What I have observed recently, is that in some areas, like the Syrian conflict, China continues to insist on its long standing principle to support negotiations and to work toward a political settlement of the conflict. But in other areas, particularly the situation with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) China has seemed to be subordinating its emphasis on the peaceful settlement of conflicts to go along with the coercive actions proposed by the US government against the DPRK. (2)

One recent example occurred when the DPRK launched a satellite in December 2012. Some members of the Security Council complained that this was a violation of a resolution forbidding the DPRK from launching a ballistic missile. Though both a satellite launch and a ballistic missile launch use a rocket to do the launch, these forms of launches are not the same.
As Professor Bruce Cumings, the noted historian on the subject of the Korean Peninsula, explained in a talk he gave at Columbia University on March 2, 2013 (3):

1. A ballistic missile needs a reentry shield
2. A ballistic missile has to have targeting on reentry
3. A ballistic missile has to have a warhead.

The satellite launch by the DPRK did not have these three characteristics. As such, the satellite launch was significantly different from a ballistic missile launch.

The DPRK submitted statements to the Security Council and to General Assembly meetings explaining that there is an international treaty recognizing all nations right to the peaceful use of space. (4) The DPRK is a signatory of that treaty. The DPRK notes that there have been many satellite launches but only their satellite launch is classified as that of the launch of a ballistic missile. This is an indication, they explain, of the hostility of the US toward the DPRK.

In this situation neither China nor any other member of the Security Council asked that the DPRK be invited to present its view of this conflict to the Security Council members as provided for in Article 31 of the UN Charter. Instead the Security Council expanded the sanctions it has imposed on the DPRK by issuing a new resolution against the DPRK, Resolution 2087( S/RES/2087(2013)), on January 22.

Instead of the members of the Security Council providing a process to engage the DPRK in negotiations, as China and other members of the Security Council had done in a few instances in the past, (5) all the members of the Security Council went along with the US government program of coercion and punishment of the DPRK.

The DPRK has explained that in response to hostile actions by the US and the use of the Security Council to support hostile action by the US, the DPRK needs to develop its nuclear defense capability. On February 12, 2013, the DPRK conducted its third nuclear test. The Security Council then issued Resolution 2094( S/Res/2094(2013)) on March 7 imposing additional sanctions on the DPRK, including a set of financial sanctions which are intended to reimpose substantial financial hardship on the DPRK. These financial sanctions are part of the focus of Resolution 2094.

These sanctions, journalists were told, were negotiated by the US and China and then accepted by the other 13 members of the Security Council. This is a process similar to that which was used in creating Resolution 2087 punishing the DPRK for launching a satellite.

There is prior experience with what the US puts forward as its use of financial sanctions against the DPRK, which has been called coercive diplomacy. It is significant to recognize that the imposition of such US financial sanctions against the DPRK preceded the first nuclear test undertaken by the DPRK. In September 2005, the US government used a little known provision of the US Patriot Act, Section 311 to blacklist a bank, the Banco Delta Asia, because the DPRK had $25 million of its funds in the bank. This resulted in the funds of this bank being frozen and the DPRK losing access to the funds in its account for two years. These financial sanctions were imposed in a such a manner that they represented a threat that any bank doing business with the DPRK would be vulnerable to similar sanctions, effectively denying the DPRK access to the international banking system. (6)

Prior to the imposition of these financial sanctions against the DPRK by the US, the DPRK had not tested any nuclear device. And it was only after the DPRK carried out a nuclear test that the US State Department became willing to negotiate about ending these financial sanctions.

So the US blacklisting of the Banco Delta Asia, an action taken by the US Treasury Department against the DPRK, was the Godfather of the DPRK’s determination to develop its nuclear capability. There are present and past US government officials, however, who erroneously claim that the Banco Delta Asia sanctions were effective in stopping the DPRK’s nuclear program.(7) The opposite is the reality. The US financial sanctions against the DPRK were one of the significant factors which the DPRK cites which convinced them of the need for a nuclear weapon as a defense against such US hostility.

Hence the financial sanctions wielded by powerful nations are the thrust to spread nuclear proliferation not a means to contain proliferation. The focus on the form of financial sanctions in Resolution 2094 demonstrates the failure of the UN Security Council to learn from past experience. The DPRK has documented how it has been the victim of a hostile policy on the part of the US since its origin as a result of the US imposed division of Korea after WWII.(8)

Over 60 years ago, the US artificially divided Korea, a nation which prior to this division had a history of over 1000 years as a single nation. After WWII, Korea was divided into two states using a US manipulated UN General Assembly process in 1948 to consolidate the division.(9) That division continues until today .

Under the Patriot Act Section 311 provision used to justify the blacklisting of the Banco Delta Asia bank, a bank in Macao, China, the US government had no obligation to present evidence to back up its claims. But in documents submitted to the US government, Stanley Au, the chief stockholder of the Banco Delta Asia, effectively demonstrated that the claims presented by the US government against his bank were fallacious.(10)

Furthermore, it is important to recognize that the action taken against the Banco Delta Asia has been described in testimony presented at US government hearings, as a politically motivated action targeting China. According to one of the former government officials who helped to plan this action, the Banco Delta Asia was intended as a “symbolic target.” Describing this action at one of several hearings discussing the blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia, David Asher said (11):

“(T)here’s an old saying in Chinese, ‘You kill the chicken to scare the monkeys’. We didn’t go out and cite a multitude a Chinese financial institutions that have been publicly identified as working with North Korea over the years….We did need to designate one small one though, and that one small one sent a message to all the other ones….”

Asher explained that the purpose of the action by the US government against the Banco Delta Asia was to target North Korea and its access to the international banking system. An even more important purpose for the US government officials planning this action, he clarifies, was to issue a threat to the Chinese banking system.

The imposition of similar financial sanctions by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2094 demonstrates its surrender to US pressure to create a resolution based on illegitimate processes previously undertaken by the US government. The US government action against the Banco Delta Asia in 2005 was an early foray into creating a system of punishment that its advocates falsely claim was effective to stem proliferation. But in reality, the opposite is the case. The blacklisting of the Banco Delta Asia represented an abusive use of the international finance system against a victim nation.

Financial sanctions as imposed on nations like the DPRK not only harm that nation and its people, but they also end up creating havoc in the international financial system. The international financial system was being used as a political weapon, rather than being protected so that its integrity could be maintained.

With the US Treasury Department blacklisting the Banco Delta Asia, it was not only the DPRK that lost access to its funds, but also private bank account holders at the bank had their funds frozen.

After the US Treasury Department actions against the DPRK in 2005, only one mainstream US media organization, the McClatchy Newspapers carried stories investigating the actions by the US Treasury Department against the Banco Delta Asia. Also a blog called China Matters and several other online publications like OhmyNews International, then an English edition of the Korean online publication OhmyNews, carried articles which helped to expose the US Treasury Department’s false claims and the support of these US government actions by the mainstream US media.

The acquiescence by UN Security Council members to sanctions designed by the US against a smaller nation like the DPRK, both in 2006 when the Security Council passed Resolution 1718 condemning the DPRK, and more recently when the Security Council passed Resolution 2094 supporting similar sanctions, demonstrates the need for a vibrant watchdog media and for netizens who will monitor what is being done by the Security Council. It is important to have a netizen media that will probe what is behind the actions taken by the Security Council and what the real effects of such actions are on the peoples and nations that such sanctions target.

The example of the US blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia demonstrates that the use of financial sanctions by nuclear powers like the US against small nations like the DPRK will not stop nuclear proliferation. Instead, it will serve to convince small nations that they need a means to protect themselves against abuse by powerful countries like the US and UN Security Council actions supporting such abuse. It will also hasten efforts by other nations to create an alternative architecture to the current US dominance of the international financial and banking systems.

Notes

1. A shortened and edited version of an article written in response to the request appeared in a Chinese translation in the Hong Kong Commercial Daily.

An html version: http://www.hkcd.com.hk/content/2013-03/11/content_3159378.htm
A pdf version: http://www.hkcd.com.hk/pdf/201303/0311/HA05311CGCC.Pdf

2. See Ronda Hauben, “US Proposed UN Security Council Resolution Against DPRK Can Only Increase Tension on the Korean Peninsula”

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/03/06/us-proposed-unsc-resolution-against-dprk/

3. See Bruce Cumings, “The Fruits of Engagement with North Korea, 1994—2008”, University of Chicago, talk given at Unify Korea Common Ground Conference, Korea Art Forum, Columbia University, March 2, 2013.

4. See for example, the Statement by Kim Yong Song, on Agenda item “Report of the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization”, New York, February 19, 2013, p. 3.

5. Ronda Hauben, ”Two Precedents for UN Security Council Action to Calm Tension in the Korean Peninsula.”

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/03/04/two-precedents-unsc-korean-peninsula

6. Ronda Hauben, “North Korea’s 25 Million and Banco Delta Asia”

http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?no=351525&rel_no=1

“Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?”

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=362192&rel_no=1

7. Hearing, US House of Representatives, March 5, 2013, House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The testimony of the three witnesses, and the Chairman demonstrate that there are those making the false claim that the blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia was an effective way to stop proliferation.

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/hearing-north-korea%E2%80%99s-criminal-activities-financing-regime

8. KCNA, “DPRK Terms U.S. Hostile Policy Main Obstacle in Resolving Nuclear Issue”, Memorandum by the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, August. 31, 2012. Also submitted by the DPRK to the Security Council to be listed as an official UN document.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201208/news31/20120831-21ee.html

9. See the article by Jay Hauben, “People’s Republic of Jeju Island 1945-1946″

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/jeju/Jeju_Island_1945-1946.doc

A version of the article appears in PEAR, Yonsei Journal of International Studies, Volume 3, Issue 2, Fall/Winter 2011, pp. 277-284

http://sinonk.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/people_s-republic-of-jeju-island-1945-1946.pdf

10. China Hand, “Stanley Au Makes His Case for Banco Delta Asia, China Matters”, May 15, 2007

http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/05/stanley-au-makes-his-case-for-banco.html

11. US Government, “China’s Proliferation to North Korea and Iran, and its role in addressing
the nuclear and missile situations in both nations,” Hearing before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 109th Congress, November 2006, p. 115-116.

http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006hearings/transcripts/sept_14/06_09_14_trans.pdf

See also China Matters, “David Asher’s Dead End”

http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/04/david-ashers-dead-end.html

“Banco Delta was a symbolic target. We were trying to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. And the monkeys were big Chinese banks doing business in North Korea…and we’re not talking about tens of millions, we’re talking hundreds of millions.” David Asher, oral testimony, April 18, 2007
Asher’s opening statement and subsequent responses taken from House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, April 18, 2007

Press release on March 13, 2013: Women’s Urgent Call for the prevention of a war and making peace on the Korean Peninsula

Stop the threat of a war on the Korean Peninsula and start a dialogue for peace!

We women are deeply concerned about the crisis of war. Since North Korea’s rocket launch last December, a vicious circle of sanctions and armed protests has continued unabated. Particularly, South Korea and the US governments recently conducted the Key Resolve military exercise, which included a nuclear-powered carrier, and North Korea responded by claiming that it would rescind the armistice agreement and cancel the non-aggression pact between North and South Korea, and threatened a nuclear strike.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War armistice treaty. A war poses a disaster to women, children and other living things. We already experienced a horrendous war among the same race. We remember the tears and deep sorrow from death, separation, hunger and sexual violence upon women. Therefore, North and South Korea’s desperate effort is needed to embrace the scars of war, reconcile and live together.

However, we hardly hear any voices calling for peace from the North and South Korean governments. The current situation is the product of the hostile relationship of the US-North Korea, and the two Koreas as the Korean War never actually ended over the last 60 years and the armistice continued to exist. Their mutual hostility, hatred, and deeply-rooted fear have long lasted. As long as the armistice regime continues, military threat and confrontations, and fear will pervade. The fundamental solution to end such a vicious circle of violence and counter-violence should be pursued.

We women urge the North and South Korean governments and the US government to make a bold political decision to prevent war and settle peace. We hope that conflicts on the Korean Peninsula will be resolved through dialogue, compromise and cooperation. We urge all concerned parties not to threat the other side through military superiority, nuclear deterrence, and military exercises and try to gain benefits, but to pursue peace by peaceful means by searching for mutual benefits through political negotiations, dialogue and reconciliations.

We women as agent of peacemaking hope that this 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice will be the first year of the signing of a peace treaty. We are also determined to promote inter-Korean exchanges and to work together with other women at home and abroad to make the Korean Peninsula peaceful so that our children will freely travel over the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to Europe.

Therefore, we call upon the concerned parties as follows to prevent a war and make peace.:

First, the North and South Korean governments should stop any action and military exercises which only increase war risks.

Second, the two Korean governments should obey inter-Korean agreements and start a dialogue for reconciliation, cooperation and peaceful settlement.

Third, the states of the six-party talks should resume the talks for the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

Fourth, South Korea, North Korea, United States of America, and China should start dialogues and negotiations for a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

Women’s urgent Action for the prevention of a war and making peace on the Korean Peninsula (Total 66 women’s organizations)

Kyonggi Indenpendence Women’s Solidarity, Kyeongnam Women’s Association United, Kyeongnam Women’s Solidarity, Goyang Women’s Association, GwangJu Woman Center, GwangJu(Kyunggi) Women’s Association, GwangJu Women’s Association, Guro Women’s Association, Guri Women’s Association, Alliance for the Human Rights of Gijichon (US military bases in South Korea) Women, Namhae Women’s Association, Daegu-Kyungbuk Women’s Association United, Daegu Womensquare, Daegu Women’s Association, Daejeon Women’s Association United, Daejeon Women’s Association for Peace, Busan Women’s Association United, Busan Women’s Association, Bucheon Women’s Association for New Age, Bucheon Women’s Association, Bundang Women’s Association, Sacheon Women’s Association, Korean Catholic Women’s Community for a New World, Seoul Women’s Association, Seongnam Women’s Association, National Solidarity against Sexual Exploitation of Women, Suwon Women’s Association, Ansan Women’s Association, Anseong Women’s Association, Ynyang Sharing Women’s Association, Yangsan Women’s Association, Yangju Women’s Association, Women’s Human Rights Defenders, Korea Women’s Political Solidarity, Osan Women’s Association, Yongin Women’s Association, Uri Women’s Association, Ulsan Women’s Association, Eujungbu Dure Women’s Association, Icheon Women’s Association, Incheon Women’s Association, Korean Women Peasant Association, Korean Women’s Alliance, Jeju Women’s Human Rights Solidarity, National Campaign for Eradication of Crimes by U.S.Troops in Korea, Chongju Women’s Association for Protecting the Planet, Jinju Women’s Association, Jinhae Women’s Association, Changwon Women’s Association, Cheonan Women’s Association, Chuncheon Women’s Association, Unification Women’s Association, Commission on Women’s Affairs of The United Progressive Party, Paju Women’s Association, Pyeongtaek Women’s Association, Women Making Peace, Pohang Women’s Association , Hanam Women’s Association, Korea Church Women United, Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center, Korean Women’s Association United, Korean Womenlink , Korea Women’s Hot Line, YWCA of Korea, Haman Women’s Association, Hwaseong Women’s Association

The DPRK has complained about the hostile acts of the US toward it.(2) Instead of the Security Council inviting the DPRK to explain its complaint, the Security Council has allowed the US to compile a set of punishments of the DPRK in the form of a proposed new security council resolution tabled on March 5. The resolution is to be voted on on Thursday, March 7.

To vote on such a resolution with no consideration of the DPRK view of the problem that exists is a serious abuse of the obligations of the Security Council under the UN Charter. An example of the illegitimacy and duplicity of action taken by the US against the DPRK is described in the article, “Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?”(3)

The DPRK has made a convincing case that there is a long pattern of abuse by the US against its country and people and that it needs a means to defend itself.

For the Security Council to pass new sanctions to support the US pattern of abuse against the DPRK is an act that demonstrates the problem of the nature and functioning of the UN Security Council.

The first nuclear explosion by the DPRK was in response to the US government sanctions against the Banco Delta Asia, a bank in Macau, China, which had $25 million of DPRK funds. The US sanctions against this bank were taken with no proof ever provided of any actual abuse by the bank. To implement these sanctions the US government used a provision of the US Patriot Act, Section 311. This section of the Patriot Act was inserted into the Act by the then Senator John Kerry. The US government abuse of the DPRK by this action was to interfere with the DPRK access to the use of the international banking system. The DPRK made many efforts to have this action of the US reversed via negotiation. It was only by carrying out its first nuclear test that the DPRK was able to get help via the Six Party Talks to have these sanctions reversed. And that was a difficult process taking multiple efforts on the part of Christopher Hill and others in the US State Department but also other countries as part of the Six Party Talks. (At that point while the US Treasury Department was enforcing the Banco Delta Asia sanctions, the US State Department was trying to have them removed.) An investigation into why the DPRK felt it needed a nuclear deterrent is critical if there is to be any solution to the current conflict between the US and the DPRK.

This short article is intended as an alert that the current resolution being considered at the Security Council demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of the background of the role played by financial sanctions in fomenting this conflict in the past.

Notes
1.”Two Precedents for UN Security Council Action to Calm Tension in the Korean Peninsula.”
http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/03/04/two-precedents-unsc-korean-peninsula

2. “DPRK Terms U.S. Hostile Policy Main Obstacle in Resolving Nuclear Issue”, Memorandum by the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, August. 31, 2012. Also submitted by the DPRK to the Security Council to be listed as an official UN document.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201208/news31/20120831-21ee.html

3. “Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?”
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=362192&rel_no=1

See also

“What Should be the Role of the UN Regarding the Hostile US Policy toward North Korea?”

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2009/06/11/what_should_be_the_role_of_the_un_regarding_the_hostile_us_policy_toward_north_korea/

In his opening presentation to a hearing on US policy toward North Korea in March 2011, then US Senator John Kerry, referring to the events of the past year observed that the year 2010 “was the most dangerous on the Korean Peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953.” (1)

He was referring to several serious crises in the region in 2010. What was surprising, but yet attracted little media attention, was the role played by the United Nations Security Council in calming tension in two of these crises. In these two situations, there were members of the Security Council who demonstrated a commitment to serious consideration and an impartial exploration of the problem leading to the crises. This is a role notably different from how the Security Council has approached most situations involving the Korean Peninsula. For example, this role was remarkably different from the historic example of the Security Council supporting the US intervention in the Korean War, and more recently, in imposing sanctions on North Korea for launching a satellite, or for its effort to build a defensive capacity against what it deemed US aggressive actions toward it.

In this article I consider the Security Council emergency meeting held on December 19, 2010 to discuss the escalating tension over live fire military exercises held from Yeongpyeong Island into the surrounding waters claimed by both South Korea and North Korea. Then I refer back to how the Cheonan situation was taken up at the Security Council a few months earlier, in June and July 2010.

In the concluding section of this article I explore the significance of these examples toward developing an analysis of the potential of the Security Council to provide a counterveiling force to the actions by those who appear to be trying to provoke a new Cold War in the Northeast Asian region.

II-Yeonpyeong Island

One of the most perilous times in the recent past was in December 2010 when North and South Korea almost went to war. The conflict was brought to the UN Security Council in what was the last week of its 2010 session.(2)

The role played by the Security Council in this situation is worthy of attention. Through the more than 60 years of UN involvement in the Korean Peninsula, the role of the UN, particularly the Security Council, has often been to increase tension rather than seeking peaceful diplomatic and political solutions to conflict situations. This situation in December 2010 was different.

On November 23, 2010, the ROK (Republic of Korea commonly known as South Korea) and the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea commonly known as North Korea) exchanged artillery fire after South Korea began live fire military drills from Yeonpyeong Island 8 miles off the coast of North Korea. This military encounter ended with the death of four South Koreans, and perhaps an unknown number of North Koreans. Shortly afterwards, South Korea announced it planned a next round of similar artillery firing for some time between December 17 and December 21. North Korea responded it would consider such fire a grave provocation and would respond appropriately.

On Saturday December 18, Vitaly Churkin, the Ambassador to the UN for the Russian Federation, requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to be held that day. In what Ambassador Churkin later called “a departure from the practice of the Council”, the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, as President of the Security Council for the month of December, declined to hold a meeting until the following day. (3) Instead of a Saturday meeting as requested, she scheduled consultations to start at 11 a.m. on Sunday, December 19, with a view to the possibility of holding a formal meeting later in the day.

On that Sunday, 50 or more journalists gathered at the press stakeout area outside the UN Security Council. Ambassadors and other representatives of the 15 nations on the council gradually filtered into the Security Council chambers. Also arriving were representatives of the DPRK, of the ROK, and B. Lynn Pasco, then the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, who also had been invited to attend the emergency session. US Ambassador Rice, acting as the President of the Council for December, arrived at around 11:20 am.

It is reported that the Security Council members held bi-lateral meetings and closed consultations. They took a short lunch break. A closed meeting of the Security Council was held toward the end of the emergency session. During the emergency meeting, the representatives of the ROK and DPRK each presented their view of the conflict.

Little actual information was provided to journalists waiting in the press stakeout area about what was happening. The emergency meeting came to a close, approximately eight hours after it had begun. Then Ambassador Churkin came to the press stakeout to report to journalists. He said the draft press statement the Russian Federation had proposed had been revised at least twice, but still did not achieve the unanimous agreement needed to issue it as a document from the Council.

In its proposed draft press statement, the Russian Federation urged the two Koreas to show restraint in their actions. Also the draft proposed that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appoint an envoy to help the two Koreas peacefully resolve the problems causing the current crisis. The blog “Turtle Bay” reported obtaining a copy of the original Russian Federation draft statement. The following is a quote from the posted statement which urged the parties to deescalate the tension(4):

“The Members of the Security Council called upon all parties
concerned to exercise maximum restraint and to avoid any steps which
could cause a further escalation of tension in the Korean peninsula
and the entire region.”

“The Members of the Security Council stressed the need to undertake
efforts to ensure a de-escalation of tension in the relations between
the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,
resumption of dialogue and resolution of all problems dividing them
exclusively through peaceful diplomatic means.”

In response to objections raised by some of the Council members to his draft press statement, Ambassador Churkin told journalists he had revised the statement. The Inner City Press blog reported that in one of the revised drafts, Ambassador Churkin, the Chinese representative, and others on the Security Council had agreed to wording that said that the members of the Security Council “condemned the shelling” of 23 November 2010.(5) The draft did not attribute blame for the shelling, reflecting the fact that both sides had done shelling.

The Council, however, was not able to come to an agreement on the text. Ambassador Churkin expressed his regret that the emergency meeting had not been called on Saturday afternoon as he had requested. He felt that would have provided more time for Council members to work out wording they could all agree on.

In response to a question to him from a journalist about the danger of what was happening on the Korean Peninsula, Ambassador Churkin responded(6):

“As you know, I don’t even want to go into the general subject…I know
its very complicated. This area has very complicated geography, very
complicated geopolitical history if you will.”

Stressing the particular assessment of the situation, Ambassador Churkin told journalists:

“I don’t even want to go into the general issue of whether or not it
is prudent to conduct military exercises in a disputed area, but we
know it is better to refrain from doing this exercise at this time.
That is why we asked the Republic of Korea to refrain from conducting
this exercise at this particular time.”

Also Ambassador Churkin explained that there appeared to have been general agreement among council members for his proposal that the Secretary General appoint an envoy to work with the two Koreas and other concerned countries to negotiate a means to settle the disputes causing the crisis situation. He stressed the importance of appointing an envoy, especially since some of the parties were not willing to go back to the six party talks. There was, he felt, no other means for a diplomatic process to be implemented, “no game plan.”

Despite the fact that the Council had not been able to agree on a press statement, which also would have made it possible to support the appointment of an envoy, Ambassador Churkin expressed his hope that the Secretary General would go ahead and appoint such an envoy.

Also he expressed his hope that the effect of the Security Council consultations and meeting, even though they hadn’t made it possible to reach an agreement on a press statement, would help to lessen the tension in the region.

A little while later, Ambassador Rice came to the stakeout. Though she held the rotating presidency of the Security Council for December 2010, she spoke only in her national capacity presenting the views of the US on the issue. She supported South Korea’s planned military exercise firing into the contested waters off Yeonpyeong Island as “South Korea’s legal right to self-defense.”(7) She said that the US insisted on a “clear-cut condemnation of the November 23rd attack by DPRK on the ROK”, but she acknowledged that there was no “unanimity on that point” among members of the Security Council.

When Ambassador Rice was asked about the proposal to ask the Secretary General to appoint an envoy, she responded:

“I think there would have been probably room for agreement in some
form of recommendation that the Secretary General consider what he
might be able to do in his good offices capacity.”(8)

The next day, Monday, December 20, Wang Min, the Chinese Deputy Permanent Representative spoke to the press at a stakeout. He said, “Yesterday, China supported Russia’s proposal to call for an urgent meeting of the Security Council (on) the situation in the Korean Peninsula.”

He characterized the meeting as, “positive and of great importance.”(9)

Also on Monday, South Korea held a short military exercise near the Northern Limit Line (NLL). Though the Russian Ambassador had requested that South Korea refrain from holding this exercise at this tense time, South Korea went ahead and again fired shells into the contested waters off of Yeonpyeong Island. But it appeared that South Korean shelling was more moderate than had been expected. They only fired for 90 minutes.

North Korea refrained from responding militarily. (10)

On Tuesday December 21 at an informal meeting of the Security Council, Deputy Permanent Representative Wang expressed his assessment of the dangerous nature of the situation that had developed on the Korean Peninsula. He said that the tension on the Korean Peninsula between the North and South had been very high one “especially in the past two days, it came close to fighting a war.” (11)

Despite the fact that the Security Council did not issue a press statement, or a request that the Secretary General appoint an envoy, the actions by Ambassador Churkin on behalf of the Russian Federation and of the Security Council succeeded in bringing international public attention to the nature of the dispute and the need for a peaceful resolution of the crisis situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Ambassador Churkin had taken the initiative to request an emergency meeting of the Security Council and to ask South Korea to refrain from its planned firing drill in the contested waters surrounding Yeonpyeong Island, and to ask North Korea to refrain from responding militarily.

Both the Chinese and Russian foreign ministries had sent representatives to both North Korea and South Korea to urge them to settle their disputes peacefully via dialogue. Also some of the Chinese news media commentary on the crisis situation, even some which appeared in English language publications, were critical of the provocative actions taken by South Korea. They also criticized the US government for undertaking and encouraging military exercises in that tense area. (12)

As Ambassador Churkin told journalists after the December 19 Security Council meeting, “I would like to think that this meeting of the Council will have an impact on the situation.”

Looking at the subsequent events, it appears that the December 19 Security Council emergency session helped to calm the escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula, at least temporarily.

What is significant in the treatment of the Yeonpyeong situation by the Security Council, is that an emergency meeting was held which both North Korea and South Korea were invited to participate in and to present their views. Also they were able to hear the views of the members of the Security Council on the situation.

Also, after the session, the Russian Ambassador made a statement to the press condemning the actions in contested waters at a time of great tension. His remarks to the press helped to bring international attention to the inappropriate nature of the planned drills by South Korea at a time marked by great tension.

III-Cheonan Incident Brought to the Security Council

In order to be able to put the December 19 2010 meeting of the Security Council into a broader perspective, it is helpful to look back at how the Security Council handled the Cheonan incident, when it was brought to the Security Council in June 2010.

On March 26, 2010, the ROK warship Cheonan broke in two and sank with the loss of 46 sailors in the West Sea off the coast of North Korea. In early June, South Korea brought its claim that North Korea was responsible for the sinking to the UN Security Council.

Though unusual for the Security Council, a process was used that made it possible for Council member states to consider the claim of South Korea, but also to hear North Korea’s response. (13) Mexico’s Ambassador to the UN, Claude Heller, as the President of the Security Council for the month of June in 2010, invited both North Korea and South Korea to present their positions in two separate informal sessions held with the 15 members on the Security Council. These sessions, called “interactive sessions”, were off the record, but provided a means for Security Council members to hear two different sets of views on the issue.

After the two interactive sessions, a journalist asked Ambassador Heller for his view on which of the two presentations appeared more convincing. (14) Ambassador Heller responded, “I’m not a judge. I think we will go on with the consultations to deal in a proper manner on the issue.” What was surprising was that the Ambassador did not rush to make a judgment, but instead saw himself as responsible for providing a fair and impartial process for each of the two parties to be heard and for their views to be considered. In his treatment of the Cheonan issue, Ambassador Heller continued with what he called a “balanced process”. By the end of the month, however, no decision had been reached by council members on the wording for a presidential statement on the issue.

The stumbling block, Ambassador Heller told reporters at a stakeout at the end of his month-long presidency, was the disagreement over how Council members viewed the findings of the investigation of the Cheonan incident by the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation Group (JIG) established by the South Korean government. Also the Russian Federation had sent a team of experts to South Korea to examine the evidence cited in the JIG’s report. The team did not accept the JIG’s conclusions. (15)

The Security Council was faced with different views among the permanent members of the Security Council. The US backed the findings of the JIG’s investigation, in which it participated. The Russian Federation and China did not accept the findings. How was this disagreement to be handled? An article by the Mexican news service (Notimex) explains that at the end
of his month long Security Council presidency, Ambassador Heller prepared a summary of the two sets of views in an unofficial document. (16)

This document set the basis for a presidential statement to be issued in July after the rotating Security Council presidency passed from the Mexican Ambassador to the Nigerian Ambassador.

The Security Council Presidential statement on the Cheonan issued on July 9, 2010 was different from other recent Security Council statements. (17) It presented both sides of the controversy, South Korea’s accusation and North Korea’s denial of the accusation. Then it urged the two Koreas to settle their disputes peacefully by negotiation. That is in sharp contrast with the almost universal condemnation of North Korea in several previous and subsequent Security Council actions.

IV-Security Council as a Counterveiling Force

The Security Council’s treatment of the Cheonan incident and the December 19 Security Council Emergency meeting on the increased tension over the Yeonpyeong situation demonstrate that nations other than the two Koreas, were able to play a constructive role in determining how the situation would be handled.

In the Yeonpyeong situation, the Russian Federation played a prominent role acting to intervene by calling for an emergency Security Council meeting to help to calm the tension. Much of the mainstream western media, however, focused on other framings of the situation despite the effectiveness of the Security Council activity. The narrative in the media was not that Russia and China were seeking to diminish the tension in the conflict, but instead that they were protecting their ‘ally’ or ‘client’.

In the Cheonan situation, Mexico which held the rotating presidency of the Security Council for the month of June 2010, played a prominent role in encouraging the Security Council to create an inclusive process to hear the different views on the conflict and act on the dispute. Much of the western media, however, framed its coverage as a dispute between the US and China.

The actions of the UN Security Council in these two situations provided a countervailing force to the escalating tension resulting from the increase in military exercises by the US, and South Korea in the region. But if one reads almost all western media coverage of the Security Council actions on the Korean Peninsula incidents in 2010, the impression given is that the US succeeded in reigniting another Cold War.

Sixty years earlier, in June 1950, the US was able to use the Security Council, and later the General Assembly to legitimate its military intervention in the Korean War. In June 2010 and several months later in December 2010, the UN Security Council demonstrated that it was possible to play a moderating role to defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula. Even when the US held the presidency of the Security Council in December 2010, the Russian Ambassador and others in the Security Council were able to urge North Korea and South Korea to defuse the tension.

Even though the Dec 19 meeting did not issue an official press statement, Ambassador Churkin’s statement to the press at the stakeout at the end of the day-long emergency session made clear there were legitimate reasons for North Korean’s concern over South Korea’s planned live firing into disputed waters. The result of both the emergency meeting and the draft press statement Churkin had proposed earlier was to draw international attention to the dispute over the Northern Limit Line (NLL) which was imposed unilaterally by the US in August 1953.

Though the US and South Korea had increased their military collaboration in 2010 and held an increasing number of military exercises in the region around the Korean Peninsula – the Security Council was able to act in a way that helped to challenge the escalation of tension and encourage negotiation and the peaceful settlement of disputes.

This is in stark contrast to how the UN was used by the US to help it to foster military action against North Korea and subsequently China, 60 years earlier.

In his book “The Hidden History of the Korean War”, I F Stone condemns the hasty Security Council actions in June 1950 siding with Sigmund Rhee in condemning North Korea. Stone writes (19):

“But there was also a vital interest in the maintenance of fair
procedure within the United Nations. It was neither honorable nor wise
for the United Nations, under pressure from an interested great power,
to condemn a country for aggression without investigation and without
hearing its side of the case. This was especially true when the
ambassador of that power on the scene itself, and the United Nations’
own Commission, were not yet prepared to declare which side was guilty
of aggression.”

All too often, the absence of a fair procedure within the UN Security Council appears to be the norm. Similarly, yielding to the pressure from an interested great power to condemn another nation, without hearing its side of the case, was the norm for resolutions condemning North Korea’s rocket and nuclear developments. Considering this pattern, it is all the more important to recognize when attention is paid to hearing from the opposing sides of a conflict and providing a means for the Security Council to resist the pressure to support the demands of an interested great power.

Can the UN Security Council be a political body that helps to calm tension in the Korean Peninsula in fulfillment of its charter obligation? We can consider the Security Council’s actions in the Yeongpyeong Island and the Cheonan incident as evidence that under current world conditions this is possible, though an all too rare outcome of Security Council action.

Notes

1.John Kerry, “Opening Statement for hearing of US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: “Breaking the Cycle of North Korean Provocations”, March 1, 2011.

2.Ronda Hauben, “Can the Security Council Act to Calm Rising Tension on Korean Peninsula?”, December 19, 2010, netizenblog at taz.de

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/12/19/securitycouncil_korean_tension/

3. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin refers to Rule 2 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure for the Security Council as the basis for expecting the Security Council to be called to meet on Saturday in response to his request. Rule 2 reads:

“The President shall call a meeting of the Security Council at the request of any member of the Security Council.”

http://www.un.org/doc/sc/scrules.htm

4. Turtle Bay blog, December 18, 2010

http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/18/russia_pushes_deeper_un_role_in_mediating_crisis_in_the_koreas

5. Inner City Press, December 20, 2011.

http://www.innercitypress.com/usun5ruskor122010.html

6. Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at a Media Stakeout on the Situation on the Korean Peninsula, 19 December 2010, (start 06:14)

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2010/12/russian-federation-representative-vitaly-churkin-security-council-media-stakeout.html

7. Remarks by President of the Security Council, Ambassador Susan E. Rice, United States Permanent Representative, at a Media Stakeout on the Situation on the Korean Peninsula, 19 December 2010

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2010/12/united-states-representative-susan-rice-security-council-media-stakeout.html

8. On the concept of Good Offices of the UN Secretary General, see for example:

http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/subsidiary_organs/representatives.shtml

9. Ambassador Wang Min, Deputy Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China, at a Media Stakeout on the Situation on the Korean Peninsula, 20 December 2010

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2010/12/wang-min-representative-of-the-democratic-republic-of-china-security-council-media-stakeout.html

10. “Commentary: Applause for North Korea’s restraint”, Global Times, December 22, 2010

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90780/91343/7238754.html

11. “Korea Tensions came close to ‘war’”, said China Diplomat, December 22, 2010,

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1100526/1/.html

12. See for example:

“S. Korea playing by dangerous cliff”, Editorial, Global Times, December 23, 2010.

http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/editorial/2010-12/603638.html

“Korean brothers advised not to go to war game”, People’s Daily Online, December 21, 2010.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90780/91343/7238108.html

L. Hongmei, “US, insidious harm to Korean Peninsula”, People’s Daily Online, December 21, 2010.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90002/96417/7238362.html

“New ROK drills add to tension on peninsula”, People’s Daily Online, December 27, 2010

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7242721.html

13. Ronda Hauben, “In Cheonan Dispute Security Council Acts in Accord with UN Charter,” taz.de, September 5, 2011

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/09/05/in_cheonan_dispute_un_security_council_discovers_un_charter/

14. Ambassador Claude Heller on June 14 stakeout Media Stakeout: Informal comments to the Media by the President of the Security Council and the Permanent Representative of Mexico, H.E. Mr. Claude Heller on the Cheonan incident (the sinking of the ship from the Republic of Korea) and on Kyrgyzstan. [Webcast: Archived Video - 5 minutes ]

http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/stakeout/2010/so100614pm3.rm

15. Russian Navy Team’s Analysis of the Cheonan Incident”, Posted on July 27, Hankyoreh, modified on July 29.

http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/432230.html

The Russian Experts document is titled “Data from the Russian Naval Expert Group’s Investigation into the Cause of the South Korean Naval Vessel Cheonan’s Sinking”

See also “Russia’s Cheonan Investigation Suspects that Sinking Cheonan Ship was Caused by a Mine”, posted on July 27, 2010, Hankyoreh, modified on July 28, 2010.

http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/432232.html

16. Maurizio Guerrero,”Heller mediacion de Mexico en conflict de Peninsula de Corea”, Notimex, July 5, 2010 (published in en la Economia)

http://enlaeconomia.com/news/2010/07/05/69561

17. Presidential Statement on Cheonan, July 9, 2010, S/PRST/2010/13

http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/3530161.67879105.html

18. Ronda Hauben, “In Cheonan Dispute Security Council Acts in Accord with UN Charter,” taz.de, September 5, 2011

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/09/05/in_cheonan_dispute_un_security_council_discovers_un_charter/

19 I.F. Stone, “Hidden History of the Korean War”, Monthly Review Press, 1952, p. 50.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, finally appeared before the US Senate and House Foreign Relations Committees on Wednesday, January 23, after a long delay. She was asked many questions by the Congress about what had happened in Benghazi on September 11 and how this could happen. The problem with the responses she gave to these questions was that she focused on the narrative presented in the State Department Report that had been released a month earlier, and which is deeply flawed.

In order to understand the nature of what happened on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, and how the State Department under Hillary Clinton has been an important part of the cover up of what this second September 11 is actually a part of, it is important to understand the problem with the State Department Report being used to carry out the US government cover up of what I call the Benghazi Affair.

On December 18, the US State Department released its report on the September 11, 2012 attacks on two US facilities in Benghazi, Libya.These attacks had resulted in the deaths of the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans working for the US government in Libya. The US government had claimed that its report would shed light on what had become a contentious Congressional and media debate over the cause and details of the attack on these two US government compounds in Benghazi.

Soon, however, it became clear that the State Department Report issued by the Accountability Review Board (hereafter ARB Report), offered the public little information to add to what had already been made available by the State Department or the media. Instead, the public version of the ARB Report, referred to as the “unclassified” version, actually functions as part of the cover-up of what happened on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi. Most of this public document carefully refrains from any discussion of the role or activities of the CIA and what bearing this had on the events of September 11-12 2012 in Benghazi. But the role of the CIA in Benghazi and its bearing on what happened there on September 11 is the crucial question that any legitimate investigation into the situation must explore.

The trick of the Accountability Review Board (ARB) was that it issued two different versions of its Report. One version was an “unclassified” report that was available to the press, the public and the US Congress to discuss in public.(1) The other version was a “classified” report that was to be hidden from public or press scrutiny and was only to be available to Congress in a closed Congressional process. The unclassified version of the ARB Report could not mention the CIA activities. It could only discuss the role of the State Department in what happened.

The problem with such a restriction is that one of the US government sites in Benghazi that was attacked was a CIA facility referred to as the ‘Annex’ (hereafter CIA annex compound). The other site was allegedly a State Department administered facility referred to as the ‘Special Mission Benghazi Compound’ (hereafter special mission compound). This second compound, according to the WSJ, was actually created to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA facility.(2)

While some US Congressional Committees have been conducting investigations into what happened in Benghazi, they have agreed to discuss only the activities of the State Department in their open, public sessions, and to reserve any consideration or questions about the activities of the CIA for closed sessions of their committees, away from public view.(3)

Not only is the US Congress restricted from discussing the role of the CIA in Benghazi in open session, some of the mainstream US media have agreed to a request by the US government to withhold details about the CIA operations in Benghazi. The New York Times (NYT) is one such publication. (4) In an article briefly referring to the CIA annex compound, which the NYT says “encompassed four buildings inside a low-walled compound….” The NYT acknowledges that, “From among these buildings, the C.I.A. personnel carried out their secret missions.” But then the article explains that, “The New York Times agreed to withhold locations and details of these operations at the request of Obama administration officials….”

To declare an investigation into or discussion of the activities regarding the role of the CIA and its Annex compound as a forbidden subject during an open committee meeting of Congress, is to prevent the US Congress from fulfilling its oversight obligations over the US Executive branch of government. For the US government to require the US media to restrict coverage is to shroud the needed public discussion and investigation in darkness.

The effort to cover up the role of the CIA in the events resulting in the attack on the two US government facilities in Benghazi, however, demonstrates that something important is at stake and worth investigating.

Despite the US government effort to impose such restrictions, there are media accounts and some Congressional documents that provide a glimpse into the details of hidden CIA activity that the attacks on the US facilities in Benghazi help to reveal.

To understand the nature of this hidden activity, requires a willingness not only to critique the official explanations, but also to examine the events that can help to uncover the actual forces at work in Benghazi and the role they played in CIA activities in Libya.

One Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article is particularly helpful. The article, is titled “CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya.” It provides a rare window into details of the murky world of the CIA operation in Benghazi and how it came about.(5)

The article notes that former CIA Director David Petraeus did not greet the bodies of the four Americans killed in Benghazi when they were returned to the US, even though two of those killed are acknowledged to have worked for the CIA. “Officials close to Mr. Petraeus,” the WSJ explains, “say he stayed away in an effort to conceal the agency’s role in collecting intelligence and providing security in Benghazi.”

Of the 30 or more American officials evacuated from Benghazi, only seven worked for the State Department. According to the WSJ, “Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principle purpose” of the special mission compound.

Soon after the struggle against the government of Libya began in February 2011, the CIA set up a compound in Benghazi for its spy operations. Eventually, the CIA gave its compound a State Department office name, the Annex, to disguise its purpose, the WSJ reveals. According to the US government, the role of the CIA in Benghazi was “focused on countering proliferation and terrorist threats….A main concern was the spread of weapons….”

“At the annex,” the WSJ explains, “many of the analysts and officers had what is referred to in intelligence circles as ‘light cover’ carrying U.S. diplomatic passports.”

Providing a cover for the secret operation of the CIA, however, created problems for State Department officials who felt the CIA was not “forthcoming with information,” even in the midst of the attack on the US facilities. As the WSJ notes, on September 11, 2012, “At 5:41 p.m. Eastern time, Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Petraeus. She wanted to make sure the two agencies were on the same page.”

Even after the attack was over and the analysts and officers had been evacuated, the accounts in the WSJ and McClatchy Newspapers, describe how quickly the CIA acted to clean out documents and equipment from the Annex. By contrast, the US government left the premises of the special mission compound unguarded and open to looters for weeks after the attack.

“The significance of the annex was a well-kept secret in Benghazi,” the WSJ reporters conclude. A McClatchy article documents how a well guarded secret was even the location of the CIA Annex compound. (6)

The implication is that the attackers at the special mission compound intended to flush out the covert location and presence of the CIA Annex compound so as to end its ability to continue its secret activities.(7)

An opinion piece, “The Fog of Benghazi”, appeared in the WSJ on November 3. It discusses what was at stake for the US government as a result of the September 11 attack in Benghazi(8):
“America has since closed the Libya diplomatic outpost and pulled a critical intelligence unit out of a hotbed of Islamism, conceding a defeat. U.S. standing in the region and the ability to fight terrorist groups were undermined, with worrying repercussions for a turbulent Middle East and America’s security. This is why it’s so important to learn what happened in Benghazi.”

The effort to learn what happened in the Benghazi Affair, is similarly the subject of a 10 page letter dated October 19 sent by two US Congressmen to President Obama. (9) One of the Congressmen, Darrell Issa, is Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The other, Jason Chaffetz, is Chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations.

Their letter raises ten questions for President Obama, the answers to which they explain are needed for the US Congressional investigation to determine the significance of the Benghazi affair. Also in their letter they include an attachment of 160 pages of data and photos which document the lawless environment in Libya, and particularly in Benghazi in the months before the Benghazi attack. This data was obtained by the US Congress from the State Department. (10) Though the data is labeled as sensitive, it is not classified material.

This data documents in a way that is now public, the perilous environment existing in Libya, providing a graphic description of the armed militias who carry out bombings, murders and kidnappings of government officials and others who try to challenge the lawlessness.

The data demonstrates the details of what the ARB Report acknowledges as “a general backdrop of political violence, assassinations, targeting former regime officials, lawlessness, and an overarching absence of central government authority in eastern Libya.” (11)

The Internet has made possible the publication of a number of investigative accounts of various aspects of the Benghazi Affair. Several of these propose that the CIA and even Chris Stevens were part of a gun running operation, gathering up weapons from Libya and facilitating their shipment to the insurgents fighting against the government in Syria. Some of the articles also propose that the CIA operation in Benghazi helped to send mercenaries from other countries to fight against the government of Syria. (12)

Fox News and a number of associated websites have featured articles which offer such accounts. Often, however, the articles rely on anonymous sources to support their claims.

Rarely are media offering accounts that portray this reality able to present direct evidence to support the narratives they develop.

An important exception is an article that appeared in the Times of London on September 14, 2012. This was three days after Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

The article documents that a ship, the Al Entisar (also written as Intisaar or The Victory in English), sailing under a Libyan flag with a 400 ton cargo, which included SAM-7 surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and some humanitarian supplies, is said to have arrived September 6 at the Turkish Port of Iskenderun.(13)

The captain of the ship, Omar Mousaeeb, a Libyan from Benghazi, was accompanied by 26 Libyans who were on board to help smuggle the shipment from the Turkish Port across the border into Syria. The plan was then to distribute the weapons to insurgents in Syria who were allied with the Muslim Brotherhood.

This account by the Times of London provides specific details about the mechanisms and problems of this Libyan weapons pipeline to the insurgency in Syria. The article describes the conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) over who would get the weapons from the Al Entisar shipment.

“The scale of the shipment and how it should be disbursed, has sparked a row between the FSA and the Muslim Brotherhood, who took control of the shipment when it arrived in Turkey,” writes Sheera Frenkel, the author of the Times of London article.

Though the ship arrived at the port in Turkey on September 6, not all of the cargo had been transported into Syria by September 14, the article notes, though this is over a week after the ship arrived at the port in Turkey. While “more than 80 percent of the ship’s cargo,” the Times of London explains, “had been moved into Syria, Mr. Mousaeeb and a group of Libyans who had arrived with the ship said they were preparing to travel with the final load into Syria to ensure it was being distributed.” Actually their concern appeared to be to whom it was distributed, not how.

The Times of London refers to two Syrian activists with the FSA who complained that infighting within the insurgent ranks had delayed the arrival of the weapons in Syria, “There was widespread talk of Syrian groups who allied themselves with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement being given a larger share of the ship’s cargo.” One activist quoted objects that, “The Muslim Brotherhood, through its ties with Turkey, was seizing control of this ship and its cargo.”

While the Times of London does not directly link Chris Stevens or the CIA annex compound to the Al Entisar arms shipment to Turkey, the article does provide an important context for how the conflict over which insurgent group would get weapons from the shipment created a source of significant tension at the very time the attack on the two US compounds in Benghazi took place.

Given the question, “Why Chris Stevens would have traveled to Benghazi to be in this perilous environment on September 11,” an answer which points to some urgent matter which needed his attention, would help to provide the rationale for him to ignore the security considerations against his making such a trip.

Keeping in mind the importance of this shipment of weapons from Benghazi to Turkey, the need to work out the details of the weapons distribution process could very well have provided the motive for Stevens to plan a visit in Benghazi during such a perilous period as the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the US.

By September 11, infighting among the Muslim Brotherhood and other insurgent groups, over who would be given the weapons from the Al Entisar shipment, suggests the likelihood that Turkey’s Consul General in Benghazi and the US Ambassador needed to discuss the conflict over the weapons and the problem of how they should be moved into Syria and distributed among the insurgent groups.

In line with this reasoning, it is not surprising that Chris Stevens had a meeting with Turkey’s Consul General to Benghazi, Ali Sait Akin on September 11 at the Benghazi special mission compound.

The description of the infighting over the Al Entisar shipment to a port in Turkey of weapons for the Syrian insurgency, raises the possibility that the Turkish Consul General to Benghazi and Stevens discussed the conflict over the weapons. As of September 11, there were weapons that had yet to be distributed and smuggled into Syria from the Al Entisar shipment.

On September 10, when Stevens arrived in Benghazi, the shipment of arms had only recently been received at the Turkish port of Iskenderun, and the conflict among the insurgent groups who were to receive the weapons was not yet resolved.

According to documents that Congress received from the State Department, soon after Stevens arrived in Benghazi on September 10, he visited the CIA annex compound for a briefing.

On September 11 he stayed at the special mission compound but had meetings scheduled with someone from the Arabian Gulf Oil Co. (AGOCO), and later in the afternoon with someone from the Al Marfa Shipping and Maritime Services Co. (The names of the individuals were blacked out.) Then he had dinner and discussion with Ali Sait Akin, Turkey’s Consul General to Benghazi.(14)

While there has been no specific information made available by the State Department about the content of the meetings Stevens had on September 10 and 11, Turkey’s role in the shipping of weapons and foreign fighters into Syria to assist the fight against the Syrian government is the subject of numerous articles. The Times of London article describes previous difficulty experienced in trying to ship a cargo of weapons to where they could be safely unloaded and moved to insurgents in Syria. Given this previous experience it is not surprising that it was necessary to have the Turkish government intervene to settle problems that arose with the Al Entisar weapons shipment. It had taken several weeks “to arrange the paperwork for the Turkish port authorities to release the cargo.”(15) The Times of London quoted Suleiman Haari, who worked with Captain Mousaeeb. Haari explained that “Everyone wanted a piece of the ship. Certain groups wanted to get involved and claim the cargo for themselves. It took a long time to work through the logistics.”

This could account for the surprise visit by the then head of the CIA, David Petraeus on September 2 to Ankara. (16) Petraeus arrived in Ankara for what appeared to be talks with the President of Turkey and other Turkish government officials. Were Petraeus’s meetings with Turkish government officials needed to help make the arrangements for the Libyan ship to dock at the port in Turkey and unload the weapons that were to be smuggled across the border into Syria? This is a question Petraeus could answer if he were to testify at a US Congressional hearing again.

In light of the WSJ claim that the special mission compound had been set up to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA operation run out of the Annex, the question is raised as to whether the special mission compound was actually a State Department facility or a CIA facility acting under cover as a State Department operation.

According to the unclassified version of the ARB Report, Chris Stevens had arrived in Benghazi on April 5, 2011, “via a Greek cargo ship at the rebel-held city of Benghazi to re-establish a U.S. presence in Libya.” He had been appointed the US government’s “Special Envoy to the Libyan Transitional National Council” (TNC), acting as an official contact between the insurgents fighting to overthrow the government of Libya and the US government that was aiding them to bring about regime change in Libya. (17) Such an activity is contrary to international law and provisions of the UN charter (Article 2 Sections 1, 4, 7) which prohibit interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. (18)

Stevens’ mission, the Report states, “was to serve as the liaison with the TNC” for a post-Qaddafi government in Libya. The US embassy had been closed in February 2011, and was only reopened on September 22, 2011 with Gene Cretz as the Ambassador.

The ARB Report notes, however, that the CIA had set up the CIA compound in Benghazi in February 2011 soon after the insurgency arose against the Libyan government. This is a confirmation that the US government had put intelligence operatives on the ground in Benghazi just as the insurgency against the Libyan government was getting underway. This is also at least one month before Chris Stevens arrived in Benghazi.

The ARB Report also reveals that Chris Stevens stayed at the CIA Annex from the beginning of June, 2011 until June 21, 2011. Not until June 21 did “he and his security contingent move into what would become the Special Mission Benghazi compound….” According to the ARB Report the special mission compound in Benghazi was set up a few months after the CIA compound. (19)

This puts in perspective why the WSJ article on November 1 says that the special mission compound was established to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA facility, subsequently referred to as “the Annex”. Stevens remained as Special Envoy to the TNC and stayed in Benghazi until November 17, 2011. On May 26, 2012 Stevens arrived in Tripoli to replace Cretz as US Ambassador to Libya.

What was the State Department responsibility for the special mission compound? If its purpose was to provide diplomatic cover for the CIA, then what was the CIA responsibility? These are significant questions. But it is unlikely that such questions will be asked at the public Congressional oversight investigations because questions about the role of the CIA Annex in Benghazi have been declared to be a classified matter.

Though the NYT article, ”U.S. Approved Weapons for Libya Rebels Fell into Jihadis’ Hands,” about the Benghazi affair doesn’t go into detail about what the CIA was doing in Benghazi, it raises a significant issue that is likely to be at the root of why there was an attack on both the special mission compound and the CIA Annex compound.(20) The NYT refers to the concern US government officials involved in the program raise about the problems created by the US government helping to provide weapons to insurgents fighting in Libya and Syria. According to the NYT, what these Islamic militants will do with these weapons worries high level US government national security officials.

While officially, the US government claims it is not providing weapons, the Times of London article about the shipment of weapons from Benghazi to Turkey, provides a striking example of how the US and Turkish governments, both overtly, and covertly, appear to be involved in collecting weapons in Libya and helping to ship them to be used against the Syrian government and people.(21)

The NYT claims that the US government has little control over where these weapons go and the harm they do when used in Libya, Syria, or other conflicts in the region. The NYT reports, “Concerns in Washington soon rose about the groups Qatar was supporting, officials said. A debate over what to do about the weapons shipments dominated at least one meeting of the so-called Deputies Committee, the interagency panel consisting of the second-ranking officials in major agencies involved in national security. ‘There was a lot of concern that Qatar weapons were going to Islamist groups,’ one official recalled.” (22)

These supposed ‘Qatar’ weapons, however, did not originate with Qatar alone. By way of an example, the NYT quotes one US weapons dealer who wanted to sell weapons to the insurgency in Libya during the war against Libya. The NYT describes how he applied to the State Department for a license. “He also sent an e-mail to J. Christopher Stevens, then the special representative to the Libyan rebel Alliance, ” reports the NYT. According to e-mails provided to the NYT by the arms dealer, Marc Turi, Stevens wrote back to Turi that he would “share Mr. Turi’s proposal with colleagues in Washington.” Eventually the weapons dealer was encouraged to communicate with contacts in Qatar.(23)

Such examples help to demonstrate both that there is concern among US government officials in Washington about the US government arming militant Islamists, the very people the US government condemns as “terrorists” in other situations. Also though the weapons pipeline may have on the surface been made to appear unconnected to the US actually supplying the arms that are being distributed by Qatar or Saudi Arabia, in the case of Marc Turi, as one example, the weapons pipeline was arranged for by a license provided by the US government to ship the weapons to Qatar.

Such examples provide the context for how the US government has covertly and overtly been helping to provide the weapons that are then used by those hostile to the US to inflict harm on the Libyan and Syrian people and even on Americans, as those killed in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. This situation, several commentators have noted, is reminiscent to the Iran Contra Affair where the US government entities covertly acted in a way that jeopardized the interests and even the physical well being of US officials and civilians. And it is likely that the actions being taken by US government officials to arm and provide other forms of support for the Libyan and Syrian insurgencies, are contrary to US laws and constitutional obligations.(24)

Such considerations reflect some of the salient concerns raised by a number of online commentators about the Benghazi Affair. One example of many that have been published online in the last few months is the article “Benghazigate: The Cover-up continues” by Bill Shanefeld published at the American Thinker website. The article raises two important questions (25):
“(1) The pre-”event” purpose of the compound and its Annex (since these operations probably motivated the perpetrators of the “event”); and
(2) Team Obama’s failed policies in North Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.”

The article also refers to some of the many contributions made by other online commentators. These various commentaries help to clarify that the Benghazi affair offers a relatively rare window into the on the ground actions of the US government’s clandestine operations. These actions are the partner to the role the US government is playing in the UN Security Council and the UN in general in its efforts to turn the UN into a partner in its CIA and NATO activities. The Benghazi Affair is an important situation and the question remains as to whether the illegal activities of the US government acting contrary to the obligations of the UN Charter in Libya and more recently Syria will come to light.

Notes

1. U.S. State Department Public Accountability Board Report

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf

2.Margaret Coker, Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman, Margaret Coker, ”CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya,” WSJ, November 1, 2012.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204712904578092853621061838.html

3. Dana Milbanks, “Letting Us in on a Secret,” Washington Post, October 10, 2012,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-letting-us-in-on-a-secret/2012/10/10/ba3136ca-132b-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_print.html

4. Helene and Eric Schmidt, Michael S Schmidt, “Deadly Attack In Libya was Major Blow to CIA Efforts,” New York Times, September 23, 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/world/africa/attack-in-libya-was-major-blow-to-cia-efforts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

5. Margaret Coker, Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman, Margaret Coker, ”CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya,” WSJ, November 1, 2012.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204712904578092853621061838.html

6.Nancy A. Youssef, “Libyans, diplomats: CIA’s Benghazi station a secret – and quickly repaired,” McClatchy Newspapers, November 12, 2012.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204712904578092853621061838.html

7. Catherine Herridge, “CIA moved swiftly to scrub, abandon Libya facility after attack, source says,” Fox News, December 5, 2012.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/05/cia-moved-swiftly-scrub-abandon-libya-facility-after-attack-source-says/#ixzz2IE8icKIQ

8. “The Fog of Benghazi,” Opinion Piece, WSJ, Nov. 3, 2012

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204712904578090612465153472.html

9. Letter from Representative Issa and Representative Chaffetz to President Obama, October 19, 2012

http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/10.19.12-Issa-and-Chaffetz-to-President.pdf

10. The Oversight Committee’s letter was accompanied by 166 pages of documents and photos.

http://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-committee-asks-president-about-white-house-role-in-misguided-libya-normalization-effort/

documents

http://1.usa.gov/S89qG7

11. U.S. State Department Public Accountability Board Report

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf

12. See for example, ”Interview with Clare M. Lopez”

http://goldandguns.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/former-cia-clare-lopez-on-the-benghazi-gun-running/

13. Sheera Frenkel, “Syrian rebels squabble over weapons as biggest shipload arrives from Libya; Turkey,” Times (London), September 14, 2012, p. 23

14. Schedule of Chris Stevens activities on September 10 and September 14.

Included in data sent to President Obama by Issa and Chaffetz

15. Sheeran Frenkel, “Syrian rebels squabble over weapons as biggest shipload arrives from Libya; Turkey,” Times (London), September 14, 2012, p. 23

16. “CIA chief Petraeus pays surprise visit to Turkey,” Hurriyet Daily News, September 2, 2012

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/cia-chief-petraeus-pays-surprise-visit-to-turkey.aspx?pageID=238&nid=29175

J. Millard Burr, “The Benghazi Attack: Some Thoughts,” Economic Warfare Institute Blog, Oct 24, 2012.

http://econwarfare.org/viewarticle.cfm?id=5109

17. U.S. State Department Public Accountability Board Report

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf

18. Dr. Curtis Doebbler, “It is illegal to support rebels fighting a legitimate government,” Note from Sibialiria.org,

http://syria360.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/supporting-the-doha-coalition-violates-international-law/

19. U.S. State Department Public Accountability Board Report

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf

Margaret Coker, Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman, Margaret Coker, ”CIA Takes Heat for Role in Libya,” WSJ, November 1, 2012.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204712904578092853621061838.html

20. Mark Mazzetti, James Risen, Michael S Schmidt, ”U.S. Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell into Jihadis’ Hands,” NYT, December 5, 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/africa/weapons-sent-to-libyan-rebels-with-us-approval-fell-into-islamist-hands.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

21. Sheera Frenkel, “Syrian rebels squabble over weapons as biggest shipload arrives from Libya; Turkey,” Times ( London), September 14, 2012, p. 23

Also see other relevant articles such as:

Christina Lamb, “Covert US Plan to Arm Rebels,” The Sunday Times (London), December 9, 2012, p. 1,2

Franklin Lamb, “Flooding Syria with Foreign Arms: A View from Damascus”, Foreign Policy Journal, Nov. 5, 2012.

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/11/05/flooding-syria-with-foreign-arms-a-view-from-damascus/

J. Millard Burr, “You Can Kiss Petraeus Goodbye,” End Time News, Nov. 5, 2012

http://endtimesnews.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/benghazi-attack-reveals-split-in-gun-running-factions/

22. Mark Mazzetti, James Risen, Michael S Schmidt, ”U.S. Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell into Jihadis’ Hands,” NYT, December 5, 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/africa/weapons-sent-to-libyan-rebels-with-us-approval-fell-into-islamist-hands.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

23. Mark Mazzetti, James Risen, Michael S Schmidt, ”U.S. Approved Arms for Libya Rebels Fell into Jihadis’ Hands,” NYT, December 5, 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/africa/weapons-sent-to-libyan-rebels-with-us-approval-fell-into-islamist-hands.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

24. Michael Kelley, “The CIA’s Benghazi Operation May Have Violated International Law,” Nov. 5, 2012

http://endtimesnews.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/benghazi-attack-reveals-split-in-gun-running-factions/

Oona A. Hathaway, Elizabeth Nielsen, Chelsea Purvis, Saurabh Sanghvi, and Sara Solow, “ARMS TRAFFICKING: THE INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC LEGAL FRAMEWORK.,” Yale Law School Report. Posted Nov. 15, 2011.

http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/cglc/YLSreport_armsTrafficking.pdf

25. Bill Shanefeld, “Benghazigate the cover-up continues.” American Thinker, January 9, 2013.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/benghazigate_the_cover-up_continues.html

Introduction

I am happy to be here today and to accept April Media’s invitation to make one of the first presentations at April café and salon.

The title of my talk is” The United Nations, China and Journalism in the Era of the Netizen.”*

As was mentioned in a earlier talk today, this year, 2012 is the 15th anniversary of the publication of the English and the Japanese print editions of the book “Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet.”

To mark this occasion I wanted to try to understand the significance of this anniversary with respect to ongoing development of the Internet and the Netizen. Coming to China this year was an impetus to review my previous visits to China and the interesting events I was able to take part in related to netizens during these visits.

In 2005 when I first came to Beijing, it was because Beijing was the host of the International Congress on the History of Science. At the conference I presented a paper on “The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and the Emergence of the Netizens”.

At the time there was a lot of new construction going on in Beijing and the city appeared to be new and developing. It appeared to be an appropriate place to present a talk on the importance of internet development. With the continuing development of the Internet the phenomenon of the netizens was becoming more important to understand.

My second trip to Beijing was in April 2008 when I was invited to give a talk at the Internet Society of China.

In my talk I asked the question “Is this is a new Age, the Age of the Netizen?” Also during this trip I was invited to give a talk on “the Global Media and the Role of Netizens In Determining the News.” This talk was for a journalism class at Tsinghua University.

On the day the talk was scheduled, there was a meeting between students at Tsinghua University and several journalists from the International Federation of Journalists. The students at Tsinghua University were angry about the Western media coverage of China. They told the journalists their complaints. The journalists seemed surprised and found it difficult to respond.

In the process I met students who were part of the Anti-CNN web site that was created to challenge the falsifications about China that were then appearing in the Western press.

One of the reasons for my next trip in September 2009 was to participate in a Netizens’ Day event sponsored by the Internet Society of China. This Netizens Festival Day was observed on September 14, 2009.

For this Netizen day event, a stage was set up in front of the CCTV Tower. I was invited to present background on the development of the Netizen. I gave a short introduction about the discovery of the emergence of the Netizens. This was presented in English with a Chinese translation and the event is captured on Youku.

I described how in 1992-1993, Michael Hauben who was then a Columbia University student, sent out a set of questions across the networks asking users about their experiences online. He was surprised to find that not only were many of those who responded to his questions interested in what the Net made possible for them, but also they were interested in spreading the Net and in exploring how it could make a better world possible.

Based on his research Michael wrote his article “The Net and Netizens”.

The netizen, Michael recognized, was the emergence of a new form of citizen. This was a citizen who was using the power made possible by the Net for a public purpose, and who was not limited by geographical boundaries. The Net for Michael was a new social institution and the discovery of the emergence of the netizen was the special contribution that he made to the field of network study.

The first Netizen day event held in China was the first official recognition of the netizen anywhere in the world. It was a celebration to honor the fact that the phenomenon of the netizen continues to develop and spread and to be recognized as a new and important achievement of our times. It was fitting that it was in China with its many millions of netizens pioneering the use of the Internet that there is a day to celebrate Netizens.

When I returned to New York in 2009 after my visit to China, I went to an event at the Chinese Mission to the UN. On the way into the Mission, there was a rack with magazines about China. A magazine in the rack caught my attention. It was the July 5, 2009 edition of the magazine “NewsChina” The title of the issue was “The Netizens’ Republic of China”.

The magazine was filled with articles documenting the impact of the Net and Netizens on what is happening in China. It presented several examples of netizens speaking out in discussions in online discussion groups and forums. In an article titled “Netizens, the New Watchdogs,” the writer, Yu Xiaodong wrote, “It is the newly emerging Internet media, in particular, citizen journalism that has filled the need to kindle political discussion in China leading many to conclude that Internet media has become the mainstream itself rather than a peripheral form of communication.”

Based on these experiences I wrote an article with the title, “China in the Era of the Netizen.” In the article I explained my sense that something significant is happening in China. Beijing, I wrote, was being developed as a world class city with the benefit of contributions made possible by the Internet and by netizens. “So perhaps a special characteristic of Beijing has to do with the emergence of the Netizen.”

The NewsChina issue of the magazine helped to clarify that there were those in China who also recognized that netizens were crucial actors in the development of China.

I have had subsequent visits to China, in which I have been encouraged to give talks about Netizens and about the development and spread of the Internet and its potential impact on China.

What seems significant about these experiences is that there is interest and support for netizen development in China that I haven’t found elsewhere in the world.

(With this introduction I turned to the part of the talk about a problem with the mainstream western media and how the Internet and netizens are creating a needed alternative to solve this problem. I call this alternative form of journalism netizen journalism. The entire talk can be found online along with the powerpoint slides used for the talk. The urls for these are:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/beijing2012/r-china2012-april-cafe.doc

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/beijing2012/r-china2012-april-cafe-slides.ppt)

I wanted to post this introductory section of my talk independently of the rest of the talk to emphasize the important developments about netizens talking place in China over the past few years and to encourage discussion and study of the implications of these developments toward the creation of a new paradigm for the future.

*Taken from the talk “The United Nations, China and Journalism in the Era of the Netizen” presented at the April Media Salon in July 2012.

On September 28, the UN’s Human Rights Council asked for a consensus vote on a resolution holding the Syrian government responsible for the violence in Syria. The resolution particularly referred to the Houla Massacre that took place in Syria on May 25-26, 2012. The resolution said it (1):

“Condemns in the strongest terms the massacre of the village of AL-Houla near Homs, where the forces of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic and members of the Shabbiha were found by the commission of inquiry to be the perpetrators of outrageous and heinous crimes and stresses the need to hold those responsible to account.”

Opposing the call that the resolution be passed by acclamation, Maria Khodynskaya-Golenischv, the Representative of the Russian Federation, explained why her country would vote against the resolution. Among the several reasons she gave was the objection that the resolution was inaccurate and biased in blaming the Syrian government for the massacre. She explained, “In particular we cannot agree with the one sided conclusion put out in the resolution concerning the Commission on the Houla tragedy.” She noted, “We believe that the question for the attribution of guilt is still open. An investigation should be carried out thoroughly. One should not accuse the government if one does not have sufficient evidence therefore.” (2)

The Russian Federation Representative also pointed out the harmful consequences such a resolution would have in deepening the conflict. “Unfortunately,” she said, “some states are in de facto encouraging terrorism in Syria. Therefore we have no doubt that the episode in Houla is definitely being whipped up in the media and being used to carry out force against this country.”

China’s Representative said that his nation would also vote against the resolution. He explained that putting pressure on only one party to the conflict would not help to resolve the conflict.

The Cuban delegate also announced that his country would vote against the resolution. Among the reasons he gave was the objection that the goal of some co-sponsors of the resolution was to impose regime change on the Syrian people through a decision arrived at by those outside the country. Such a goal, the Cuban Representative maintained, threatened to send Syria back to the Stone Age.

When the vote was taken, there were 41 votes in favor of the resolution, three votes against (China, Cuba and the Russian Federation), and three abstentions (Philippines, India and Uganda). The India Representative, explaining why his country had abstained, said that the obligation of the Human Rights Council was to act with impartiality and for its resolutions to be balanced and impartial. The implication of India’s remarks was that the resolution against Syria was not balanced or impartial.

Though Syria is not a member of the Human Rights Council, the Representative of Syria, Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui, was given permission to speak. Among the objections to the resolution that he raised was that the resolution did not take into account the report of the Syrian government’s Commission of Inquiry into the Houla tragedy. He also pointed to the closed process used by those drawing up the resolution. It was a process, he said, that did not accept any proposals to amend the resolution.

This interaction in the Human Rights Council takes on added significance when it is viewed in the context of the earlier Security Council request that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, with the involvement of UNSMIS (United Nations Supervisory Mission In Syria), do an investigation of the Houla massacre and report its findings to the Security Council.(3) This request was made in a press statement issued by the Security Council on May 27, 2012. By a rather mysterious process, the Security Council’s request that an investigation of the Houla massacre, which was to be carried out with the involvement of UNSMIS, was shifted to a significantly different process that was carried out by the Human Rights Council and the Commission of Inquiry it created, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (hereafter CoI). How this shift happened and the significance of this change, merit serious consideration by those who are concerned about the role the UN is playing in the conflict in Syria.

II-What Happened to the UNSMIS Report on Houla Investigation?

It will be helpful to review the Security Council’s request that there be an investigation of the Houla massacre with the involvement of UNSMIS. On May 27, shortly after the Houla Massacre took place, the UN Security Council issued a press statement. In the statement it said(4):

“The members of the Security Council requested the Secretary General with the involvement of UNSMIS (United Nations Supervision Mission In Syria) to continue to investigate these attacks and report the findings to the Security Council.”

Note that the Secretary General was to present the results of the UNSMIS investigation to the Security Council.

Similarly relevant is an article by Reuters on May 29, two days after the Security Council issued its press statement. In the article, Karen AbuZug, a Commissioner on the CoI created by the Human Rights Council, is quoted saying (5), “We are discussing with UNSMIS over the next few days to see whether we can also have a look and maybe corroborate with information we get from outside the country.” Such a statement can be considered as an acknowledgment that UNSMIS was to conduct an on the ground investigation and the CoI would add what it could from its sources outside the country. The role assigned to UNSMIS by the Security Council to be involved in conducting the investigation was at the time recognized by AbuZug.

At a press conference with journalists in Damascus on June 15, Major-General Robert Mood, head of UNSMIS, explained the progress of UNSMIS in carrying out its investigation of the Houla tragedy.(6) He said that UNSMIS had been to Houla with an investigating team. They did interviews. They interviewed locals who told one story. They interviewed locals who told another story. But the circumstances leading up to Houla, the detailed circumstances, the facts related to the incident still remained unclear to the UNSMIS investigators. This led General Mood to say that if there was a decision to support a more extensive on the ground investigation, UNSMIS could help to facilitate it.

As a result of its work, he said, UNSMIS put together the facts it could establish by what the team saw on the ground, together with the conflicting statements and witness interviews. UNSMIS sent that as a report to UN Headquarters in New York. (7)

Given this set of events one could logically expect that the Secretary General would present the conflicting results of the UNSMIS investigation to the Security Council, and the Security Council would consider whether to ask the Secretary General to establish a more extensive on the ground investigation of the circumstances leading to and occurring during the Houla massacre. This more extensive on the ground investigation would be one with access facilitated by UNSMIS as General Mood indicated was possible. As part of this more extensive investigation, the Human Right’s Council’s CoI might corrorborate, as AbuZug had proposed in her comments in the Reuters article on May 29, by providing information from those outside of Syria if that was relevant.

But this is not what happened.

Instead there was silence at UN Headquarters about what the Secretary General’s intentions were with respect to transmitting the findings of the UNSMIS investigation to the Security Council.

Only when journalists raised the question, did the Spokesperson for the Secretary General give any indication that the Report had been received.

On June 21, responding to a question from a journalist, the UN Spokesperson acknowledged the Secretary General had received the UNSMIS Houla Report. The Spokesperson for the Secretary General explained(8):

“Spokesperson: Well, the Mission has sent its observations on the al-Houla killings to the Secretary-General for his consideration. The Secretary-General is in turn sending these observations to the relevant UN bodies monitoring human rights in Syria. And once these bodies complete their work, the findings on what I think everybody agrees was a terrible incident will be presented by the Secretary General to the Security Council,”

This statement raises the question of why the findings of UNSMIS were to be diverted to what he referred to as “UN bodies monitoring human rights” rather than presented directly to the Security Council as the Security Council had requested in their May 27 press statement.

The Spokesperson’s statement, however, acknowledges the UNSMIS Report on Houla was received by the Secretary General and that the Secretary General had the obligation to present it to the Security Council. Nevertheless, even several months later, members of the Security Council said that the conflicting information gathered from the on the ground investigatory process by UNSMIS still had not been presented to Security Council members.

When a question about the missing UNSMIS Report on Houla was raised again at the Secretary General’s Spokesperson’s briefing on September 14, the Deputy Spokesperson promised she would get a response to the journalist’s question.(9) In an email a few days later, on September 17, the Deputy Spokesperson wrote (10): “(J)ust to follow up on your question from Friday, the report by UNSMIS (i.e. Mood’s report) went to the Human Rights Council and the Security Council. Any further follow-up is in their hands.”

Yet when the President of the Security Council for the month of October, Guatemala’s Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, held a press conference on October 2, he was asked whether the Security Council had received General Mood’s Report. His response was (11):

“To the best of my knowledge, the answer is No.”

“I personally (as) a member of the council have not seen that report,” he said.

Apparently, according to the Guatemalan Ambassador, the Security Council members had not seen the UNSMIS Report on Houla, despite the Deputy Spokesperson’s email stating that the UNSMIS Report had gone to the Security Council.

And an email to the Spokesperson for the Human Rights Council about whether the Human Rights Council had seen the UNSMIS Report on the Houla massacre received no response.

Then on October 16, two members of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria (CoI) appointed by the Human Rights Council held a press conference at UN Headquarters.(12) At the press conference, Karen AbuZug, a Commissioner and Paulo Pinheiro, Chairman of the Commission, were asked if they had seen the UNSMIS Report on Houla submitted by General Mood to UN Headquarters. AbuZug responded that she had been given a briefing on the Report but had not seen the Report itself. There was no means to ask another question about this issue during the press conference. After the press conference ended, AbuZug was asked if she could say what was presented in the briefing on General Mood’s report. She responded that the briefing was confidential.

III – CoI Report as a One Sided Document

The CoI produced both a preliminary report on Houla of 20 pages on June 26, titled “Oral Update of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic” (A/HRC/20/CRP.1) (hereafter Oral Update Report) and a final Report in August titled “Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic”. (A/HRC/21/50) (hereafter August Report). The August Report is 107 pages but the part about the Houla massacre is approximately 7 pages (pages 10-12 and 64-67).

These reports by the CoI appear to serve not as a corroboration of the on the ground investigation by the UNSMIS team, as AbuZug originally proposed, but rather as the substitute for the UNSMIS Report. The UNSMIS Report of conflicting statements and interviews from locals in Houla, which General Mood described to journalists on June 15, appears to have vanished. Instead of the UNSMIS Report of the two conflicting versions of the stories by locals in Houla indicating the need for a more substantial on the ground investigation, the CoI, with no actual evidence presented, declared that the Syrian government was to blame for the Houla massacre.

In contrast to General Mood’s statement to journalists that UNSMIS had been on the site of the Houla massacre with an investigating team, the CoI made no visits to the site of the Houla massacre. When asked why the CoI did not include information from the UNSMIS Report in their CoI Report, Pinheiro answered that the report only includes the information the Commission gets from its own investigators. Such a statement is contradicted in its own August Report, which does include references to information from UNSMIS, just not with regard to the Houla massacre.

In his June 15 press briefing, General Mood said the UNSMIS Report on Houla included statements and interviews with locals with one story and statements and interviews with locals with another story. The August Report of the CoI tells only one story and claims that they either do not have other information or that any other information they know of is inconsistent, so that they have accepted that there is only one story. The Reports that the CoI produced had no onsite interviews or statements, but only telephone or Skype interviews with insurgents or those supporting the account of Houla presented by the armed insurgents.

General Mood said the scope of the information needed was, “the circumstances leading up to el Houla and the detailed circumstances, the facts related to the incident itself.” He explained that these still remained unclear to UNSMIS. This information is needed to set a basis for a report on the Houla tragedy that is impartial and balanced, based on an understanding of the facts of not only what happened at Houla, but also what led up to this tragedy.

While the scope of the question raised by General Mood and UNSMIS for the Houla investigation was a question which puts what happened in Houla into a broader context, the CoI Reports, instead, narrow down the question raised so that the broader context is obscured.

The August Report from the CoI poses as its critical question, whether the Syrian government had the ability to have access to the area where the massacre occurred. The August Report speculates that the Syrian government maintained control over one of the checkpoints in the area of a site of a massacre. Based on this speculation, the August Report claims that the Syrian government must be responsible for the massacre.

In general, however, accounts of the events of the tragedy differ about whether or not the Syrian military lost control of the checkpoints around the area where the massacre occurred. Also, there seems general agreement that the area in question was under the control of the armed insurgents and had been for a period of time.

The widely held agreement or claim that the armed insurgents had control of the area where the massacre took place was even referred to in a letter to the Security Council by Ban Ki moon shortly after the massacre occurred. In his letter to the UN Security Council, Ban Ki-moon wrote

“The villages in question have been outside of the Government control, but surrounded by heavy military presence.” (The Secretary General, 27 May, 2012) The CoI Reports dismiss the fact that the area was under the control of the armed insurgents.

Similarly, in the CoI Reports, there is no motive given for why the Syrian government would want to massacre these civilians.

This information is needed to set a basis for a report on the Houla tragedy that is impartial and balanced, based on an understanding of the facts of not only what happened at Houla, but also what led up to this tragedy.

General Mood also explained that there was a need to understand the facts related to the incident itself that were unclear even after the UNSMIS investigation.

The August Report, instead, treats its speculative conclusions as facts, rather than acknowledging that there are significant facts related to the incident itself which remain unclear, but which need to be resolved in order to determine who is responsible.

It is also important to remember that the UNSMIS investigation came up with conflicting stories, and conflicting interviews. There remain conflicting stories and conflicting interviews about what happened at Houla. Yet the August Report shows little recognition that this is true or that there is a need to not only recognize these conflicting accounts, but also to propose the need to have a more extensive investigation that can resolve the unsettled issues.

The CoI Reports complain that their investigators did not have access to people on the ground in Syria, and so had to rely on interviews by phone or Skype. But the failure of the CoI investigators to do a balanced and impartial investigation explains why the Syrian government would not be willing to give them permission to carry out an investigation in Syria.

The question needs to be raised as to why the CoI investigators did not identify or contact people who could present a range of conflicting statements or interviews as UNSMIS had gathered and presented to UN headquarters. In addition, there are a number of potential witnesses that have been identified by alternative media or NGO sources whose accounts of the events differ from the conclusion of the August Report. Some of these alternative media or NGO sources report that when they tried to offer information to the CoI, their offers were refused.(14) It is hard to understand how the CoI could claim it could accomplish an impartial and balanced investigation without accepting such offers and seeking such contacts.

Instead, the CoI Reports, particularly the August Report, are based mainly on the views of the armed insurgents. The August Report even misrepresents what the CoI said in the earlier Oral Update Report. The Oral Update Report allowed for three alternative possibilities as to who was responsible for the massacre of civilians.

The Oral Update Report of the CoI says (See for example, A/HRC/20/CRP.1, para 48-49,54-55 p. 10-11):

“First, that the perpetrators were ‘Shabbiha’ or other local militia from neighbouring villages, possibly operating together with, or with the acquiescence of, the Government security forces; second that the perpetrators were anti-Government forces seeking to escalate the conflict while punishing those that failed to support – or who actively opposed – the rebellion; or third, foreign groups with unknown affiliation.”

“With the available evidence,” the Oral Update Report said, ‘the CoI could not rule out any of these possibilities.”

A few paragraphs later it added:

“The CoI could not rule out the possibility of the involvement of foreign groups with unknown affiliation. The CoI received information that the anti-Government armed groups in Taldou on that day received ‘support from other groups from neighboring areas.’ Testimony was also collected that described the perpetrators as having shaved heads and long beards – descriptions which have been applied both to foreign groups and the Shabbiha in other contexts. This information could not be corrorborated by the Commission.”

Based on this statement, the Oral Update Report stated:

“The CoI is unable to determine the identity of the perpetrators at this time….”

Without providing any substantial new evidence, the August Report, instead, states that there is “no doubt the Syrian government was responsible for the Houla massacre.” (A/HRC/21/50, para 49, p. 10)

The August Report even misrepresents that the earlier Oral Update Report offers three alternative views of who was responsible for the deaths of civilians in Houla. (See A/HRC/21/50, para 41, p. 10)

Somehow between the time of the Oral Update Report of June 26, and the August Report, the CoI found a means to trivialize what criteria would determine who to blame for the massacre. Also the CoI dismissed the broader issues, the questions and the obligation to provide a more substantial consideration of the background to the events that had occurred in Houla.

And with no explanation offered, the UNSMIS Report that Mood said was submitted to UN Headquarters, has effectively disappeared. Subsequently, the UNSMIS mission itself was ended. And the Security Council request to Ban Ki-moon to report to it on the findings of the UNSMIS investigation in Houla has never bee fulfilled.

If the Security Council had heard the details of the conflicting nature of the statements and interviews in the UNSMIS Report and had this Report been available to the media and the public, this could have provided public pressure for the continuation of the UNSMIS mission and for the establishment of an impartial, competent team to conduct an on the ground investigation facilitated by UNSMIS. But this did not happen. With the disappearance of the UNSMIS Report on Houla, the Security Council allowed UNSMIS to be terminated.

Subsequently, the CoI appointed by the Human Rights Council was allowed to substitute a biased report lacking any direct knowledge of the details of what happened in Houla or any face to face interviews with witnesses with direct knowledge of the events to be investigated.

One may ask why such a switch was made from the UNSMIS Report on Houla with information from an on the ground investigation gathering conflicting statements and interviews as requested by the Security Council, to the substitution of the Human Rights Council’s CoI Report presenting no actual evidence, but putting the blame for the Houla massacre on the Syrian government.

This is a question which needs further investigation and analysis. An important clue to an answer, however, is suggested by the June 21 UN Spokesman’s response to the question from the journalist who asked what happened to the UNSMIS Report.

Instead of sending the report directly to the Security Council as could be expected, the Spokesman said that the Secretary General was “sending these observations to the relevant UN bodies monitoring human rights in Syria.”

But the Security Council’s May 27 press statement asked the Secretary General with the involvement of UNSMIS to do an investigation of the Houla massacre, and report the findings to the Security Council. There was no Security Council request that the UNSMIS Report on Houla first be sent to UN bodies monitoring human rights.

Considering the subsequent developments the reason for this diversion becomes more apparent. UNSMIS took as its obligation to maintain a neutrality (See for example General Mood’s July 5 press conference in Damascus, where he describes how he worked to maintain an impartiality in the actions of UNSMIS). (15) The CoI, on the contrary, did not act to maintain an impartiality in its investigation, but instead took a side in gathering the information it considered for its investigation and the people it contacted.

The consequence of such a bias in the CoI investigation resulted in the August Report that has been justly criticized as presenting one sided conclusions and attributing blame for the Houla massacre without sufficient evidence.

Furthermore, if one asks UN related officials about the UNSMIS report on Houla, one is likely instead to be pointed to the August Report of the CoI. (16)

Thus it appears that by the time the UNSMIS Report on Houla was submitted to UN Headquarters, some decision had been made that it would not be presented to the Security Council, but instead the CoI would create a substitute report, despite the fact that this body had no direct access to the facts or to witnesses to the massacre.

And it appears that this substitution of the Human Rights appointed CoI Reports for the UNSMIS Houla Report has received only rare media attention, though the CoI Reports have been critiqued by some of the alternative media. (17)

For example, Marinella Correggia is an activist with the Italian No War network-ROMA which critiqued the CoI Reports. She concludes that given the Commission’s international mandate, the partiality and one-sidedness of the August Report is both flabbergasting and disconcerting. She asks,“Has the UN no internal assessment mechanism to prevent such abuses in the ‘documentation’ of events upon which the UN is then required to act?”(18)

At the present time, the answer to her question appears to be that the UN does not have any internal mechanism to prevent such abuse, except for the few statements by member nations that are willing to speak out and make their criticisms, as did the nations that voted against or abstained in the vote at the Human Rights Council on September 28 Resolution condemning Syria.

Unfortunately, though, the result of the decision to substitute a biased CoI Report based on one sided reasoning and speculative conclusions, for the UNSMIS Report based on an impartial on the ground investigation, has significant consequences for the UN. The obligation of the UN is to be impartial, so as to be able to help resolve conflicts that threaten international peace and security. If instead the UN acts as the political proponent of certain powerful member states intervening in domestic conflicts of other states to bring about regime change, then the very essence of the UN is impaired and put in jeopardy.

Notes

1) A/HCR/21/L.32A. This resolution was passed by the Human Rights Council Resolution on September 28 2012 condemning Syria for the Houla Massacre based on the biased and one sided Reports of the COI.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article176162.html

2) The proceedings of the September 28 2012 meeting of the Human Rights Council are online at the UN webside. The url for the video is:

http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/human-rights-council/watch/l32-vote-item:4-38th-meeting-21st-regular-session-of-human-rights-council/1865712813001

The Russian Federation’s Representation spoke from min. 4:42 -8:10
The Chinese Delegate spoke from min. 13:09-15:50
The Cuban Representative spoke from min. 16:10-18:50
The Syrian Representative can be heard in the video from min. 24:34-35:30

3)Ronda Hauben, ”The UN and General Mood’s Missing Report on Conflicting Accounts of the Houla Massacre”, September 10, 2012, http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2012/09/10/unsmis-report-houla-massacre/

4) See the wording in the UN Security Council Press Statement on Houla May 27, 2012
”Those responsible for acts of violence must be held accountable. The members of the Security Council requested the Secretary-General, with the involvement of UNSMIS [United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria], to continue to investigate these attacks and report the findings to the Security Council.”
The url is: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/sc10658.doc.htm

5) Stephanie Nebehay ,“Most Houla victims killed in summary executions: UN” , Tuesday, May 29, 2012.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/29/us-syria-un-idUSBRE84S10020120529

6) Press Conference with Major General Robert Mood in Damascus, June 15, 2012, Video Part 2. The section where General Mood describes the Report on Houla starts at min: 3:10 to 4:17 . The url is:

7) Describing the investigation by UNSMIS into the Houla massacre and the report UNSMIS submitted to UN headquarters, General Mood tells journalists, as transcribed from the video:
“The statement we issued after el Houla is still valid.
Which means we have been there with an investigating team.
We have interviews, interviewed locals with one story, and we have interviewed locals that has another story.
The circumstances leading up to el Houla and the detailed circumstances, the facts related to the incident itself, still remains unclear to us.
We have put this together, the facts that we (can) could establish by what we saw on the ground. We have put together the statements, the witness interviews and we have sent that as a report to UN headquarters, New York.
And then the assessment on what’s the way forward. Will there be a different investigation? (This-ed) is a matter for headquarters in this context. But if we are asked, obviously we are on the ground, and could help facilitate that.”

(8) Press Briefing with UN Spokesperson on June 21, 2012.

http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2012/db120621.doc.htm

9) Press Briefing with UN Spokesperson on Sept 14, 2012.

http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2012/db120914.doc.htm

10) Email received from the Deputy Spokesperson on September 17, 2012.

11) Video at the UN website of 2 Oct 2012 – H. E. Mr. Gert Rosenthal, Permanent Representative of Guatemala to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for the month of October 2012 on the programme of work of the Security Council in October. The url for the video is:

http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/security-council/watch/gert-rosenthal-guatemala-president-of-the-security-council-on-the-programme-of-work-for-the-month-of-october-2012-press-conference/1873411152001

12) Press Conference on 16 Oct 2012 – Paulo Pinheiro, Chair and member of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria and Karen AbuZayd. The url of the video on the UN website is:

http://webtv.un.org/watch/the-latest-findings-on-the-human-rights-situation-in-syria-press-conference/1904479973001

13)S/2012/368. Letter dated 27 May 2012 from the Secretary-General to the President of the Security Council. The url is:

http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/Syria%20S2012%20368.pdf

14) See for example: “Anti-war campaigner Marinella Corregia worries the HR commissioner talks only to its sources: the opposition.”

http://www.rt.com/news/houla-massacre-un-syria-635/

Thursday, May 31 2012, “UN report on Houla massacre? But they only talk to Syrian opposition – by phone, “Uprooted Palestinians”.

http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2012/05/river-to-sea-uprooted-palestinian-views.html

15) General Mood Meets the Press, Damascus, July 5, 2012.

See for example from min. 17:25-19:00
General Mood describes how UNSMIS has established an impartial system with “exactly the mechanism that addresses both sides in the same way”.

16) I have had two experiences when I asked either present or former UN officials connected for the UNSMIS Report.. In both cases I was referred to the CoI Reports with no indication about what happened to the UNSMIS Report on Houla.

17) See for example: Marinella Correggia, “THE RECENT REPORT ON SYRIA BY THE “INDIPENDENT INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY” (CoI) mandated by the Human Rights Council is one-sided and lacks evidences” The url is http://www.sibialiria.org/wordpress/?p=777

See also, in Italian Marinella Correggia. DOCUMENTO. Le fonti parziali e le prove mancanti nel rappoto della “Commissione internazionale indipendente di inchiesta” (COI) nominata dall’Onu. The url is

http://www.sibialiria.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CONTRODOCUMENTO.LEFONTIELEACCUSEDELLACOMMISSIONEINTERNAZIONALEDIINCHIESTAONUpdf.pdf

Another site that has taken on to examine the issues involved in the conflict in Syria
“A Closer Look On Syria”.

http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

18) Marinella Correggia, “THE RECENT REPORT ON SYRIA BY THE “INDIPENDENT INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY” (CoI) mandated by the Human Rights Council is one-sided and lacks evidences” The url is http://www.sibialiria.org/wordpress/?p=777
See also Christof Lehmann, “Italian Peace Movement Criticizes Report of International Commission on Syria, Sept 9 2012, NSNBC.

http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/tag/marinella-correggia/

Oct 31 UN Security Council Mtg After UN closed for 2-1/2 days

The impact of the storm Sandy on UN Headquarters in New York from Monday October 29, until 3 pm Wednesday, October 31 was essentially the suspension of all meetings and official silence. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was away from UN Headquarters, on a trip to South Korea. For over two days, little had been heard from the UN except for an occasional email notice that the UN would be closed. This went on for Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday. But then on Wednesday, around 3:05 pm a new email arrived announcing that there would be a Security Council meeting to take place at 3:00 pm, but not in the usual Security Council meeting area .

It was possible to view the meeting itself on the UN web site and it was evident that the UN meeting was taking place in the temporary building known as NLB, not in the headquarters building itself where it usually meets. Why the change, however, was not announced.

An email to the Spokesperson’s office at the UN asking about the problem was answered explaining:

“The building has had some water damage in the basement, but the larger problem is simply the one facing the area: the difficulties in commuting to work and in the communications networks. Thanks.”

It was helpful to get this response to the question of what had happened, but this was not a sufficient explanation for not hearing how the UN had suspended operations at its New York headquarters for almost three days with little explanation of what was happening being offered to the public.

During the Security Council meeting held at what seemed short notice, Guatemala’s Ambassador to the UN, Gert Rosenthal gave a hint at what had happened. He said that his mission was without electricity, water and Internet. He ended the last Security Council meeting of October 2012 with the statement, “What we have discovered is that the world without Internet just doesn’t work.”

Part I – The Houla Massacre

The Houla massacre occurred in Syria on May 25, 2012.

This was but a few days before Kofi Annan, who was at the time the joint Arab League-UN envoy, was scheduled to visit Syria.

Immediately after the massacre, there was a media campaign in much of the western media to blame the Syrian government for the deaths. There were 108 deaths reported which included men, women and children. A short time after the massacre, an alternative account was made available by a Russian online media group, Anna News.(1) The day following the massacre, a news team for this online site visited the area where the massacre had occurred. Their report appeared on a number of alternative news sites soon after the massacre.

The reports from the Anna News team, and other netizen news reports, challenged the mainstream western media claims that the Syrian government was responsible for the killings.

Similarly, the Syrian government conducted a preliminary investigation. They provided witnesses that the massacre was carried out by armed insurgents and criminal elements.

The mainstream western media accounts of the massacre (and some Arab satellite tv channels) have mainly presented what they claim is happening from the point of view of the armed opposition in Syria. The armed opposition’s account of events demonizes the Syrian government and campaigns for foreign intervention. There have been a number of instances when the accounts from the armed opposition have been shown to be false.

Differing from the reports in the mainstream western media is information presented by the Syrian government. Also there is the information in the alternative media that I refer to as netizen journalism. Netizen journalism exposes distortions and misrepresentations in the news coverage provided by the mainstream western media, and does the investigation required to present an accurate narrative. For example, in the aftermath of the Houla massacre, a number of articles documenting the role of the armed insurgents in carrying out the Houla massacre appeared on alternative media sites. Similarly there were articles comparing what had happened in Houla with media campaigns advocating foreign intervention in the Yugoslavian conflict in the 1990s. Also there were articles considering what the motive was behind the massacre and the clues this provided toward determining who was responsible.

I want to propose that this form of alternative media is setting up a communication channel different from that of the mainstream western media.

What has been interesting has been to not only consider the two different channels that these different forms of news represent, but also to look at how different actors at the UN relate to these different communication channels.

In April, the UN Security Council authorized a mission of 300 unarmed observers to monitor what was happening in Syria and to try to encourage a cease fire between the conflicting parties. This mission was called the UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS). When the Houla massacre first occurred, UNSMIS observers went to investigate the massacre. The initial response of UNSMIS was that there were two views of what had occurred and who was responsible presented to them. UNSMIS said it was not yet possible to make a determination which was accurate and which was a falsification.

In June, responding to the request from the UN Security Council in the press statement issued after the Houla massacre that UNSMIS do an investigation,(2) Major General Robert Mood, the commander of UNSMIS told journalists that a report had been prepared and submitted to UN headquarters.

In the article “General Mood: ‘Two Versions’ of the Houla Massacre,” John Rosenthal writes, “At the June 15 press conference General Mood went on to say that the mission had assembled a report about the massacre, including the details of witness interviews and that this report had been submitted to UN headquarters in New York. This raises an obvious question,” writes Rosenthal, “Why has this report not been rendered public?”(3) Rosenthal does a service pointing to General Mood’s June 15 press conference in Damascus. The press conference is online only in a video format. I have transcribed the part of the press conference where General Mood talks about the report on the Houla massacre that he says was given to UN headquarters.(4)

Describing the investigation by UNSMIS into the Houla massacre and the report UNSMIS submitted to UN headquarters, General Mood tells journalists:

“The statement we issued after el Houla is still valid.

Which means we have been there with an investigating team.

We have interviews, interviewed locals with one story, and we have interviewed locals that has another story.

The circumstances leading up to el Houla and the detailed circumstances, the facts related to the incident itself, still remains unclear to us.

We have put this together, the facts that we (can) could establish by what we saw on the ground. We have put together the statements, the witness interviews and we have sent that as a report to UN headquarters, New York.

And then the assessment on what’s the way forward. Will there be a different investigation? (This-ed) is a matter for headquarters in this context. But if we are asked, obviously we are on the ground, and could help facilitate that.”

According to General Mood’s statement during this press conference, UNSMIS provided UN headquarters with a report on the Houla massacre. This report included the facts on the ground that UNSMIS was able to establish, and also witness statements and interviews from “locals with one story” and from “locals that has another story.” This report, according to General Mood, was not able to establish “the circumstances leading up to el Houla, and the detailed circumstances, the facts related to the incident itself,” as these still remained “unclear” to UNSMIS.

But General Mood explained that if there was to be “a different investigation,” UNSMIS was “on the ground and could facilitate that.”

UN Security Council members have said that the Security Council did not receive the report nor does it appear that there was general knowledge at the Security Council that this report presented two conflicting accounts of what happened and that UNSMIS, which was on the ground in Syria at the time, was able to help conduct a more expansive investigation to determine who was responsible for the massacre.

The question is raised as to why the UN Secretariat did not make the UNSMIS report available to the Security Council? Why didn’t the UN pursue the course of a further investigation into the circumstances leading up to the Houla massacre and the facts related to the incident itself by taking up the offer that General Mood made to facilitate such an investigation?

When journalists asked the Secretary-General’s spokesperson what happened to Mood’s report and why it wasn’t given to the Security Council, the spokesman told the press the report had been given to various members of the UN Secretariat. But as several people at the UN and online have asked, “Why not to the Security Council?”

One of the original purposes for the UNSMIS mission, according to Kofi Annan, was “to see what is going on” so as to be able to “change the dynamics.”(5)

This past April, outlining the need for UNSMIS, Annan said, “We continue to be hampered by the lack of verified information in assessing the situation….We need eyes and ears on the ground. This will provide the incontrovertible basis the international community needs to act in an effective and unified manner, increasing the momentum for a cessation of violence to be implemented by all sides.” This “eyes and ears on the ground” function was to be filled by UNSMIS. UNSMIS was deployed to Syria and was on the ground at the time of the Houla Massacre and was able to do an investigation.

Yet when UNSMIS submitted a report to UN headquarters documenting its investigation, it was withheld from the Security Council. Though Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson acknowledged that the report was received, the report was not given to the Security Council. It was not made available to the media and the public. Thus it could not be part of the “eyes and ears on the ground” that Annan said was needed. One can only wonder about the fact that shortly after this report was received by the Secretariat, General Mood left UNSMIS, and not long after that, UNSMIS was ended. The UNSMIS report on Houla did not blame the Syrian government for the massacre, but instead presented two conflicting views of the massacre and offered to facilitate a further investigation.

At least some Security Council members indicated that they wanted the kind of information General Mood explained was in his report. For example, on June 4, at a press conference to mark the beginning of the Chinese Presidency of the Security Council for the month of June 2012, China’s Ambassador Li Baodong, referring to the Houla massacre, said (6):

“Now we have different stories from different angles. Now we have the story from the Syrian government, and from the opposition parties, and from different sources.” Since the Security Council “has a team…on the ground,” he said referring to UNSMIS, “We want to see first-hand information from our own people.” He hoped this would make it possible to put the different pieces of information together and to come “to our own conclusion with our own judgment.”

The acknowledgement by China’s UN Ambassador that there were different views of what had happened in the Houla massacre and that there was a need to get accurate information from an on the ground investigation was an important step for a member of the Security Council to make. This challenged mainstream media claims that their account was the only account of what was happening in Syria. The UNSMIS report was the kind of additional information the Chinese Ambassador indicated he was seeking.

The fact remains, however, that the report from UNSMIS that General Mood presented to Ban Ki-moon’s UN headquarters was withheld from the Security Council, the press and the public. Instead of the UNSMIS report, and any in-depth independent investigation conducted by the UN, which General Mood said UNSMIS could facilitate, on August 3, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the government of Syria for the violence in Syria. In his speech in support of the resolution, Abdallah Y Al-Mouallini, the Ambassador representing Saudi Arabia at the UN, blamed the Syrian government for the Houla massacre.

Similarly, in August, the Human Rights Council issued a report blaming the Syrian government for the violence in Syria, with no effort to reconcile the conflicting facts or interviews submitted by UNSMIS to the UN, nor any effort to take up the offer made by General Mood that UNSMIS would provide on the ground assistance to do the needed investigation. The report of the Human Rights Council inaccurately claimed that(7):

“The lack of access significantly hampered the commission’s ability to fulfill its mandate. Its access to Government officials and to members of the armed and security forces was negligible. Importantly, victims and witnesses inside the country could not be interviewed in person.”

Such a statement by the Human Rights Council misrepresented the fact that indeed the UN had had observers on the ground in Syria, and that those observers not only gave a report to the UN, but also said that they could facilitate a more thorough investigation if the UN desired to do so. Hence the claims of the Human Rights Council that the UN was unable to conduct an investigation are contrary to General Mood’s statement to the press.

Then in August the Security Council, without being able to review the UNSMIS report or to consider the need for the additional investigation that General Mood said was possible in order to determine who was responsible for the Houla massacre, allowed the mandate authorizing UNSMIS to expire. Though there was an effort by some on the Council to introduce a resolution to extend UNSMIS, others on the Council refused to do so unless Syria was penalized, even though the issue of who was responsible for the violence against civilians, as had happened at Houla, had not been determined by the Security Council nor by any other UN body through an UNSMIS facilitated and impartial investigation.

Commenting on the Security Council action withdrawing UNSMIS from Syria, Archbishop Mario Zenari, the Vatican Nuncio to Syria, said that the withdrawal of UN forces from Syria was “a sad blow. Three or four months ago, there was a good bit of hope for their mission, and now their departure plunges us back into this reality….”(8)

His disappointment is understandable. If the Annan plan was based on having “eyes and ears on the ground” as a way to discourage violence against civilians, the failure of the UN to make the UNSMIS report on Houla available to the Security Council and to the public, and to recognize the need for a more extensive pursuit of the facts of what happened in Houla, was a failure dooming the Annan mission in Syria.

Commenting on what she referred to as “fake” news reports about what is happening in Syria, Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, a Superior of the community at the monastery of St James the Mutilated in Qara, Syria, explained that the news reports were “forged with only one side emphasized.”(9) In her comments to the Irish Times, she included a criticism of UN reports that she said, were “one sided and not worthy of that organization.” Though she didn’t specify any particular reports, one would not be surprised if it were particularly the Human Rights Council Report she had in mind.

In a paper titled, “The Role of Netizen Journalism in the Media War at the United Nations” presented in July at the International Relations and Political Science Conference in Beijing, I documented more of the particularities of netizen journalism in the media war at the UN over Syria. (10) There have been many articles and videos posted on a number of web sites challenging the western mainstream media version of the events in Houla and providing facts that make a convincing case that the massacre was carried out by armed insurgents and local criminals.

With these articles acting as a catalyst, the mainstream German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung published two articles documenting how the armed insurgency was responsible for the Houla massacre. The titles of the articles translated into English were “Syrian Rebels Committed Houla Massacre” and “On the Houla Massacre: The Extermination”.

In my paper on “The Role of Netizen Journalism in the Media War at the UN,” I also consider the netizen journalism coverage of two other examples of conflicts that were under consideration by the Security Council and consider the impact on the Security Council of the netizen journalism on these issues.

II- Conclusion

The problem raised by this preliminary presentation concerns the importance of facilitating an accurate channel of communication about the conflicts under consideration by the Security Council.

In the example of the Syrian conflict, the fact that General Mood’s report on the Houla massacre could be withheld from the Security Council, and UNSMIS ended by the UN Security Council without any consideration of the issues raised by the report, represents a serious dilemma. This indicates that there is a problem with the communication channels at the UN. There is a problem with the integrity of these communication channels. This is an example of what happens when a communication channel can be blocked.

In a press conference held in March of 2011 when China assumed the month long rotating Security Council presidency, Ambassador Li Baodong referred to the international media as the “16th member of the Security Council.”(11)

While Ambassador Li Baodong was then referring to the mainstream media, it is important to recognize that there is a new form of journalism emerging. This new form of journalism is being created by netizens dedicated to doing the research and analysis to expose the interests and actions that are too often hidden from view in the reporting of the news. As a result of the failure at the UN to provide the Security Council with the conflicting facts of the UNSMIS investigation and to take up the UNSMIS offer to help carry out a more substantial investigation on the ground, an impartial investigation, the ability of the Security Council, and ultimately the UN, to determine what is an accurate narrative about the Houla massacre has been blocked.

Such a failure demonstrates ever more urgently the need to uncover the actual forces at work, the interests being served, and what is at stake in the events that make up the news.

This situation demonstrates in a graphic manner, the need for a netizen journalism that can help to create a channel for communication to provide a more accurate understanding of the conflicts the Security Council is considering. Such a journalism can help to make more likely the peaceful resolution of these conflicts.

Notes

(1)Anna News- Houla Report
Early reports were on Syrianews.cc but later many alternative web sites carried Anna Reports
Following is one url for an early report:

http://www.syrianews.cc/syria-what-really-happened-in-al-hula-homs/

(2) Security Council Press Statement on Attacks in Syria, May 27, 2012
”Those responsible for acts of violence must be held accountable. The members of the Security Council requested the Secretary-General, with the involvement of UNSMIS [United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria], to continue to investigate these attacks and report the findings to the Security Council.”

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/sc10658.doc.htm

(3) John Rosenthal, “General Mood: ‘Two Versions’ of the Houla Massacre”The Western media was quick to blame Assad. But does an unpublished UN report tell a different story?”, June 26, 2012.
Rosenthal writes: “What is perhaps most remarkable about General Mood’s comments is that they have been almost universally ignored — and this despite the fact that the video of the press conference has been made publicly available by UNSMIS on the mission’s own.”

http://pjmedia.com/blog/general-mood-two-versions-of-the-houla-massacre/

(4) June 15, 2012, General Mood Press Conference, Video part 2

The section where General Mood describes the UNSMIS report on Houla starts at min: 3:10 to 4:17

(5) See Kofi Annan tells UN “We Need Eyes and Ears on the Ground”, April 26, 2012

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2012/04/26/kofi-annan-briefing/

(6)Video of Li Baodong press conference marking the Chinese Presidency of Security Council for the month of June 2012. June 4, 2012.

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2012/06/li-baodong-china-president-of-the-security-council-on-the-programme-of-work-for-the-month-of-june-2012-press-conference.html

(7) Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria. Human Rights Council, August 15, 2012.

http://un-report.blogspot.com/2012/08/report-of-independent-international.html#more

(8) Cindy Wooden and Sarah MacDonald, “Nuncio in Syria: People stunned…worried for the future”, The Tidings, 24 August 2012.

http://www.the-tidings.com/index.php/news/newsworld/2548-nuncio-in-syria-people-stunned-worried-for-the-future

(9)Patsy McGarry, Media “Coverage of Syria violence partial and untrue, says nun,” The Irish times, Monday Aug 13, 2012, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0813/1224322099930.html

(10) “The Role of Netizen Journalism in the Media War at the UN”
Draft Paper:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/beijing2012/r-china2012-paper.doc

Talk:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/beijing2012/r-china2012-talk.doc

(11) Press Conference: Li Baodong (China) President of the Security Council for the month of March, 2 March 2011.

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/03/press-conference-li-baodong-china-president-of-the-security-council-for-the-month-of-march.html

Since the Security Council has “ a team….on the ground,” he said, “We want to see first-hand information from our own people.” He hoped this would make it possible to put the different pieces of information together and to come “to our own conclusion with our own judgment.”(1)

The expectation was that Joint UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan would be able to provide further information from the UNSMIS Observer mission when he came to speak with the Security Council on Thursday, June 7. It was anticipated that Annan’s presentation would help to clarify the facts of the massacre. (2)

On June 7, however, instead of providing new information from such an investigation, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and several of the other speakers at the Informal General Assembly (GA) meeting put the responsibility for the Houla Massacre on the Assad government. This was also the dominant response of the nations that spoke at the Informal GA meeting even though there had not yet been any adequate investigation into facts of the situation. (3) Also, there were claims of a new massacre.

Some of the member nations that spoke at the Informal GA meeting, however, objected to coming to such a conclusion, especially, in the absence of an adequate investigation.

In his comments referring to the massacres in Houla and on the outskirts of Hama, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said, “Clearly these are the most serious crimes that require a reliable detailed investigation.”

Other nations including Venezuela, India, Cuba and Nicaragua expressed similar views. The Venezuelan Representative told the Informal GA meeting, “We suspect the fact that these criminal acts happen to coincide with these debates at the UN. We have to wonder who does this benefit at this time?” He urged that, “an independent and transparent investigation into these massacres must take place and we must find convincing clarity.”

India’s Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, noted that the attacks against civilians and security forces in Syria “have intensified over the last few weeks and have taken a significant toll.” Also he drew attention to the sharp increase in the number of terrorist attacks in different parts of the country.” He “condemned all violence, irrespective of who the perpetrators are,” and called for the “cessation of all outside support for armed groups and serious action against the terrorist groups in Syria.” And he asked that the crimes, “including the recent incident in El Houleh, are fully investigated and their perpetrators brought to justice.”

After comparing what has happened in Syria with what had happened in Libya, the Nicaraguan Representative called for “an exhaustive investigation of these crimes and to bring the guilty to justice.”

The Cuban Ambassador noted that the “information is fragmented, imprecise and the object of frequent manipulation.” He denounced what he saw as the “complicity of the major broadcast media which are used to confusing reality and not accepting the responsibility for their acts.”

During his comments, which were twice cut off by the UN video transmission system, Ambassador Bashir Ja’afari, the Syrian Ambassador, asked how the Secretary General of the League of Arab States could render a judgment about who is responsible for the Houla massacre when such a judgment contradicts the report of the United Nations observers on the ground, and investigations of that atrocious massacre have not yet been completed. The massacre, he emphasized, had been condemned by the Syrian government.

Ambassador Ja’afari announced that, “Syria is ready to receive a commission of inquiry of states known for their independence and for their respect for the UN charter and for their refusal to interfere in Syrian internal affairs.”

Later in the afternoon, after the Security Council’s informal briefing with Kofi Annan, there was a media stakeout at the Security Council. One journalist asked Ban Ki moon, “Mr. Secretary General, what steps have you taken to comply with the request of the Security Council on 27th of May through the press statement to investigate fully, independently and transparently the killing in El Houleh?” The UN Secretary General did not answer the question. (4)

It is notable that as Ambassador Li Baodong had recognized during his press conference on June 4, several different narratives have been used to describe the Houla massacre. These offer different explanations of the circumstances under which it happened and therefore what the implications are for the future of the Kofi Annan 6 point peace plan.

Those nations encouraging an investigation into the details of the Houla massacre want to determine the lessons from it toward solving the crisis in Syria. Those who were quick to jump to conclusions based on superficial information are helping to fan the flames of the conflict.

What are these major competing narratives?

Western and Arab Media Narrative

The narrative that is being spread by much of the mainstream western and Arab satellite media is a narrative that blames the Assad government for the Houla massacre. At first that media claimed that the people killed, including the women and children, had been killed by shelling from Syrian troops attacking the town.

In examining the videos and photos put online or provided by the opposition making these claims, however, it became evident that many of the victims, particularly the women and children, had been killed at close range by bullets and knives and not by the shelling of heavy weapons by the Syrian military.

It soon became obvious that only 20 of the 108 who were killed may have been killed in combat fighting over the checkpoint and that the circumstances of these deaths were not yet determined.

The opposition and the western and Arab media supporting the opposition, like BBC and Aljazeera, etc. had to quickly change their narrative. They invented a new force allegedly used by the Syrian government, the shabbiya, which they claimed is a pro government militia. (5) The shabbiya allegedly came into the homes of people and killed them at close range.

Russian News Team Narrative

A Russian news team interviewed people after the massacre. The explanation compiled from these interviews represents a very different narrative.

Their account noted that Houla is an administrative area, made up of three villages. It is not the name of a town. Some of this area had been under control of armed insurgents for a number of weeks. The Syrian army maintained certain checkpoints. This account explains that on the evening of May 24, the Free Syrian Army launched an operation to take control of the checkpoints, bringing 600-800 armed insurgents from different areas.

At the same time that there was the fight over the checkpoints, several armed insurgents went into certain homes and massacred the members of several families. Among the families targeted was a family related to a recently elected People’s Assembly representative. This family and another family that were killed were said to be families that supported the Syrian government. “Other victims included the family of two journalists for Top News and New Orient Express, press agencies associated with Voltaire Network,” reports the news and analysis site Voltairenet.(6)

Template for Media Warfare

At a press conference held in Damascus shortly after the Houla massacre by Joint UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, a question was asked which provides an important context to keep in mind when trying to determine what happened in Houla.

The journalist asked: I am a Russian living in Syria and reporting for various Russian online sites. What is happening in Syria reminds me of what happened in Yugoslavia that led to its division. We have sources that tell us that the Pentagon is preparing for war. If that happens, what do we do? What do Syrians do and what does the Government do? (7)

Annan’s response was that he had no information of the Pentagon “preparing for war.” Nor did he have any indication that what was happening in Syria would be a repeat of “what happened in Yugoslavia.” Despite the fact that Annan dismissed the journalist’s question, the question provides an important perspective toward understanding what is happening in Syria.

Looking back at the form of media warfare used to prepare public opinion for the NATO aggression against the former Yugoslavia, a template emerges that reflects a pattern in these events.

In this media warfare, the mainstream western media was used to spread stories about the alleged “responsibility for” massacres in order to demonize certain forces. This demonization served to justify the NATO bombing of their country. Hence the Russian journalist’s question to Kofi Annan raised an important and serious concern.

In his book “Liar’s Poker”, which analyzes the role of the media in the Yugoslav war, Michel Collon writes “Information is already a battlefield, which is part of war.” He writes that in 1991 the Slovenian government created a “media center which unleashed a flood of disinformation to international correspondents.” (8) This disinformation created a false narrative about what was happening and about who was responsible for the violent acts that killed many innocent people. The false narrative was then used to provide the justification for foreign intervention on one side of the conflict.

Also Collon documents the use of US public relations agencies to help mold public opinion in favor of the Croatian and Muslim nationalists and as media warfare against the Serbs. In a striking way, Collon shows how “a massacre happens unexpectedly each time certain Western powers plan to escalate measures against the Serbs.”(9) He proposes what could be considered as the template used to create the climate of public opinion justifying the escalation of the attack on Yugoslavia.

Here are the components of the template he presents(10):

Step 1: Preparation of a more or less hidden agenda
Step 2: Images that shock Public Opinion
Step 3: Groundless and Wild Media Accusations Without Investigation
Step 4: Western Objectives are Achieved
Step 5: Corrections to Erroneous News Reporting: Too Late and No Impact

Collon argues that shocking events were “staged” for the international media so as to make possible a planned escalation of the attack on Serbia. The Houla massacre bears a striking resemblance to the incidents that Collon refers to in the 1990s that set a basis for the escalation of the aggression against the Serbian government.

Is this current rush to judgment, both at the UN, and in the mainstream western and Arab media but another example of support and encouragement for armed aggression against a sovereign nation, as in the Yugoslavian situation? Is it but a signal to the armed insurgents willing to carry out horrific deeds to achieve their goal of foreign intervention, that they should go ahead with their cruel agenda? These are questions that need to be asked as they may help to explain the underlying motives of one of the narratives.

The failure of mainstream western and Arab satellite media and of a number of nations at the UN to acknowledge that there are different views of the underlying cause and implementation of the Houla massacre impedes the urgency with which the needed investigation and analysis are to be organized.(11) Such an investigation is critical to identify the actual problems and to understand what is needed to solve them.

It is important to acknowledge that there are two major narratives about the events of the Houla massacre. Such an acknowledgment recognizes, as Ambassador Li Baodong did, the need for evidence to determine what is an accurate narrative of the Houla Massacre. There are a number of blogs and news sites on the Internet where netizens contribute articles and comments that are helpful toward analyzing what is happening in Syria and at the UN and whether the actions at the UN are helpful or harmful for resolving the crisis in a way that is in line with the principles of the UN charter. There are examples of a substantial new netizen journalism developing on the Internet which is taking up the needed work to investigate the facts of the Syrian conflict so as to understand what is needed to contribute to a peaceful resolution.(12)

Notes

(1)Video of Press Conference marking the beginning of the Chinese presidency of the Security Council for the month of June.

http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/security-council/watch/li-baodong-china-president-of-the-security-council-on-the-programme-of-work-for-the-month-of-june-2012-press-conference/1672822951001

(2)The press statement issued by the UN Security Council on May 27 called for the Secretary General and UNSMIS “to continue to investigate these attacks and report the findings to the Security Council.”

(3)See for example the summary by Moon of Alabama, http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/06/the-syria-discussion-at-the-un-general-assembly.html

(4) “Joint press encounter with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Kofi A. Annan, Joint UN-Arab League Special Envoy on Syria and Nabil El-Araby, Secretary General of the League of Arab States.”

(5)See for example the account by AP: “The assault came nearly a week after 108 people, many of them women and children, were killed in the area. Activists said government forces first shelled the area on Friday, then pro-regime fighters known as shabiha stormed the villages. The Syrian government denied its troops were behind the killings and blamed ‘armed terrorists’.”

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120531/UN-chief-warns-syria-houla-120531/20120531/?hub=CalgaryHome

(6)See for example: Thierry Meyssan, “The Houla Affair Highlights Western Intelligence Gap in Syria”,

http://www.voltairenet.org/The-Houla-affair-highlights

See also: Wassim Raad, “The Set Up Massacre and the American Fingerprint”

http://www.voltairenet.org/The-set-up-massacre-and-the

In German see for example Mathias Broeckers, “Der Hula-Hoax”

http://www.broeckers.com/2012/06/05/der-hula-hoax/

and Rainer Hermann,“Abermals Massaker in Syrien” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 7, 2012.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/neue-erkenntnisse-zu-getoeteten-von-hula-abermals-massaker-in-syrien-11776496.html

(An English translation FAZ is available at Moon of Alabama blog:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/06/prime-german-paper-syrian-rebels-committed-houla-massacre.html )

(7)Transcript of JSE Press Conference in Damascus, 29 May 2012, p. 4. For video see: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unsmis/

(8) Michel Collon, Liar’s Poker, International Action Center, New York, 2002 p. 45.(This is an English translation of the book which was originally published in French.)

(9)Ibid., p. 28

(10)Ibid., p. 26.

(11) The Human Rights Council has passed a resolution calling for an investigation into the Houla Massacre. Several sources, however, document that the Human Rights Council only considers information supplied by activists in support of the armed opposition. See for example “UN Commissions report on Houla? But they only talk to Syrian opposition – by phone”, May 31, 2012
“Anti-war campaigner Marinella Corregia worries the HR commissioner talks only to its sources: the opposition.”

http://www.rt.com/news/houla-massacre-un-syria-635/

(12) A few of the English language web sites providing news and analysis of the Syrian conflict toward a directed peaceful resolution include:

Moon of Alabama

http://www.moonofalabama.org/

Centre for Research on Globalization

http://www.globalresearch.ca/

VoltaireNet

http://www.voltairenet.org/en

Syria News

http://www.syrianews.cc/

Syria360

http://syria360.wordpress.com/

The 4th Media

http://www.4thmedia.org/