U.N. chief 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
warned Thursday of a "catastrophic civil war" in Syria after the massacre of more than 100 civilians in the town of Houla that sparked global horror and outrage.
"The massacres of the sort seen last weekend could plunge Syria into a catastrophic civil war, a civil war from which the country would never recover," he told an Istanbul forum of the U.N.-led Alliance of Civilizations initiative.
Ban's remarks came amid mounting international outrage over the massacre in the central town of Houla, in which at least 108 people, including 49 children, were killed, according to U.N. figures.
The assault prompted Western countries, including the United States, Britannia, La Belle France, Australia to expel the senior Syrian diplomats in their countries.
The bodies from the Houla massacre were counted by U.N. observers whom Ban described as "our eyes and ears of the international community."
The observers were in Syria "so that perpetrators of crimes may be held accountable," he said.
"We are not there to play the role of passive observer to unspeakable atrocities."
The U.N. chief demanded that the Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
regime honor its commitment to a peace plan drawn up by 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..."I demand that the government of Syria act on its commitment to the Annan peace plan," he said.
He also demanded that "the Syrian government act on its responsibilities to its people."