U.N. Rights Chief Urges Negotiations to Halt Syria Violence -

U.N. Rights Chief Urges Negotiations to Halt Syria Violence

By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE 5:30 AM ET

Navi Pillay said Monday that a military strike against the regime could ignite a regional confrontation.

By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE

Published: September 9, 2013

GENEVA — As Secretary of State John Kerry pursued efforts to mobilize international support for military action against the Syrian government, the United Nations top human rights official spoke out firmly against it on Monday and urged global powers to find ways to bring warring parties to negotiations to end the conflict.

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The appalling suffering in Syria “cries out for international action,” Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Monday in a speech in Geneva. Employing chemical weapons was “one of the gravest crimes that can be committed” and their use in Syria “seems to be in little doubt,” even if the circumstances and the party responsible remained to be clarified, Ms. Pillay said.

While the United States is calling for a limited punitive strike to punish the Syrian government, Ms. Pillay warned that “a military response or the continued supply of arms risk igniting a regional conflagration, possibly resulting in many more deaths and even more widespread misery.”

Ms. Pillay chastised the international community for being “late, very late” in acting to stop the violence in Syria that has killed more than 100,000 people. “This is no time for powerful states to continue to disagree on the way forward or for geopolitical interests to override the legal and moral obligation to save lives by bringing this conflict to an end,” she said.

There was no easy or obvious route out of Syria’s nightmare except negotiating immediate steps to end the conflict, she said, and states, together with the United Nations had to find a way to bring warring parties to negotiating table and halt the bloodshed.

Reviewing an array of international rights issues, Ms. Pillay also voiced alarm at the violence in Iraq and Egypt. Indiscriminate sectarian attacks in Iraq had resulted in 1,800 recorded deaths in the last two months alone, Ms. Pillay said. Egypt’s authorities should establish an independent investigation into the killings in recent weeks during violent confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood, its opponents and the military. 

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