General Mood: 'Two Versions' of the Houla Massacre

by John Rosenthal
PJMedia
June 28, 2012

https://www.legal-project.org/2734/general-mood-two-versions-of-the-houla-massacre

Excerpt:

One month ago, a savage massacre of civilians in the Syrian town of Houla led to international condemnation of the regime of Bashar al-Assad and intensified calls for foreign intervention in the Syria crisis. Readers or viewers of initial reports on the massacre may be excused for thinking that the UN observer mission in Syria — or UNSMIS per its official acronym — had attributed responsibility for the killings to Syrian government troops and/or government-affiliated "Shabiha" militias. This illusion was created, among other things, by the frequent inclusion in the reports of statements by UN spokesperson Rupert Colville, who noted that the massacre "appeared" to have been committed by Shabiha militia.

But Rupert Colville is, more specifically, the spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). His widely cited remarks were made at OHCHR headquarters in Geneva. Whoever the sources were for his conclusions, they did not include the UN's own observer mission on the ground in Syria.

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