The
United Nations and the Houla Massacre: The Information Battlefield
By
Ronda Hauben
12
June, 2012
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, China’s 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,” he said, “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.”(1)
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 Annan’s presentation would help to clarify
the facts of the massacre. (2)
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. (3) 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.
In
his comments referring to the massacres in Houla and on the outskirts
of Hama, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said,
“Clearly these are the most serious crimes that require a reliable
detailed investigation.”
Other
nations including Venezuela, India, Cuba and Nicaragua expressed
similar views. The Venezuelan Representative told the Informal GA
meeting, “We suspect the fact that these criminal acts happen to
coincide with these debates at the UN. We have to wonder to whom does
this benefit at this time?” He urged that, “an independent and
transparent investigation into these massacres must take place and we
must find convincing clarity.”
India’s
Ambassador to the UN, Hardeep Singh Puri, noted that the attacks
against civilians and security forces in Syria “have intensified
over the last few weeks and have taken a significant toll.” Also he
drew attention to the sharp increase in the number of terrorist
attacks in different parts of the country.” He “condemned all
violence, irrespective of who the perpetrators are,” and called for
the “cessation of all outside support for armed groups and serious
action against the terrorist groups in Syria.” And he asked that
the crimes, “including the recent incident in El Houleh, are fully
investigated and their perpetrators brought to justice.”
After
comparing what has happened in Syria with what had happened in Libya,
the Nicaraguan Representative called for “an exhaustive
investigation of these crimes and to bring the guilty to justice.”
The
Cuban Ambassador noted that the “information is fragmented,
imprecise and the object of frequent manipulation.” He denounced
what he saw as the “complicity of the major broadcast media which
are used to confusing reality and not accepting the responsibility
for their acts.”
During
his comments, which were twice cut off by the UN video transmission
system, Ambassador Bashir Ja’afari, the Syrian Ambassador, asked
how the Secretary General of the League of Arab States could render a
judgment about who is responsible for the Houla massacre when such a
judgment contradicts the report of the United Nations observers on
the ground, and investigations of that atrocious massacre have not
yet been completed. The massacre, he emphasized, had been condemned
by the Syrian government.
Ambassador
Ja’afari announced that, “Syria is ready to receive a commission
of inquiry of states known for their independence and for their
respect for the UN charter and for their refusal to interfere in
Syrian internal affairs.”
Later
in the afternoon, after the Security Council’s informal briefing
with Kofi Annan, there was a media stakeout at the Security Council.
One journalist asked Ban Ki moon, “Mr. Secretary General, what
steps have you taken to comply with the request of the Security
Council on 27th of May through the press statement to investigate
fully, independently and transparently the killing in El Houleh?”
The UN Secretary General did not answer the question. (4)
It
is notable that as Ambassador Li Baodong had recognized during his
press conference on June 4, several different narratives have been
used to describe the Houla massacre. These offer different
explanations of the circumstances under which it happened and
therefore what the implications are for the future of the Kofi Annan
6 point peace plan.
Those
nations encouraging an investigation into the details of the Houla
massacre want to determine the lessons from it toward solving the
crisis in Syria. Those who were quick to jump to conclusions based on
superficial information are helping to fan the flames of the
conflict.
What
are these major competing narratives?
Western
and Arab Media Narrative
The
narrative that is being spread by much of the mainstream western and
Arab satellite media is a narrative that blames the Assad government
for the Houla massacre. At first that media claimed that the people
killed, including the women and children, had been killed by shelling
from Syrian troops attacking the town.
In
examining the videos and photos put online or provided by the
opposition making these claims, however, it became evident that many
of the victims, particularly the women and children, had been killed
at close range by bullets and knives and not by the shelling of heavy
weapons by the Syrian military.
It
soon became obvious that only 20 of the 108 who were killed may have
been killed in combat fighting over the checkpoint and that the
circumstances of these deaths were not yet determined.
The
opposition and the western and Arab media supporting the opposition,
like BBC and Aljazeera, etc. had to quickly change their narrative.
They invented a new force allegedly used by the Syrian government,
the shabbiya, which they claimed is a pro government militia. (5) The
shabbiya allegedly came into the homes of people and killed them at
close range.
Russian
News Team Narrative
A
Russian news team interviewed people after the massacre. The
explanation compiled from these interviews represents a very
different narrative.
Their
account noted that Houla is an administrative area, made up of three
villages. It is not the name of a town. Some of this area had been
under control of armed insurgents for a number of weeks. The Syrian
army maintained certain checkpoints. This account explains that on
the evening of May 24, the Free Syrian Army launched an operation to
take control of the checkpoints, bringing 600-800 armed insurgents
from different areas.
At
the same time that there was the fight over the checkpoints, several
armed insurgents went into certain homes and massacred the members of
several families. Among the families targeted was a family related to
a recently elected People’s Assembly representative. This family
and another family that were killed were said to be families that
supported the Syrian government. “Other victims included the family
of two journalists for Top News and New Orient Express, press
agencies associated with Voltaire Network,” reports the news and
analysis site Voltairenet.(6)
Template
for Media Warfare
At
a press conference held in Damascus shortly after the Houla massacre
by Joint UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, a question was asked which
provides an important context to keep in mind when trying to
determine what happened in Houla.
The
journalist asked: I am a Russian living in Syria and reporting for
various Russian online sites. What is happening in Syria reminds me
of what happened in Yugoslavia that led to its division. We have
sources that tell us that the Pentagon is preparing for war. If that
happens, what do we do? What do Syrians do and what does the
Government do? (7)
Annan’s
response was that he had no information of the Pentagon “preparing
for war.” Nor did he have any indication that what was happening in
Syria would be a repeat of “what happened in Yugoslavia.” Despite
the fact that Annan dismissed the journalist’s question, the
question provides an important perspective toward understanding what
is happening in Syria.
Looking
back at the form of media warfare used to prepare public opinion for
the NATO aggression against the former Yugoslavia, a template emerges
that reflects a pattern in these events.
In
this media warfare, the mainstream western media was used to spread
stories about the alleged “responsibility for” massacres in order
to demonize certain forces. This demonization served to justify the
NATO bombing of their country. Hence the Russian journalist’s
question to Kofi Annan raised an important and serious concern.
In
his book “Liar’s Poker”, which analyzes the role of the media
in the Yugoslav war, Michel Collon writes “Information is already a
battlefield, which is part of war.” He writes that in 1991 the
Slovenian government created a “media center which unleashed a
flood of disinformation to international correspondents.” (8) This
disinformation created a false narrative about what was happening and
about who was responsible for the violent acts that killed many
innocent people. The false narrative was then used to provide the
justification for foreign intervention on one side of the conflict.
Also
Collon documents the use of US public relations agencies to help mold
public opinion in favor of the Croatian and Muslim nationalists and
as media warfare against the Serbs. In a striking way, Collon shows
how “a massacre happens unexpectedly each time certain Western
powers plan to escalate measures against the Serbs.”(9) He proposes
what could be considered as the template used to create the climate
of public opinion justifying the escalation of the attack on
Yugoslavia.
Here
are the components of the template he presents(10):
Step
1: Preparation of a more or less hidden agenda
Step 2: Images that
shock Public Opinion
Step 3: Groundless and Wild Media Accusations
Without Investigation
Step 4: Western Objectives are Achieved
Step
5: Corrections to Erroneous News Reporting: Too Late and No Impact
Collon
argues that shocking events were “staged” for the international
media so as to make possible a planned escalation of the attack on
Serbia. The Houla massacre bears a striking resemblance to the
incidents that Collon refers to in the 1990s that set a basis for the
escalation of the aggression against the Serbian government.
Is
this current rush to judgment, both at the UN, and in the mainstream
western and Arab media but another example of support and
encouragement for armed aggression against a sovereign nation, as in
the Yugoslavian situation? Is it but a signal to the armed insurgents
willing to carry out horrific deeds to achieve their goal of foreign
intervention, that they should go ahead with their cruel agenda?
These are questions that need to be asked as they may help to explain
the underlying motives of one of the narratives.
The
failure of mainstream western and Arab satellite media and of a
number of nations at the UN to acknowledge that there are different
views of the underlying cause and implementation of the Houla
massacre impedes the urgency with which the needed investigation and
analysis are to be organized.(11) Such an investigation is critical
to identify the actual problems and to understand what is needed to
solve them.
It
is important to acknowledge that there are two major narratives about
the events of the Houla massacre. Such an acknowledgment recognizes,
as Ambassador Li Baodong did, the need for evidence to determine what
is an accurate narrative of the Houla Massacre. There are a number of
blogs and news sites on the Internet where netizens contribute
articles and comments that are helpful toward analyzing what is
happening in Syria and at the UN and whether the actions at the UN
are helpful or harmful for resolving the crisis in a way that is in
line with the principles of the UN charter. There are examples of a
substantial new netizen journalism developing on the Internet which
is taking up the needed work to investigate the facts of the Syrian
conflict so as to understand what is needed to contribute to a
peaceful resolution.(12)
Notes
(1) Video
of Press Conference marking the beginning of the Chinese presidency
of the Security Council for the month of June.
(2)The
press statement issued by the UN Security Council on May 27 called
for the Secretary General and UNSMIS “to continue to investigate
these attacks and report the findings to the Security Council.”
(3)See
for example the summary by Moon of Alabama,
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/06/the-syria-discussion-at-the-un-general-assembly.html
(4)
“Joint press encounter with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Kofi
A. Annan, Joint UN-Arab League Special Envoy on Syria and Nabil
El-Araby, Secretary General of the League of Arab States.”
(5)See
for example the account by AP: “The assault came nearly a week
after 108 people, many of them women and children, were killed in the
area. Activists said government forces first shelled the area on
Friday, then pro-regime fighters known as shabiha stormed the
villages. The Syrian government denied its troops were behind the
killings and blamed ‘armed terrorists’.”
(6)See
for example: Thierry Meyssan, “The Houla Affair Highlights Western
Intelligence Gap in Syria”,
See
also: Wassim Raad, “The Set Up Massacre and the American
Fingerprint”
In
German see for example Mathias Broeckers, “Der Hula-Hoax”
and
Rainer Hermann,“Abermals Massaker in Syrien” in Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, June 7, 2012.
(An
English translation FAZ is available at Moon of Alabama
blog:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/06/prime-german-paper-syrian-rebels-committed-houla-massacre.html
)
(7)Transcript
of JSE Press Conference in Damascus, 29 May 2012, p. 4. For video
see: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unsmis/
(8)
Michel Collon, Liar’s
Poker,
International Action Center, New York, 2002 p. 45.(This is an English
translation of the book which was originally published in French.)
(9)Ibid.,
p. 28
(10)Ibid.,
p. 26.
(11)
The Human Rights Council has passed a resolution calling for an
investigation into the Houla Massacre. Several sources, however,
document that the Human Rights Council only considers information
supplied by activists in support of the armed opposition. See for
example “UN Commissions report on Houla? But they only talk to
Syrian opposition – by phone”, May 31, 2012
“Anti-war
campaigner Marinella Corregia worries the HR commissioner talks only
to its sources: the opposition.”
(12)
A few of the English language web sites providing news and analysis
of the Syrian conflict toward a directed peaceful resolution include:
Moon
of Alabama
Centre
for Research on Globalization
VoltaireNet
Syria
News
Syria360
The
4th Media
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