By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, February 4 -- As UN Security Council ambassadors met behind closed doors on Saturday morning, Inner City Press obtained from diplomat sources amendments Russia proposed to the draft resolution already "in blue."
Inner City Press is exclusively putting them online herebelow:
AMENDMENTS TO THE DRAFT OF 02.02.2012
OP 1. Line 2 to read: “…freedoms by the Syrian authorities, especially the use of force against civilians” (end text of OP 1).
OP 3. In line 2 after “immediately stop…” insert “violations of human rights,”.
Start line 3 with “including intimidation of civilians and attacks against State institutions…”
Add new OP 3 bis: “Calls for all sections of the Syrian opposition to dissociate themselves from armed groups engaged in acts of violence and urges member-states and all those in a position to do so to use their influence to prevent continued violence by such groups”;
Para 4 (c). Add at the end of subpara: “…in conjunction with the end of attacks by armed groups against state institutions and quarter of cities and towns”;
OP 7. Replace in lines 5-6 “in accordance with” by “taking into account”.
OP 6-7. Move the phrase “without prejudging the outcome” from the end of para 6 to the end of para 7.
OP 9. Delete from line 1 “in the event of a resumption of the observer mission”.
OP 10. Reformulate line 1 to read: “Stresses the need for armed groups not to obstruct the mission’s work and calls upon all to provide all necessary assistance to the mission in accordance…”
PP 11 bis (optional):
“Expressing support for the broad trend of political transition to democratic, plural political systems in the Middle East,
Russia is focused on attacks against state institutions by armed groups, that the Syrian opposition "dissociate themselves from armed groups," and moving the concession it got on Paragraph 6 ("without prejudging the outcome") over to Paragraph 7 about the Arab League plan.
Under the amendments, Assad would only have to pull out as the armed groups also do, and only "takes into account" the Arab League timeline. But it offers "optional" support of Arab Spring II.
On her way in to the Security Council, US Ambassador Susan Rice called the amendments "unacceptable." French Ambassador Gerard Araud said that "some newspapers" already said it was watered down too much, and said there would be a vote Saturday. Watch this site.
