'UN observers not in Syria to witness slaughter of innocents’

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Syria on Thursday to stop its attacks, saying U.N. observers monitoring the cease-fire were not there to watch the killing of innocent people.

"We are there to record violations and to speak out so that the perpetrators of crimes may be held to account," Ban told a summit of the Alliance of Civilisations, a forum promoting understanding between the Western and Islamic worlds, days after more than 100 people were massacred in Syria's central Houla region.

"The more the international community knows," Ban said, "the more likely it is that we can advance on our most important goal: to help find a political solution, a solution that safeguards the lives and interests of all the Syrian people."

"Let me state plainly, however: The UN did not deploy in Syria just to bear witness to the slaughter of innocents," he said. "We are not there to play the role of passive observer to unspeakable atrocities."

Ban said that U.N. envoy Kofi Annan has expressed his concern that a "tipping point" may have been reached in Syria.

"The massacre of civilians of the sort seen last weekend could plunge Syria into a catastrophic civil war — a civil war from which the country would never recover," Ban said. "I demand that the government of Syria act on its commitments under the Annan peace plan. A united international community demands that the Syrian government act on its responsibilities to its people."
Ban urged nations to speak more loudly in "these difficult times, in the face of humankind's terrible capacity for inhumanity."

 "We hear a great deal about the so-called 'clash of civilisations' — the supposed rift between predominantly Muslim and Western societies," he said. "That is not what is going on in Syria. There, it is the old story of a tyranny seeking to hold power. And in seeking to hold on to power, the regime threatens to exacerbate tensions among Syria's diverse people, much as we saw in the former Yugoslavia two decades ago."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, called on the world to pay heed to the desperation of families whose children are massacred in Syria.

Erdogan said these are "our children who are massacred in Hama, Homs and Houla, as much they are the children of desperate Syrian families."

He said the world should not remain silent in the face of "oppression."

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