U.N. official says no to Syria amnesty

An anti-Syrian regime protester in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, chants slogans as another woman carries a graphic poster of a dead boy, during a protest against the massacre of Houla, Wednesday, May 30, 2012. / AP Photo/Hussein Malla

(AP) BRUSSELS - The U.N.'s top human rights official said Saturday that there should be no amnesty for serious crimes committed in Syria, even if the threat of prosecution might motivate members of the regime to cling to power at all costs.

Asked if Syrian President Bashar Assad should be allowed to leave power in exchange for safe haven, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said international leaders seeking peace may be drawn to "politically expedient solutions which may involve amnesty or undertakings not to prosecute."

But she said that would be wrong under international law.

"You cannot have amnesty for very serious crimes," she told The Associated Press during an interview in Brussels. "So my message is very clear — there has to be accountability."

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Lawyers for former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who was sentenced Wednesday by the Special Court for Sierra Leone to 50 years in prison, had argued that giving him a long sentence would send the wrong message to Assad.

Courtenay Griffiths, an attorney for Taylor, criticized the court for refusing while setting Taylor's sentence to take into account his decision to step down from power after his indictment in 2003.

"What lesson does that send to President Assad?" Griffiths asked. "Maybe the lesson is: If you are a sitting leader and the international community wants to get rid of you, either you get murdered like Col. Gadhafi, or you hang on until the bitter end." Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was killed by a mob in October.

In Doha, Qatar, international envoy Kofi Annan held talks with Arab League officials and said the "specter of an all-out war with a worrying sectarian dimension grows by the day."

"The crisis," he added, "is at a tipping point" and demanded that Assad honor pledges that include withdrawing heavy weapons and opening up corridors for humanitarian assistance.

He said the "the international community must decide what it does next."

Qatar's prime minister Sheik Hamid bin Jassim Al Thani urged the U.N. to set a deadline for Annan's peace efforts and warn Assad that failure could mean invoking Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which allows for possible military action.

"We can't stand any more stalling," he said after an emergency meeting of Arab League foreign ministers to discuss Syria.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby suggested an option could be converting the Arab-led observer mission in Syria into a peacekeeping force.

Earlier in Doha, the head of Syria's largest exile opposition group said he would welcome Arab military action aimed at ending attacks by Assad's regime against Syrian rebel forces and civilians, including the massacre of more than 100 people in Houla.

Burhan Ghalioun, head of the Syrian National Council, also held talks with Arab League officials.

Activists say as many as 13,000 people have died in Assad's crackdown against a popular uprising that began in March 2011. One year after the revolt started, the U.N. put the toll at 9,000, but many more have died since.

Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar have pledged funds to aid Syria's rebels, but there is no direct evidence that anti-Assad forces are becoming better armed. The Arab League, however, does not appear ready to deploy its own troops.

"The levels of violence are still totally unacceptable," Annan said.

[sjc_1]

I hope our state department and others in the U.N. understand the issues, not every country can have a democracy. Serbia/Bosnia is an example of a region that could not, so they became separate. In that case, Serbia had all the weapons and it was one sided. Maybe that is what is happening here.

[euge005]

Regretably, since we have failed under Obama to prosecute our own war criminals from the Chaney regime we no longer have the morale authority to say anything without looking like hypocrits. Assad has murdered what, maybe 9000, right? Chaney and his oil cronies murdferd 150,000 Iraqis and when did you last hear anyone in the news mention it? Time to replace the good famliy man Obama with someone toughter and more progressive.

[Molly-Pchr]

What's an acceptable level of violence?

[sdemaggie]

That's right back him into a corner-give him no choice but to fight. Man, what a bunch of numbskulls.

[Fed-Up_Patriot]

It's been that way all along.. People just don't want to see reality. Neither side will ever be able to live under control of the other.. To put it mildly living conditions would be complete h@ll for either side living under the rule of the other. For this reason neither will either side sit idly by and let the other side dominate the direction of the country. Too much damage has already been done. I just don't know why the two groups aren't separated from each other to live and govern as they please. Each side seems to have a city or two in different areas that seem to have broad support for one faction or the other.

And that is my point and what the western nations don't seem to understand - neither side in this conflict wants to share power.. I'm a US citizen and I'm in agreement with these sentiments. I know personally I would rather die then live under the control of what some of these groups want for their nation over there. That's is why this notion of bringing Syria into the 21st century with an "arab spring" and democratized secular government is fundamentally flawed. This has failure written all over it. People just don't want to see the reality of what they are dealing with here.