UN panel extends Syria blame to world powers

This picture taken on Saturday, March 1, 2014, provided by the anti-government activist group Coordination Committee In Kfar Takharim, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man running as flames rise from buildings which were attacked by a Syrian government forces airstrike in the town of Kfar Takharim in the northwest province of Idlib, Syria. AP

GENEVA, Switzerland—A panel of United Nations investigators said Wednesday that world powers deserve some of the blame for Syria’s atrocities because of their inaction.

In a new report, the human rights experts identified more than 40 government-run detention centers with documented torture cases and said widespread attacks and sieges on civilian areas in Syria by pro-government forces are leading to mass casualties, malnutrition and starvation. They said rebels have committed war crimes, including murder, executions, torture, hostage-taking, enforced disappearances, rape and using child soldiers.

But the commission chaired by Brazilian diplomat and scholar Paulo Sergio Pinheiro also concluded the five permanent U.N. Security Council member—Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S.—have failed to act on all of Syria’s “grave violations” that threaten international peace and security.

Syria’s main allies, Russia and China, have repeatedly blocked proposals by the West before the Security Council, the U.N.’s most powerful arm.

“Such inaction has provided the space for the proliferation of actors in the Syrian Arab Republic, each pursuing its own agenda and contributing to the radicalization and escalation of violence,” their report said. “The Security Council bears this responsibility.”

The panel, authorized by the U.N.’s 47-nation Human Rights Council in Geneva, has previously concluded that it believes the Syrian government is committing a crime against humanity by making people systematically vanish, and that rebels have also been making their opponents disappear and running secret prisons.

The report Wednesday recommended that countries with influence in Syria, particularly the permanent Security Council members, exert more pressure “to end the violence and to initiate all-inclusive negotiations for a sustainable political transition process in the country” and also refer the conflict for prosecution, possibly the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands.

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