Mother Agnes of Homs responds to the UN report on Syria

Posted on June 17, 2013 by fatherdave

The following speech was given by Mother Agnes Mariam to a side event of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Friday 7 June.  Her report is a response to that of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, dated 4 June 2013.

You can download a PDF copy of the 29-page UN report here.

Mother Agnes with the Mussalaha delegation in Beirut

Mother Agnes with the Mussalaha delegation in Beirut

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL, GENEVA

“THE PATH TO PEACE IN SYRIA”

Intervention of Mother Agnes-Mariam of the Cross
President of the International Support Team for Mussalaha

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Presentation

I want first of all to thank Mrs. Navi Pilay, High Commissioner for Human Rights for her valuable presence in this side event.

Since our last side event she has been accompanying us with her team in Lebanon to seek truth and witnesses from Syria to avoid genocide and ethnical cleansing and to be aware of what really is going on in Syria.

I would like also to thank the Commission of Inquiry for her last report issued the 4th of June 2013. This report is more balanced, it relays on better sources. Its description is in many places sharply accurate. Its conclusions and recommendations are those of the immense majority of the Syrian people and of the immense majority of the international community: in the name of human rights and international laws it heads toward a peaceful solution through negotiation and dialogue. The Commission of Inquiry asks to stop fuelling violence by sending weapons and inflaming sectarian attitudes. It points toward the peace process established in Geneva and paves the way for Geneva II. It also suggests that foreign interference in the Syrian conflict can only complicate the situation and inflict more damages to the innocent civilian population. This is the real issue in this side event consecrated to share on the “Path to peace in Syria”.

I want to thank Commissioner Carla Del Ponte for her intrepidity in declaring the responsibility of the anti government armed groups in the usage of chemical weapons in Khan El Assal. Afterwards this statement was retrieved because of the lack of possibility to process a physical inquiry in the ground. Nevertheless this incident has made it clear for the world that this Commission can escape the pressures and can be impartial if it has access to sufficient sources.

Considering some lacuna in the report

Allow me to get back to some assertions of the report.

It seems effectively that in many places the report is showing an evident lack of first hand sources. We want to continue to collaborate with the OHCHR[1] and with the CoI to ensure the transmission of the reality of the situation in Syria today. It is a duty towards the victims. It is the right to protect. It is the way to apply the correct accountability.

1. In the report the first renegade appears to be the government forces while sporadic deeds are attributed to the anti-government forces. It seems that the rebels and the population that is supportive to them and that is not more than the 10-15% of the global Syrian population are the portion of the Syrian population that the International Community feels that it has the right and duty to protect and thus the International Independent Commission of Inquiry in Syria transmits this feeling.

The report talks about 4.25 millions of internally displaced. Can we know why the 85% of those displaced move naturally to regions stabilized by the government if, as alleged in the report, the government forces are  killing them and ruining their properties? The dynamic of the infiltration of the anti-government armed groups inside residential areas to transform them in a combat zone or in a front line, despite the presence of civilians that are often used as human shields or pushed to leave, should be better highlighted in its contradiction with the Geneva Convention’s articles and as the major incentive of the government military operations that are for this reason targeting such residential areas transformed in combat zones or military front lines. Worthy to note that the military operations of the government forces do not happen immediately after this infiltration, all the contrary there is a big delay between the rebels infiltration and the military reaction of the government forces, allowing the progressive and irreversible deterioration of the situation with the subsequent ravages on the civilian population.

In article 12 it is said that the “Government has not fulfilled its governance duties as it cannot ensure security for its citizens in areas under its rule, and it struggles to provide basic services.”   I share this observation but ask myself: how will the Government fulfill its duty to ensure the security of its citizens? From tens of locations the citizens are asking the Government to react and to save them from the lawlessness of the non-government armed groups and the government is not answering as quickly as the population would like.

In the article 20 it is said: Meanwhile,  the army  – supported  by the Popular  Committees  – has increasingly relied  upon  its  long-standing  strategy  of  denying  food  and  medical  supplies  to  restive localities as a tactic to prevent the armed groups’ expansion and to force displacement  of the population.

What I can say is that the rebels controlled areas in the Province of Idlib and Raqqa where civilian population is still living with the non-governmental armed groups, the Government is providing electricity, fuel, gas, bread, salaries, vaccinations and medical supplies. The local Emir in Raqqa asked for a dialyser equipment. The ministry of health provided immediately two.

I know that in Al Waar suburb counting 800 000 inhabitants of opponent population displaced from Baba Amro and Khalidiyeh, the local administration closed all the accesses to the neighborhood but one and this caused a shortage in the supplying of essentials. The reason was that the non-governmental armed groups (more than 1000 fighters) had massacred 42 civilians from the next village. It was a preventive measure that was lifted when the population accepted an agreement to stop the armed opposition and adopt only political opposition.

21. In regions held by armed groups in northern and eastern governorates, Government forces resumed their brutal and often indiscriminate campaign of shelling, using a wide variety of weaponry. Besides the continuous use of aerial bombardments, they have fired strategic missiles, cluster and thermobaric bombs. This appears to be part of a broader strategy aimed at eroding civilian support for anti-Government armed groups and at damaging infrastructure. The majority of these attacks targeted towns and neighborhoods controlled or infiltrated by armed groups, rather than targeting those groups’ military bases.

About article 21: I don’t know what the report understands when it asserts that the Government forces are aiming to damage the infrastructure when everybody knows how the non-governmental armed groups are continuously perpetrating acts of destruction, vandalism and looting everything everywhere: factories, electricity plants and extensions, gas plants, pipelines, oil wells, water plans and aqueducts, hospitals, administration buildings, schools, museums, archeological sites etc, etc…

I also don’t know what could be the strategy of the Government as described in this article to avoid to target the group’s military bases and to target instead the civilian population and the infrastructure that is a State possession?

Doing this the Government will provoke the anger and more hatred from its citizens. This is not the case.

In reality after more than two years of uprising 70% of the Syrian population still does support the President and the government in Syria. If we consider the statistics done last year by the US Ambassador Robert Ford pointing at 55% of aficionados there is an evident increase of sympathy and not a decrease. Why? Because there is a revolution against the revolution. People are getting tired and they have experienced enough that the revolution has been hijacked by radicalism and also by banditry and organized or salvage criminality. I would have liked this to appear in the report. Or else we are still in approaches that do not compete with the reality.

It is true that, in many cases, the government forces shells on civilian population. I know from our village of Qara that many times the armed groups hide inside the inhabited neighborhood and they lead from there armed incursions against the government forces barricades. This induces a response that can inflict injuries on civilians.

We know certainly that the army stopped many days before launching the attack on Qusayr to verify if the civilians had went out. Tracts were thrown from aircrafts asking the civilians to leave the city. It was evident through the reportages that no civilians were in the city when it was retaken by the army.

But the non-government forces are not only shelling sporadically some civilian zones, in reality civilian neighborhood in Damascus (like Jaramana, Yarmouk or Abassin square), in Homs, Hama’s countryside, Aleppo, Idlib, Hassakeh, Deir Zor, are shelled in a permanent way on a daily basis provoking deadly injuries and material destruction.

3. The popular Committees are committing indeed manyd prohibited actions. But it is important to state that the President issued a Decree punishing with death any abductor and lifting any coverage for crimes and robbery. This Decree was targeting the popular Committees and not the anti-government gangs that are out of the government control.

Article 75: Abduction for political reason, for summary execution or for ransom is a permanent and massive habitude implemented by the rebels. It is now applied by the popular committees. President Assad has issues a decree declaring death sentence for abductors. He means the popular committees who are under his control and not the anti-government armed gangs who are not under his control.

4. Article 94:  About sexual violence: the report lacks of sources about the non-governmental armed groups behavior. It is widely known that such violence is not only incidental but structural. The sexual violence of the anti-government armed groups are countless even not only with girls and women but also with men. We have supplied the Commission with some important cases and we can do more. We also know dramatic cases of collective raping (article 148 and 156).

5. Article 29: We feel reading this article that there is a kind of subtle justification of the radicalization of the anti-government armed groups. While the report describes the drifting of those groups it never attributes to them terrorist deeds while Jobhat al Nosra has been listed among the terrorist groups first by the US then by the International Community. The report strikes us when appealing to their obligations under Common Articles of the Geneva Convention it appears to address itself to them as if they were legal armed groups. Can we say to a terrorist that he has an obligation under the Geneva Convention?

There is also a need to know where come from the anti-government armed groups and who is supporting them. There is also a need for the parents of those young men to know why western countries like France, Belgium, Ireland, Great Britain, Sweden, United States, Australia, Canada are accepting that offices are opened in their cities to recruit them by the most radical islamists. How can those countries support freedom and democracy through radical Islam which is discriminating all other forms of moderate Islam?

6. Article 122. “The deliberate targeting of medical personnel and hospitals, and denial of medical access, continue to be a disturbing feature of the conflict.”

I have seen with my own eyes doctors killed by anti-government armed groups because they attended the National Hospital. Their names were already on the black list of the LCC.

The report is silent about 54 hospitals that have been totally destroyed by the anti-government armed gangs after being looted. Nothing is said about the destruction of 15 pharmaceutical factories.

7. There is a point that is missing in part: about the defense done by the non-governmental armed groups to allow students to go to government held establishments for the examinations. In Idlib, to take an example, the Mussalaha Committee could transport secretly 45% of the population to Idlib under danger,  but 15000 students were prevented to present their exams. The parents were very sad, I was there, because it is the second year that their children are losing. It is worthy to note here that Idlib is a besieged city where there is a constant shortage of food and essentials due to the blockage exerted by anti-government forces (ref to articles 144-148).

8. Concerning accountability: it is easy to attribute responsibility on the Syrian government who is hierarchised. But to whom will the CoI attribute the responsibility of the deeds of the non-governmental armed groups? What about the States that are supporting them with weapons, money, training and intelligence? Nothing is said on this issue.

Dear friends,

Our aim is PEACE. To serve PEACE Mairead Maguire put her life at risk to visit Syria with her team. For PEACE I decided to visit the regions that are outside the control of the Syrian government. What I have seen in the province of Idlib is the continuation of my visit to Homs in december 2011.

What is the path to peace? The CoI highlight the following steps that we of course approve: “While the nature of the conflict is constantly changing, there remains no military solution. So we don’t know how the European Union lifted the embargo on ammunition. They should have lifted the ban on essentials because people are dying in Syrian due to the missing of essentials. Instead they lift the ban on weapons and do not lift the ban to give food to people. And they pretend the right to protect!

159:”The conflict will end only through a comprehensive, inclusive political process. The international community must prioritize a de-escalation of the war…” It is not the case dear friends because today France brings the case in their media that the Syrian government is using chemical weapons, it is an ancient history as Mairead has said, “it is déjà vu”. We should stand against this, they are taking us for idiots. They should stop!.

“The international community must prioritise a de-escalation of the war and work within the framework of the 2012 Geneva Communiqué”.

“160. All parties are obliged to respect human rights and international humanitarian laws. Both they and their supporters share the responsibility to commit to a peaceful solution.

161. Accountability must be re-emphasized at all levels.”

CONCLUSION

I will finish here. I have many things to say. One thing to end: we are persecuted because we say those things that do not fit with the benefit and the interest of some deciders of the International Community and we ask the Human Right Council to protect us as witnesses. You see: 69 media are repeating every day the same cooking, offering the same food, like in the darkest ages of the propaganda. And when someone says something different because we see it with our own eyes, we are persecuted. We have to stop to politicize these things and to let human right activists like we are to work freely or else how are you asking freedom for Human Right Commission and you don’t give the freedom for human rights activists? That’s why I thank again the Commission of Inquiry to collaborate with us. We ask for more collaboration. I thank the High Commissioner because she collaborates with us through her inquirers. I ask for more tidings and more collaboration and we hope that finally in Syria the pattern that have been used in other places like Lebanon, like Gulf, like Afghanistan, like Irak, like Libya would find a peaceful end and we will not incur in another “right to protect” false war.

We are sure that this path for peace is first of all interior, between Syrians and Syrians. To stop the foreign interference, to stop fuelling weapons and fighters, to stop the chain of hatred and radicalization is the path. Avoid pouring oil on the fire is the path. To forgive is the path and to enter in the dynamic of reconciliation is the path. The Syrian people is an amazing people, in the middle of its tragedy it finds way of forgiveness and reconciliation because they love their country and they love their multi secular unique experience of conviviality between so many religious, cultural and ethnical diverse components. This is Orient, the eternal Orient. And Orient should become a spiritual reserve for humanity not a place of continuous struggle for narrow interests. Let us work together with the Human Rights Council to implement a sustainable permanent peace in this cradle of civilization and the matrix of monotheisms.

Thank you !

[1] OHCHR for Office of the High Commissionner of Human Rights. CoI for (International Independent) Commission of Inquiry (on Syria)

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Pope Francis prays for Syria

Posted on June 17, 2013 by fatherdave
Pope Francis

Pope Francis (March 2013)

Pope Francis: Contemplate Jesus’ Suffering in the People of Syria

Pontiff Meets With Relief Organizations Aiding Humanitarian Efforts in War-Torn Country

Vatican City, (Zenit.org…) Junno Arocho Esteves

This morning, Pope Francis met with humanitarian and relief organizations that are dealing with the ongoing crisis in Syria. The meeting was organized by the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, which coordinates the Church’s charity work.

Among the participants were representatives of the following Catholic charity organizations: Aid to the Church in Need International, the AVSI foundation, CAFOD, Caritas Internationalis as well as the local Caritas organizations in Austria, France, Germany, Jordan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, the Middle East and North Africa, Syria, and Turkey.

Also present was the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, Catholic Relief Services, the International Catholic Migration Commission, the International Confederation of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, the Jesuit Refugee Service, and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Pope Francis thanked the relief organizations in aiding those suffering and called for an end to the violence plaguing the Syrian people.

“The Holy See’s concern for the crisis in Syria, and in a particular way, for the people, often defenseless, who are suffering as a result of it, is well known. Benedict XVI repeatedly called for a ceasefire and for a search for a resolution through dialogue in order to achieve a profound reconciliation between sides. Let the weapons be silent!” the Pope exclaimed.

The Holy Father also recalled the efforts of his predecessor to find a peaceful solution to the violence by sending Cardinal Robert Sarah to the region as well as “manifesting his concrete and fatherly solicitude with a donation.”

“The destiny of the Syrian people,” the Pope continued, “is a concern that is close to my heart also. On Easter Sunday I asked for peace: “above all for dear Syria”, I said, “for its people torn by conflict, and for the many refugees who await help and comfort. How much blood has been shed! And how much suffering must there be before a political solution to the crisis is found”.

Renewing his appeal for peace in the region, and encouraged the intention of the international community to foster a peaceful dialogue with the opposing parties in Syria to bring an end to the war.

The Holy Father also encouraged the charitable organizations working in the region, saying that Church is called in these moments to give a “concrete and sincere witness” to charity.

“May your timely and coordinated work be an expression of the communion to which it gives witness, as the recent Synod on the Church in the Middle East suggested,” the Holy Father said.

Appealing to the international community, Pope Francis asked, apart from negotiating a solution to the conflict, for “the provision of humanitarian aid for the displaced and refugees.”

Concluding his address, the Holy Father expressed his closeness to the Christian communities in Syria and the Middle East, saying that they have the enormous task of offering a “Christian presence” in the region.

“The participation of the entire Christian community to this important work of assistance and aid is imperative at this time,” the Pope said. “And let every one of us, let each of us think of Syria. What great suffering, what great poverty, what great grief experienced by Jesus who suffers, who is poor, who is expelled from his homeland. It is Jesus! This is a mystery, but it is our Christian mystery. Let us contemplate Jesus’ suffering in the inhabitants of beloved Syria.”

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Mairead Maguire appeals for Reconciliation in Syria

Posted on June 16, 2013 by fatherdave

Report and Appeal to the International community to support a process of dialogue and reconciliation in Syria between its people and Syrian government and reject outside intervention and war.

BY Mairead Maguire, Nobel peace laureate. Spokesperson for Mussalaha International Peace delegation to Lebanon/Syria    l-llth May, 2013,

After a 10 days  visit to Lebanon and Syria, leading a 16 person delegation from 8 countries, invited by Mussalaha Reconciliation Movement,  I have returned hopeful that peace is possible in Syria, if all outside interference is stopped and the Syrians are allowed to solve their own problems upholding  their right to  self-determination.

An appeal to end all violence and for Syrians to be left alone from outside interference was made by all those we met during our visit to Syria.  We have tried to forward it to the International community in our Concluding Declaration(l).

During our visit we went to refugee camps, affected communities, met religious leaders, combatants, government representatives, opposition delegations and many others, perpetrators and victims, in Lebanon and Syria.

1. Visits to refugee camps:   In Lebanon we visited several refugee camps, hosted by Lebanese or Palestinian communities.  One Woman said: “before this conflict started we were happy and had a good life (there is free education, free healthcare, subsidies for fuel,  in Syria ,) and now we live in poverty”. Her daughter and son-in-law (a pharmacist and engineer) standing on a cement floor in a Palestinian refugee camp, with not even a mattress,  told us that this violence had erupted to everyone surprise’s and spread so quickly they were all still in shock, but when well armed, foreign fighters came to Homs, they took over their homes, raped their women, and killed young males who refused to join their ranks, so the people fled in terror.  They said that these foreign fighters were from many countries like Libyans, Saudis, Tunisians, Chechens, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Emiratis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Turkish, Europeans, Australian, and these gangs are financed and trained by foreign governments.  They attach suicide vests around peoples’ bodies and threaten to explode them if they don’t do what they are told.  One refugee woman asked me ‘when can we go home’?   (To my great delighted a few days later in Damascus I met a woman working on a government programme which is helping refugees to return to Syria and over 200 have returned to date).

Religious and government leaders have called upon people not to flee Syria and it is to be hoped many will heed this call, as after seeing so many Syrian refugees living in tents and being exploited in so many ways, including sexually, I believe the best solution is the stability of Syria so its people feel safe enough to stay in Syria.   If refugees continue to flee Syria then surrounding countries could be destabilized, causing the domino effect and destabilizing the entire Middle East.

Many people have fled into camps in surrounding countries like Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon, all of whom are trying to manage the huge influx of Syrian refugees. Although the host countries are doing their best to cope they are overwhelmed by refugee numbers. (UNHCR’s official figure of refugees is one million).   Through our meetings we have been informed that Turkey invites Syrian refugees into the country and forbid them to go back home. It is documented that Syrian refugees in Turkey and Jordan are mistreated. Some young Syrian refugee girls are sold for forced marriage in Jordan.   From OHCHR reports we know that more than 4 million Syrians are displaced inside their own country, living in great need.

A representative from Red Cross, told us that there is freedom to do their work throughout Syria for all NGO and the Syrian Red crescent in co-ordination with the Ministry of Social affairs  and under such dire circumstances, they are doing their best, providing services to as many people as possible.  However there is a great shortage of funds for them to cope with this humanitarian tragedy of refugees and   internally displaced population.   The economic sanctions, as in Iraq,are causing great hardship to many people and  all those whom we met called for them to be lifted.  Our delegation called for the lifting of these illegal US-led sanctions that target the Syrian Population for purely political reasons in order to achieve regime change.

2- Hospitals: We visited the hospitals and saw many people injured by shootings, bombings, and armed attacks.  A moderate Sunni Imam told me how he was abducted by jihadists, who tortured him, cut off his ear, tried to cut his throat, slicing his legs, and left him for dead.  He said when he goes back to his mosque they will slaughter him.  He told us “these men are foreign fighters, jihadists from foreign countries, well armed, well trained, with money, they are in our country to destroy it.  They are not true Muslims but are religious extremist/fundamentalists terrorizing, abducting, killing our people”.  The government spokesman also confirmed that they have in detention captured foreign fighters from 29 countries, including Chechens, Iraqis, and many others. The Ministry of Health showed us a documentary on the terrible killings by Jihadists and the terror caused by these foreigners with the killing of medics and destruction of medical infrastructure of the Syrian State which has made it difficult to answer the needs of the population.

3- Meeting with Opposition:  Our delegation participated in an open forum with many representatives  of internal opposition’s parties.    One political opponent who was in prison 24 years under the Assad regime, and has been out for 11 years, wants political change with more than 20 other internal opposition components, but without outside interference and the use of violence.  We met with ‘armed’ opposition people in a local community who said they had accepted the governments offer of amnesty and were working for a peaceful way forward.  One man told me he had accepted money from Jihadists to fight but had been shocked by their cruelty and the way they treated fellow Syrian muslims considering them as not real Muslims.   He said foreign Jihadists wanted to take over Syria, not save it.

The 10th May a part of our delegation headed to Homs, invited by the opposition community of Al Waar city where displaced families from Baba Amro, Khalidiyeh and other rebel’s strongholds seek refuge. The Delegation saw all the conditions of this city and is studying a Pilot Project for Reconciliation and peaceful reintegration between this community and the surrounded non rebel communities (Shia and Alaouites) with whom 15 days ago an agreement of non belligerence has been signed through the auspices of Mussalaha.

4 –  Meeting with Officials: Our Delegation met, and spoke, at the Parliament, and also with the Governor, Prime Minister and 7 other Ministries.  We were given details of the new Constitution and political reforms being put in place, and plans for elections in 2014.  Government Ministers admitted that they had made mistakes in being slow to respond to legitimate demands for change from civil community but these were now being implemented.  They told us when the conflict started it was peaceful for change but quickly turned into bloodshed when armed men killed many soldiers.

In the first days soldiers were unarmed but when people started asking for protection the government and military responded to defend the people and in self defence.

When we enquired from the Prime Minister regarding the allegation that the Syrian Government had used Sarin gas, he told us that as soon as  news came from Aleppo that allegedly gas had been used, his government  invited immediately the UN to come into investigate, but heard nothing from them.  Most recently however, a UN investigator, High Commissioner Carla Del Ponte, has confirmed that it was rebels, not Syrian government, who used Sarin gas.   During meeting with Justice Minister, we requested that a list of 72 non-violent political dissidents currently detained be released.  The justice Minister said after checking those listed were indeed non-violent political dissidents,  he would,  in principal, agree to the release of these nonviolent detainees.  He also informed us they they do not implement the death penalty and it is hoped that when things settle in Syria they will move to have the death penalty abolished.  We also asked the Justice Minister (an international lawyer) about Syrian Government’s Human rights abuses, namely the artillery shelling into no-go areas being held by jihadists and armed opposition.  The Minister accepted those facts but alleged that the Government had a duty to clear these areas.  We suggested there was a better way to deal with the problem than artillery shelling but he insisted that the government had responsibility to clear the areas of rebel forces and this was the way in which they were doing it

The Ministers and Governor said that President Assad was their President and has their support.  There were many people we spoke to who expressed such sentiments.   However, some young people said they support the opposition but in order to protect the Unity of Syria from outside destruction, they will support the government and President Assad, until the election next year and then they will vote for the opposition. They said the Doha Coalition in Qatar does not represent them and that no one outside Syria has a right to remove President Assad but the Syrian people through the elections next year.  The journalists in Syria are in great danger from the religious extremist/fundamentals,and during my visit to a television station a young journalist told me how his mother was killed by jihadists and he showed me his arm where he had been shot and almost killed.

5- Meeting with religious leaders: We attended in the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus a prayer gathering led by the Grand Mufti of the Syrian Arab Republic, Dr. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and the Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham with the delegate of Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X Yazigi, and clerics of all traditions. The Assembly prayed for the peace and unity of Syria and the non-interference of outsiders in their country.  They stressed the conflict in Syria is not a religious conflict, as Muslims and Christians have always lived together in Syria, and they are,(in spite of living with  suffering and violence much of which is not of their own making), unified in their wish to be a light of peace and reconciliation to the world.  The Patriarch said that from the Mosque and Christian churches goes out a great movement of peace and reconciliation and asked both those inside and outside Syria, to reject all violence and support the people of Syria in this work of dialogue, reconciliation and peacemaking.

The Muslim and Christian Spiritual Leaders are very conscious if the religious extremist/fundamentalists gain momentum and control Syria, the future of those who are not supportive of fundamentalists like moderate Muslims, Christians, minorities, and other Syrians is in great danger. Indeed the Middle East  could loose its precious pluralistic social fabric with the  Christians, like in Iraq, being the first to flee the country. This would be a tragedy for all concerned in this multi-religious, multi-cultural secular Syria, once a light of peaceful conviviality in the Arab world.

AN OVERVIEW:

Following many authorized reports in the mainstream Medias and our own evidences I can stress that the Syrian State and its population are under a proxy war led by foreign countries and directly financed and backed mainly by Qatar who has imposed its views on the Arab League. Turkey, a part of the Lebanese opposition and some of the Jordan authorities offer a safe haven to a diversity of jihadist groups, each with its own agenda, recruited from many countries. Bands of jihadists armed and financed from foreign countries invade Syria through Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon porous frontiers in an effort to destabilize Syria. There are an estimated 50,000 foreign jihadist fighters terrorizing Syria.  Those death squads are destroying systematically the Syrian State infrastructures (Electricity, Oil, Gas and water plants, High Tension Pylons, hospitals, schools, public buildings, cultural heritage sites and even religious sanctuaries).  Moreover the country is submerged by snipers, bombers, agitators, bandits.  They use aggression and Sharia rules and hijack the freedom and dignity of the Syrian population.  They torture and kill those who refuse to join them. They have strange religious beliefs which make them feel comfortable even perpetrating the cruelest acts like killing and torture of their opponents. It is well documented that  many of those terrorists are permanently under stimulant like Captagon. The general lack of security unlashes the terrible phenomenon of abduction for ransoms or for political pressure.  Thousands of innocents are missing, among them the two Bishops, Youhanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi, many priests and Imams.

UN and EU economic sanctions as well as a severe embargo are pushing Syria to the edge of social collapse. Unfortunately the international media network is ignoring those realities and is bent on demonizing, lying, destabilizing the country and fuelling more violence and contradiction.

In summary: the war in Syria is not as depicted a civil war but a proxy war with serious breaches of International laws and the Humanitarian International laws.. The protection of the foreign fighters  by some foreign countries among the most powerful gives them a kind of an unaccountability that pushes them with impunity to all kind of cruel deeds against innocent civilians. Even war conventions are not respected incurring in many war crimes and, even, crimes against Humanity.

CONCLUSION:

During our visit to Syria, our delegation was met with great kindness by everyone and I offer to each one who facilitated or hosted our Delegation my most sincere feelings of gratitude.  We witnessed that the Syrian people have suffered very deeply and continue to do so.  The entire population of 23 million people are under tremendous threat of continued infiltration by foreign terrorists.  Many are still stunned by the horrors and suddenness of all this violence and worried their country will be attacked and divided by outside forces, and are all too aware that geopolitical forces are at work to destabilize Syria for political control, oil and resources. One Druze leader said ‘if westerns want our Oil – both Lebanon and Syria have oil reserves – let us negotiate for it, but do not destroy our country to take it’.     In Syria memories of next door Iraq’s destruction by US/UK/NATO forces are fresh in people’s minds, including in the minds of the one and a half million Iraqis who fled Iraqi’s conflict, including many Christians, and were given refuge in Syria by the Syrian Government.

The greatest hope we took was from Mussalaha, a non political movement from all sections of Syrian society, who have working teams throughout Syria and is proceeding through dialogue to building peace and reconciliation.  Mussalaha mediates between armed gunmen and security forces, help get release of many people who have been abducted, and bring together all parties to the conflict for dialogue and practical solutions.  It was this movement who hosted us, under the leadership of Mother Agnes-Mariam, Superior of Saint James’ Monastery, supported by the Patriarch Gregory III Laham, head of the Catholic Hierarchy of Syria.

This great civil community movement building a peace process and National Reconciliation from the ground up, will, if given space, time, and non-interference from outside, help bring Peace to Syria.  They recognize that there must be an unconditional, all inclusive political solution, with compromises and they are confident this is happening at many levels of society and is the only way forward for Syrian peace.

I support this National Reconciliation process which, many Syrian believe, is the only way to bring Peace to SYRIA and the entire Middle East. I am myself committed to this peaceful process and hope that the International Community, the Religious and Political Leaders as well as any person of good will will help Syria to bypass violence and prejudice and anchor in a new era of Social peace and prosperity.  This cradle of civilizations where Syria occupies the heart is an enormous spiritual heritage for humanity, let us strive to establish a non war zone and proclaim it an OASIS of Peace for the Human Family.

MAIREAD MAGUIRE

Report and Appeal to the International community to support a process of dialogue and reconciliation in Syria between its people and Syrian government and reject outside intervention and war. BY Mairead Maguire, Nobel peace laureate. Spokesperson for Mussalaha International Peace delegation to Lebanon/Syria l-llth May, 2013,

Mairead Maguire with Father Dave in Beirut,, just before the delegation crossed the border into Syria

Nobel peace laureate.    www.peacepeople.com…
 Peace people, 224 Lisburn Road, Belfast. Bt9.
23.5.2013 

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Hands Off Syria

Posted on June 16, 2013 by fatherdave
With Elle (L) and Mimi (R) at the "Hands Off Syria" rally (Sydney Town Hall, June 15, 2013)

With Elle (L) and Mimi (R) at the “Hands Off Syria” rally (Sydney Town Hall, June 15, 2013)

Our hearts bleed for the people of Syria.

Our hearts bleed for the people of Syria – for the real people of Syria, and not just for the images of Syria that are handed to us by the media.

What we see on the TV are images of Syria as a battle zone, where courageous rebels try to liberate their country from the despotic rule of Bashar Al-Assad while government lackeys hammer them in return. This is not the real Syria, and these people are not the heart of Syria. So many of these people are not even Syrian!

I had the privilege of spending time in Damascus over the last month, and I had the privilege of meeting real Syrians – ordinary people trying to get on with their lives, go to work, earn their daily bread, raise their families, and get on with life, while round about them international forces vie for control of their homeland!

The people of Syria are beautiful people. They are a proud and noble people, and they are a people who believe that they are capable of sorting out their own issue through dialogue rather than through violence, and they deserve better than what they are getting from the international community!

In the name of humanitarian intervention, foreign powers are murdering thousands upon thousands of Syrians, and it has to stop. In the name of God, it has to stop!

I know that in America there seems to be a deep-seated belief that the way to solve violence is to introduce more violence! That seems to be fundamental to their gun culture – a belief that the way to reduce gun-deaths is to increase the number of guns available – and maybe that’s a large part of what is going on here? Personally, I suspect more sinister forces are at work but, either way, we in this country are a bit smarter than that, I think. We recognise that the way to reduce violence is not to add more weapons and soldiers to the conflagration. It is nonsensical and it is evil.

There has been enough fighting in Syria. There are already way too many weapons in Syria, and we need to pray and to lift up our voices and plead with our governments to stop sending ‘lethal aid’ into Syria. The people of Syria are a proud people and a noble people and they are capable of working their issues through by means of dialogue if the foreign powers will get their grubby hands off their country!

The people of Syria are a beautiful people and they deserve better than what they are getting from us! They deserve our respect, and they deserve our support and they deserve a chance to work out their issues for themselves in peace without our ‘humanitarian intervention’.

Our hearts bleed for the people of Syria, and the people of Syria will continue to bleed until we give them the respect and the support that they need. Enshallah!

This was the speech  given by Father Dave at the “Hands Off Syria” rally, held at the Sydney Town Hall on June 15, 2013.

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