Ronda Hauben: The United Nations and the Houla Massacre!

At a press conference held on June 4, marking the beginning of China's presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of June, Li Baodong, Chinas Ambassador to the UN, observed that there are different versions of the facts of the Houla Massacre. Now we have different stories from different angles, he noted. 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, 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 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 Annans presentation would help to clarify the facts of the massacre. 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. 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.