We the people of the United Nations, determined in 1945,
To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,
And to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of men and women and of nations large and small,
And to establish conditions under which justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law are respected,
And to promote social progress and better standards of living.

Article of the Charter of the United Nations 10:
The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or that relate to the powers and functions of any organs provided for, except as provided in article 12. Members of the Board recommend to the Security Council or both to what they determine in those matters.

Article of the Charter of the United Nations 11:
1. The General Assembly may consider the principles of cooperation in the maintenance of international peace and security, including the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments, and may make recommendations regarding such principles to the members, to the Security Council or to both.

2. The General Assembly may discuss any questions it has related to the maintenance of international peace and security brought by any member of the United Nations, the Security Council or a non-member state. It may discuss these questions in accordance with the provisions of the second paragraph of article 35—except as provided in article XII—to submit its recommendations on these matters to the State, to the states concerned or to the Security Council or to all of them. Every issue listed above that is necessary, should be referred to the General Assembly or the Security Council before or after the examination.

3. The General Assembly should draw the attention of the Security Council to situations that are likely to endanger international peace and security.

4. Does not limit the powers of the General Assembly, as set out in Article X.

Article 35 of the Charter of the United Nations:
1. Each Member of the United Nations should alert the Security Council or the General Assembly to any dispute or situation of the kind referred to in article 34.

2. Each State that is not a Member of the UN should alert the Security Council or the General Assembly of any dispute in which it is a party, if it respects the obligations to peacefully resolve the conflict provided for in the present Charter.

3. Are the provisions of articles 11 and 12 and the General Assembly issues related to it in accordance with this article?

 

 
Statement

When Secretary-General Kofi Annan initiated his plan to engage Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on March 10, 2012, the number of registered victims of the Syrian revolution, according to the records of the Syrian Human Rights Organization, had exceeded 10,460, 751 of them children and 632 women.

• The Syrian Government agreed to a joint Arab and international plan on March 27, at which time the number of victims had reached 11,890, 843 of them children and 718 women.
• The UN Security Council and Annan endorsed the plan on April 10, 2012. By then casualties in Syria had exceeded 13,066, including 905 children and 807 women.
• The plan entered into force on April 12, 2012, only two days later, and the number of victims had already exceeded 13,152, with 919 children and 822 women killed.
• The first international observers arrived on April 16, 2012. By then, the number of registered victims exceeded, 13,533, including 934 children and 855 women.
• At that time we called on the Syrian Human Rights Organization to establish follow-up mechanisms to the six points outlined in Annan’s initiative. We also referred to the need for consequences for the regime in case of non-implementation: (http://www.anhri.net/?p=52354).
• Yesterday, on August 2, 2012, the Arab-international envoy decided Annan withdrew from the job, leaving behind 22,912 Syrian victims, including 1,787 children and 1,766 women.

Meaning:
The international plan, advanced by and pursued by foreign leaders, is now dead. The UN Security Council have acted as accomplices to the Syrian regime, dragging on the younger Assad’s impunity for five additional months until Annan resigned, costing an additional 1,452 lives, 1,036 of whom were children and 1,134 were women.
The blood of these victims, as well as others who were not counted and the tortured and detained will forever stain the reputation of the UN Security Council, which is also “the Council of the victors of World War II” and which introduced an agreement that allows each Security Council member to veto any motion.  This stipulation, in Article 27 of the Charter, is no longer valid in today’s world.

The Security Council has become a hotbed of international intrigue and conspiracy. Its selectivity and double standards are legendary, as is its discrimination and oppression. Especially controversial is the presence of Russia, which does not have the legitimacy to represent the Soviet Union. Article 23 of the Charter, which appointed the Council’s permanent members, only specifies the Soviet Union as a member, not present-day Russia, which is a different state.
In order for this Article to be modified, two-thirds of General Assembly members must vote to do so, in accordance with Article 109 of the Charter. This imperfection in the UN body and the cumbersome process needed to fix such problems leads to human rights violations, and reflect negatively on people of the Earth, with Syrian citizens paying the price:

• First: The total known number of citizens killed by the Syrian since the start of the Syrian revolution on March 15, 2011 until Annan announced his plan was 10,460. Another 1,452 people died during the five months from when Annan submitted his plan until he resigned as envoy.  
• Second: There is a UN mandate related to preventing genocide that has not been invoked, despite systematic bombardment by the regime on civilian areas using warplanes, missile launchers, heavy artillery and all resources at its disposal beside chemical weapons. The day after Annan announced his peace plan to Assad on March 11, 2012, the regime massacred more than 87 civilians, mostly women and children. It later killed 55 in Hama, 200 in Yarmouk and others in Deir ez-Zor’s Hamadieh neighborhood, and killed 40 and wounded 120 in a countryside area south of Hama.
• Third: Annan imagined that, through the sheer power of his charisma, he would sit down and have a dialogue with Assad, and build a trusting relationship between them. Such a process would help the country avoid slipping into civil war. Now, after all those killed and the political deadlock, the Syrian people have to choose to either die or take up arms against the Syrian army. The Syrian Human Rights Organization welcomed the outcome of the vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations the weekend of August 3, 2012, which approved a resolution submitted by the Group of Arab States condemning the Syrian regime’s attacks on civilian areas, with 133 Member States in favor and 12 in opposition. The resolution also demanded the implementation by the regime of previous commitments to halt the use of heavy weapons, to withdraw troops from civilian areas and to return to their barracks. It also called on the Security Council to protect the Syrian people, ensure humanitarian access and begin a peaceful transition of power to a democratic, pluralistic system.

This decision came in the wake of the resignation of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, with the UN and its Security Council paralyzed in its duties to protect human rights, safeguard international peace and security and spare civilians. In the three days between Annan’s resignation and the UN resolution, 596 people died in Syria, at least 34 of them children and 37 women.  

The Syrian Human Rights Organization calls upon all peace-loving States and the so-called Group of Friends of the Syrian People to assume their responsibility in taking the initiative to protect civilians in Syria from the barbaric acts of aggression by the Syrian regime. The people have claimed freedom, democracy, pluralism and a civil state that protects their fundamental rights. The Syrian people paid the price for the experiment of the joint Arab and international initiative to mediate an agreement, which ultimately led to more violence, killings and destruction, by forcing those who oppose Assad to take up arms in self-defense. The unregulated supply of weapons and money into the country has now exacerbated the crisis and opened it to vulnerabilities that the Syrian Human Rights Organization wants to avoid.

Wallpapers:
After a year of the Syrian regime being given chance after chance before the UN Security Council to put down the uprising, Kofi Annan’s plan gave the regime in Syria a new license for murder. Below is a list of the problematic elements of the plan, and how they empowered and enabled the regime to commit atrocities:  

1) International observers sent to Syria to implement the plan had an impossible mission, because the plan allowed all parties to interpret the document as they wished and ensured the Syrian regime could shirk any responsibility in the face of massacres. Mission leader General Robert Mood left Damascus early into its execution, only to be pressured later by the UN to return.

2) The UN Security Council left multiple, deliberate gaps in the Annan plan in order to justify the continued genocidal campaign against the Syrian people. The regime benefited from the words “all parties,” for example, which called equally for both the opposition and regime to stop fighting, even though the regime’s approach is to bombard civilian areas thought to house rebels.

3) The plan also included the words “under the protection of and respect for the Syrian sovereignty” and the concept of sovereignty is ambiguous, implying that a totalitarian regimes has a right to kill its own people in the name of its own “State security.”

4) The document blurred the definitions of a State, which comprises the people, and of a totalitarian regime. Linking the group in power—which should naturally change—to the permanent existence of a state implies that the non-democratic regime is inherently permanent, an idea that contradicts all democratic principles. 
The document’s stated desire to “protect and respect sovereignty,” necessarily offers respect for and protection to the administering power, in this case the people who happen to be in charge of the regime.  The Syrian Foreign Minister indeed stated that the “Syrian sovereignty” means Assad’s complete control of the State.
The regime permanently blocked observers’ access to the conflict, and prevented certain observers from going sites such as the village Deacon where dozens of civilians had been massacred. These illegal obstructions were carried out under the pretext of “protecting and respecting the sovereignty of Syria” as was permitted in the UN document, because all observer activities required the consent of both parties. Observers could also be targeted and expelled from Syria simply for speaking candidly and critically about the nature of the violence and the scale of the regime’s attacks.

5) The plan called for a cessation of hostilities and a halt of armed violence in all its forms and by all parties under the auspices of the United Nations to protect civilians and to achieve stability. Such phrasing is valid if there is a war going on, such as a border dispute between two equal parties. However, in Syria there is a popular revolution, not a civil war or a border dispute. Therefore there are no fighting fronts, or contact lines or even buffer zones that can be easily monitored, like occurred when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOMOG) monitored the peace agreement between Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Syrian revolution was peaceful for more than six months when it began, and more than 6,000 people died during that time. Eventually, defected soldiers and others began to take up arms to protect their fellow citizens from massacres and to avenge the regime violations against their parents.
The United Nations is in the uncomfortable position of being international observers and witnesses as the regime shows that its crackdown on citizens is systematic and organized.

6) The plan requires both parties to cooperate with Annan to “engage in a political process involving all the Syrian people to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Syrians and allay their fears.” The ambiguity and lack of clarity in this demand ensured its failure.  
Presumably, this paragraph talks about the political process. Any political process aimed at the peaceful transfer of power necessitates a transition to genuine, fair elections. But the United Nations would not state this, only hinted at it, as thought it too was frightened of the Syrian regime.
The regime tried to take advantage of the document, saying that it now meets the legitimate aspirations of Syrians and is reforming

7) The Annan plan also stated: “To achieve a cessation of hostilities, the Government of Syria must cease troop movements towards residential centers…end the use of heavy weapons…and start withdrawing military units from population centers.” This leaves plenty of room for the regime to continue its crackdown. It could stop troop movements to population centers, by stopping sending reinforcements to residential areas, but could keep those that are already there. It could stop the use of heavy weapons inside the residential areas, but still use light and medium weapons inside populated areas. And if it withdrew military units from residential centers, those same troops were permitted, according to this document, to be redeployed outside populous areas.
Furthermore, the security apparatus and mercenary armed militias were outside the scope of this document and were not called on to stop any actions, despite being the main groups carrying out massacres and genocide throughout the country. 

8) The plan calls for delivery of humanitarian aid to the affected areas, without stating how that humanitarian assistance will reach beneficiaries in the absence of safe corridors and buffer zones or the ability of the United Nations to use airplanes to deliver relief.

9) There is a lot of talk about the plan to hasten the release of those arbitrarily detained, without including those whose arrests are not arbitrary, but are prisoners of opinion and conscience. Why did the document refuse to call for the full release of political prisoners? 

10) The plan to protect the freedom and movement of journalists is vague. It does not say how foreign journalists like those killed in Homs would be protected, nor does it say how Arab journalists languishing in prison would be helped. Such a question should be put to the UN Security Council immediately.

11) There is a paragraph that is almost humorous. It talks about protecting the freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstration. Existing Syrian law already guarantees this right.

Damascus, Board of Directors, Augest, 6, 2012