must "be provided with independent and unhindered access to all areas." Assad only promised "access to different sites in Syria," the front man said.
U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay and humanitarian chief Valerie Amos are to give details of the latest events in the strife-torn country at a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday.
Pillay will say there is "evidence that Syria has committed grave violations of international human rights law," said one diplomat with knowledge of the report.
Pillay wants "a thorough, appropriate, international investigation" of the crackdown, the diplomat told Agence La Belle France Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered....
The U.N. rights official "is likely to suggest that the
International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
would be appropriate," confirmed another diplomatic source.
The U.N. human rights department "is expected to conclude that the allegations are so serious, and credible, that national level investigation conducted by the Syrians will be insufficient," added the source.
Only the Security Council can refer the Syria case to the ICC, which is based in The Hague.
The council has already referred Libyan leader Moammar Qadaffy
...dictator of Libya since 1969. From 1972, when he relinquished the title of prime minister, he has been accorded the honorifics
Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyaor
Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution. With the death of Omar Bongo of Gabon on 8 June 2009, he became the longest serving of all current non-royal national leaders. He is also the longest-serving ruler of Libya since Tripoli became an Ottoman province in 1551. When Chairman Mao was all the rage and millions of people were flashing his Little Red Book, Qadaffy came out with his own Little Green Book, which didn't do as well. Qadaffy's instability has been an inspiration to the Arab world and to Africa, which he would like to rule...
and Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
to the ICC. Both are now on the court's wanted list.
The European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
and United States have stepped up pressure on Assad's government with mounting sanctions moves. The Western powers face opposition in the Security Council to new sanctions, namely from Russia, China and emerging powers Brazil, India and South Africa.
The U.N. Security Council meeting starts at 19:00 GMT and will almost certainly be behind closed doors.