PFMEP Supports U. S. Efforts to Curtail Syrian Violence

Presbyterians for Middle East Peace continues to monitor and comment upon the tragic situation in Syria. Previously, we supported the introduction of the Arab League observers and called for the resignation of President Assad. Since then President Assad and the Syrian military and security forces have made a mockery of all genuine outside efforts to bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis and have instead embarked upon a large scale, genocidal massacre of innocents by use of indiscriminate tank and artillery fire.

We applaud the recent efforts of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to organize humanitarian assistance for the thousands of injured victims and to support the emerging coalition of Arab and non-Arab countries under the banner of  “Friends of Syria.” We also support Secretary Clinton in her pointed comments about the “despicable” conduct of Russia and others in blocking Security Council resolutions designed to bring a halt to the violence and in her demand at the Friends Conference that Syria‘s allies stop providing additional weapons to the Syrian armed forces.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those courageous people of Syria who attempted to bring about a peaceful transition from totalitarian rule but were, instead, subjected to horrific acts of violence.

We also call upon the United Nations to promptly indict and prosecute the senior leadership of the Assad government, military and security forces for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court at The Hague. In that regard, we commend the recent report from the UN-appointed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria which found “reasonable grounds to believe that particular individuals at the highest levels of government have been responsible for crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations”.