The United Nations' top human rights body is holding an emergency session Friday in Geneva to discuss last week's slaughter of dozens of men, women and children in the Syrian town of Houla.
The U.N. Human Rights Council is expected to place at least partial blame on the Syrian government for the massacre of at least 108 people, nearly half of them children.
A draft resolution circulated Thursday and seen by VOA condemned the killings, which it said “involved a series of government artillery and tank shelling of a residential neighborhood.” It condemned the use of force against civilians and called for the Syrian government to immediately end all violence.
The council is also expected to call for an investigation into the massacre, which prompted international outrage and rekindled efforts to stem the 15-month-old conflict.
The Syrian government on Thursday said its preliminary investigation into the atrocity found that armed opposition groups had attacked families who did not join anti-government protests. That claim was immediately rejected by U.S. officials.
Meanwhile, a commander in the rebel Free Syrian Army has given the government of Bashar al-Assad a deadline of noon Friday local time to start acting on commitments made to international peace envoy Kofi Annan. Rebel Colonel Qassim Saadeddine said his forces would no longer be bound by the Annan peace plan if the Syrian president fails to comply.
The Free Syrian Army is a loosely-organized and lightly-armed rebel group made largely of Syrian military defectors. The Syrian government and the rebels agreed in April to a truce mediated by Mr. Annan, but the fighting has continued, with each side accusing the other of violating the deal.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he “demands” the Syrian government abide by its peace pledges. He said the almost 300-member U.N. military observer team in Syria is not meant to play the role of “passive observer to unspeakable atrocities.”
The U.N. chief also warned that more massacres such as the Houla incident “could plunge Syria into a catastrophic civil war … from which the country would never recover.”
U.S. officials on Thursday also warned of a worsening humanitarian situation in Syria. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Russia's failure to take decisive action against Mr. Assad will “help contribute” to the very civil war officials in Moscow say they are helping to avoid.
Speaking in Denmark Thursday, Clinton said she rejects the Russians' “vociferous…claim that they are providing a stabilizing influence” in Syria. Instead, she said, Moscow is propping up Mr. Assad as his government continues a brutal crackdown on dissent U.N. estimates say has killed more than 10,000 people.
Russia, along with China, has repeatedly blocked the U.N. Security Council from taking punitive action against the Assad government, a longtime Russian ally.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that the U.S. military is prepared for any action against Syria, saying the situation was “intolerable.” But Panetta said he does not foresee a scenario where Washington takes military action without U.N. endorsement.
His remarks came a day after Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., suggested that military intervention may be the only remaining option if diplomatic efforts continue to fail to resolve the crisis.
