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March 13, 2012

U.N. Will Send Human Rights Monitors to Syrian Border Countries 
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The United Nations has announced it will soon deploy human rights
monitors in countries bordering Syria to collect eyewitness testimony on
"atrocities" committed in the country. The news comes a day after a
special U.N. Security Council meeting on the "Arab Spring" showed the
five permanent members were no closer to breaking their impasse over
Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the international
community to speak with one voice on Syria.

Hillary Clinton: "Now the United States believes firmly in the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of all member states, but we do
not believe that sovereignty demands that this Council stands silent
when governments massacre their own people, threatening regional peace
and security in the process. And we reject any equivalence of
premeditated murders by a government’s military machine and the
actions of civilians under siege driven to self-defense."

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Syrian authorities bear a
huge share of responsibility but he insisted opposition fighters and
militants are also committing violent acts.

Sergey Lavrov: "Making hasty demands for regime change, imposing
unilateral sanctions designed to trigger economic difficulties and
social tensions in countries, inducing the opposition to continuous
confrontation to the authorities instead of promoting dialogue, making
calls in support of armed confrontation and even foreign military
intervention; all of the above are risky recipes of geopolitical
engineering that can only result in the spread of the conflict."



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