“The United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s Report on the dramatic events in Al-Houla is a strong reminder of the impelling need for a unanimous assumption of responsibility by the international community to hasten the opening of a political transition process in Syria”.
These were the words of Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, commenting on the publication of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Report on the massacre in Al-Houla in May 2012. “The content of the Report”, continued the Foreign Minister, “confirms for the first time, in unequivocal terms, and by an independent and authoritative body, the serious alarm and concern that Italy voiced at the outset, and has repeated constantly in recent months, over the Assad Government’s crimes”.
“It is the regime”, continued Terzi, “that emerges from the inquiry as being primarily responsible for the dramatic situation into which Syria has plunged. Because, through the massacres it has perpetrated, it has bloodied its hands with crimes against humanity, and because it has triggered a civil war. […] The United Nations”, continued Terzi, “must now be placed in a position to play a truly effective role on the crisis in Syria, whose people have already paid an extremely high, and no longer tolerable, price”.
