Kofi Annan Named UN Troubleshooter to Syria
Syrians Defy Government Crackdown on Eve of Tunisia Meeting
-/AFP/Getty Images
A damaged house is seen in the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs.
A damaged house is seen in the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs. Photographer: -/AFP/Getty Images
Former United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan will be a special envoy to Syria for the UN and the Arab League, seeking to broker peace in a country on the brink of civil war as President Bashar al-Assad wages deadly attacks on civilians.
The appointment of the Ghanaian diplomat, who served as UN chief between 1997 and 2006, follows two failed attempts by the UN Security Council to compel Assad to stop the killings and give way to a national unity government. Annan will “engage with all relevant interlocutors within and outside Syria in order to end the violence and the humanitarian crisis and facilitate a peaceful Syrian-led and inclusive political solution,” according to a UN statement.
The initiative came on the eve of today’s meeting in Tunis of U.S., European and Arab officials to discuss ways to help the Syrian opposition. Assad’s crackdown has left about 8,500 people dead, according to the Arab Organization for Human Rights.
The city of Homs has been under siege for three week and mortar shelling there killed two foreign journalists on Feb. 21. Al-Jazeera today showed footage of another three reporters who said they are stranded in Syria.
French journalist Edith Bouvier, whose leg was broken in the attack that killed the Sunday Times’s Marie Colvin and photographer Remi Ochlik, pleaded in the video for a cease-fire so she can be evacuated and receive appropriate medical care. “The doctors here treated us very well, as much as they can, but they are not able to undertake surgeries,” she said.
Crimes Against Humanity
Russia and China vetoed two Security Council resolutions, one in October and the other earlier this month, condemning the violence by Syrian government forces.
The UN-appointed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, in a report released yesterday, found “reasonable grounds to believe that particular individuals, including commanding officers and officials at the highest levels of government, bear responsibility for crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations.”
The three-member panel said it submitted names of violators in a sealed envelope to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to help in potential future prosecutions.
Annan served as an African Union mediator during the 2008 crisis in Kenya, when he secured a power-sharing deal between the government and opposition after a contested election triggered violent protests.
Rwanda, Iraq
A Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work on the AIDS pandemic, Annan criticized the U.S. over its 2003 invasion of Iraq, calling it “illegal” for bypassing approval by the UN Security Council.
An economist by training, Annan is a UN veteran who began his career there in the 1960s and rose through the ranks. As director of UN peacekeeping operations in Rwanda in 1994, he was criticized for withholding troops. Annan a decade later said he could have done more.
His reputation also took a blow toward the end of his tenure as UN chief when it was revealed that some UN officials profited from an aid program designed to let Iraqis buy food and supplies with proceeds from oil sales.
To contact the reporter on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at the United Nations at fjackson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
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