AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – The international community reacted angrily to the massacre of Houla village by the Syrian armed forces last week and expelled a number of Syrian diplomats.
“On Friday, the Syrian military brutally killed over 100 people. Our sources tell us that the barrage of shells, mortars, rockets and raids on Friday left at least 108 dead, including 34 women and 50 children,” said a report by Amnesty International.
Robert Mood, chief of the UN observers’ mission to Syria, said that the massacre of Houla is considered a violation to the peace plan of Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria.
“The death of innocent children and women in Houla is an unacceptable attack on the aspirations of the Syrian people,” general Mood said in a press conference in Damascus.
As the western anger over Houla massacre increased, especially in the presence of UN’s observers in Syria, France was the first western country to take a serious step and expel the Syrian Ambassador in France.
"It is not possible to allow Bashar al-Assad's regime to massacre its own people," French President Francois Hollande told France 2 television. “Serious reaction to this massacre in Syria is required."
The United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Turkey, and the Netherlands protested against Friday’s massacre and took similar steps by expelling Syrian diplomats.
The Dutch Foreign Minister, Uri Rosenthal, has strongly condemned the massacre of Houla, as the Dutch News Agency (NOS) reported.
“As an International Community, we must vigorously react on the brutal massacre in the Syrian village of Houla,” Rosenthal stated, adding that all the efforts must primarily be focused on the search for the perpetrators of that brutal and inhumane act against civilians.
Khaled Al Haj Saleh, the Syrian prominent opposition figure and one of the founders of the Syrian National Council (SNC), told Rudaw that the Syrian revolutionaries were waiting for such a step from the international community over months full of tragic suffering and brutal suppression by Assad’s forces and militias.
“The step of expelling Syrian regime’s diplomats is very important and significant step because it helps in increasing the isolation of Assad and his tyrannical regime,” he said.
Haj Saleh hoped this step by western countries will persuade China and Russia to follow suit.
Haj Saleh believes that Annan’s peace plan for Syria has failed.
“But we still believe that Annan’s plan could represent an opportunity to convince Russia and China that their conflict to spread power in the region at the expense of the Syrian people’s blood is in vain.” Haj Saleh said.
Haj Saleh says that unless the world works to remove the regime of Assad from power, the situation of Syria will become a shameful record for the international community.
“The international community must adopt decisions and resolutions to permanently stop Assad’s mafia from brutally suppressing and killing the Syrian people,” he says. “And one of the urgent decisions to be taken is to provide logistical support to the Free Syrian Army to protect civilians in Syria.”
But Russia considers the expulsion of Syrian diplomatic missions from western countries as a negative and wrong act.
“Expelling the Syrian ambassadors will lead to counterproductive results, because this step excludes important channels of communication with the Syrian authorities, which would be helpful to use to influence the Syrian regime,” read a statement from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Rudaw
