Facing increasing pressure after his forces were accused of slaughtering dozens of women and children, President Assad of Syria said today that last week’s Houla massacre was a foreign plot and that not even “monsters” would carry out such atrocities.
As the President made a rare speech before Parliament to try and exonerate his own troops of blame in the massacre, Human Rights Watch called for an international boycott of Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned weapons maker which supplies arms to the Damascus regime, warning the company it could be accused of complicity in war crimes.
The mass killing of more than 100 people, about half of them children, at Houla has sparked international outrage, prompting speculation it could provide a tipping point in calls for action against a regime which has killed more than 10,000 of its own people. Dozens more were killed in fresh fighting yesterday.
In his televisied address, Mr Assad said the violence, which had dragged on for almost a year and a half and which threatens to become an explosive civil war, was the work of other states interfering inside his country.
“The masks have fallen and the international role in the Syrian events is now obvious,” he said. “What happened in Houla and elsewhere are brutal massacres which even monsters would not have carried out.”
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Dressed in a businesslike suit and tie, the former London-based eye doctor said: “We are not facing a political problem but a project to destroy the country,” adding there will be “no dialogue” with opposition groups which “seek foreign intervention”.
His accusations came as Arab leaders called on the United Nations to act to stop bloodshed in Syria and France raised the prospect of military action against Damascus under a UN mandate. Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister, said Mr Assad’s speech was simply “manoeuvring” to gain time.
“Every initiative has been accepted by the Syrian regime and was not implemented. This is a way used by the regime to gain time,” he said.
And Human Rights Watch said that Russia’s huge state-owned arms company may be implicating itself in war crimes by continuing to export weapons to a regime accused of massacring its own people. It called on all countries to stop doing business with the Russian giant.
“The bottom line is that no one should do new business with any company that may be an accomplice to crimes against humanity,” said Kenneth Roth, HRW’s executive director. The rights group added that “providing weapons to Syria while crimes against humanity are being committed may translate into assisting in the commission of those crimes”.