Source: PressTV

A Syrian government investigation into the massacre that recently killed more than 100 people in the western Syria village of Houla has blamed anti-Damascus armed groups for the killings.

The head of the inquiry, Brigadier General Qassem Jamal Suleiman said during a news conference in the Syrian capital on Thursday that between 600 and 800 armed terrorists used heavy machinery to carry out the attacks on the village on May 25.

The fatalities included dozens of women and children.

Press TV talks with Hisham Safieddine, a political commentator from Beirut, regarding the issue.

The video also offers the opinions of two additional guests: Jeff Steinberg, from the Executive Intelligence Review in Washington, and Sukant Chandan who is a political analyst and filmmaker from London.

What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: The group which calls itself the Free Syrian Army said that it would give the peace plan another 48 hours and then it will renege on its commitment to the ceasefire if its demands are not met.

How do you perceive this warning? Are their demands plausible and has the ceasefire even been upheld till now?

Safieddine: I think there are actually a lot of disagreement among the so-called Free Syrian Army themselves about what their position is. Their leader outside of Syria, Riad al-Asaad, just told Aljazeera; actually Riad al-Asaad denied that such an ultimatum was given.

So there is a lot of disagreement; there is lack of unity. I do not think we should take what they have said with a grain of salt. On the ground, there is no indication of any ceasefire taking place on either side.

I do not think they have reached a point for any political solution is coming forth and so they do not seem to be interested in either stopping the violence or actually trying to formulate a solution that would prevent further pressure from the outside.

On the contrary, most of what has been happening is actually an invitation by this army and by the Syrian National Council for foreign intervention. So I do not see things going in that direction.

At the same time, the regime continues to simply use a military and security solution to the problem. I think we need to zoom out of what happened. We do not yet know who did this massacre. There is no credible party that is capable of determining who did the massacre.

The UN Security Council has lost all credibility; the regime does not have credibility in terms of what happened. So I think what the Syrian Army is doing is trying to bring in more arms.

I was visiting some of the border areas of Lebanon a few days ago, and it is of course the weakest link in this conflict, and it does not look like that the arm smuggling is stopping any time soon.

Press TV: Mr. Safieddine, Mr. Chandan [one of the guests on the show from London] believes that you are sympathizing with the Syrian opposition. Do you have anything to add to his comments?

Safieddine: I have a lot but I am just going to be brief. I take a great offence at what has been said actually. Not even the Syrian regime itself has denied that this massacre has happened, we are disagreeing over who did it and we should.

The fact that the massacre happened should never be an excuse for any foreign intervention. I was extremely critical of the opposition but the problem is, whether we like it or not, we need a political solution that reforms or changes this regime without allowing these powers to come and intervene.

I am fully aware of what is happening, probably more as here sitting in Beirut than whoever sitting abroad and I realized that the Syrian state is disintegrating, that there is destruction going on. Clearly the oil regimes of the [Persian] Gulf, the Zionists and the United States are happy about that. They are clearly funding and arming the Free Syrian Army.

That does not however imply that the regime is doing enough. We need to find a political solution. We cannot continue to repeat the same anti-imperialist rhetoric that does not provide tangible solutions to the people on the ground.

Cuba was under siege for 50 years; Hezbollah was under siege through 33 days of war but because there was a solid internal front, it was able to actually resist this intervention. We have Iran and Russia on the side of the regime geopolitically and that is positive in terms of preventing the United Nations or the United States from doing anything like they did to Libya and I sure hope that they do not do that.

But at the same time, we have to ask ourselves, how do we get out of this? How do we actually provide an interim solution that brings us to some sort of real reform in Syria so we can actually silence those who are trying to do that?

Press TV: Syria’s UN envoy has said that three separate massacres have taken place in Houla, in which members of three major Muslim sects in the country, that is; Sunnis, Shias and Alawites have been mass murdered. Why do you think the focus has been only one of the three massacres?

Safieddine: I think the focus probably has to do possibly with the extent of it and of course because the foreign powers are really interested in portraying this as majorly a sectarian war and by focusing on one party, they are trying to suggest that the regime has done that.

Like I said, we do not know who did it and the so-called Free Syrian Army is fully capable of doing that. It is in their interest to portray this as one because it shows that there is a particular community that needs to be protected from another community and that is something that is not true in Syria. It is a lot more complicated.

I think that is part of why that is happening. I have heard that at least 14 or 15 of the children, I hate to be using sectarian term, but that is the way it is calling now, Shiites, I do not know from Beirut exactly the makeup but it is clear that these killings are happening. It is either the opposition is doing this and clearly to foment an international reaction like the one we saw in terms of expelling the ambassadors or it could be some part of elements of the regime that are not part of the organized armies that are engaged in this.

I really do not know but you are absolutely right. The fact that they are focusing on one means that they are trying to abuse this incident and to use it as a casus belli of some sorts.

MSK/JR

Note by the editor: In a war ‘truth’ is the first casualty. Therefore we need to look at different News sources
to try and understand what is going on.