The activists’ network of Local Coordination Committees published a statement regarding a possible military strike against the Assad regime. We are documenting the their statement to give Syrian opposition a voice.
The Syrian people have never welcomed a foreign military intervention in any country, but as it faced the oppression, it was forced to revolt out of a belief in its righteous cause, while the dictator’s regime responded with gunfire, torture, arbitrary detention and denied the people their daily bread and the safety of their homes. The regime has confronted civilian protestors with tanks and heavy weaponry from the beginning of the Syrian revolution, and, since then, it hasn’t stopped developing its methods of killing and violence. Arbitrary detention by security forces gradually turned into field executions, and gunfire has become an ongoing use of warplanes, ballistic missiles and heavy artillery, uptill the moment when chemical weapons were used. The regime has never stopped challenging the entire world, relying on the support of Russia, China and Iran, and on the world being a silent accomplice. It’s ongoing mass murder of the Syrian people, and its systematic destruction of the Syrian state, were its proof of humanity’s failure in protecting itself from tyranny.
Today, the signs are indicating a serious possibility to an American strike against the regime, that would merely defend the Red Line of the use of chemical weapons, which Assad has repeatedly challenged. Apparently, the main concern of the West in this regard is based on international balance and interests, not on the serious attempt to rescue a people who are striving for freedom and dignity, and dying for that, everyday.
A limited strike to merely warn Assad will lead to nothing but increase in his violence, as well as to his complete confidence that no one would prevent him from killing. Such a transient strike will only become an international community approval of his use of non-chemical weaponry, if it really succeeds in preventing future use of chemical. In the end no one will pay the price but the Syrian people.
It is a difficult moment and a turning point in the history of Syrians, it requires a high sense of responsibility, from us, and from the entire world, as well as wisdom, not hesitation and egoism.
Any strike to the regime must aim to paralyze, with attention and precision, its Air Forces, artillery, and missiles arsenal, being used continuously against civilian areas, with an impact not far from that of Mass Destruction weapons. A strike must also priotorize civilians and their safety, rather than being at their cost. Moreover, it needs to be accompanied by close coordination with, and sufficient support to the Syrian opposition, both political and armed; in order to allow for better organization and progress. Such an empowerment is crucial, as it enables hope in the hearts of Syrians, whose despair and agony are the basis for extremism.
As opposers, revolutionaries, and activists, it is our responsibility to stand side by side today, in order to clarify our national interests and humanitarian necessities, to tell the entire world that abandoning a people equals abandoning humanity itself, and that an intervention in Syria must be in favor of the Syrians’ needs and voices, respecting them as well as their future’s sovereignty.
The time of death has lasted for too long in Syria. Our people wait for help from the world, and help continues to ignore them. An international community that watched all of this death and still needs time to further think before providing medication to a causality of chemical weapons, doesn’t promise us much as the massacre continues.
But, and despite all of that, we remain certain that humanity has not been defeated yet, that it will wake up, today, or tomorrow; and our people are the proof.
