[Vredeslijst] woensdag demo tegen militaire interventie Syrië
Henk van der Keur
henk.vdkeur op antenna.nl
Do Sep 5 11:50:46 CEST 2013
Daar ben ik het helemaal mee eens. En er bestaan geweldloze oppositiegroepen. Neem
bijvoorbeeld het National Coordination Committee (NCC), dat geen deel uitmaakt van de Syrian
National Council (SNC), de coalitie van oppositiegroepen die door verscheidene Westerse
regeringen beschouwd wordt als de legitieme vertegenwoordiging van de Syrische bevolking
Henk van der Keur
Zie bericht in The Huffington Post:
Syria Conflict: Opposition Leader Haytham Al-Manna Criticises Plans For US Military
Intervention As 'Satanic'
Posted: 02/09/2013 12:50 BST
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/02/syria-conflict-
manna_n_3854981.html?ir=Politics&ref=topbar
Speaking to the Huffington Post UK, Haytham al-Manna, the Paris-based spokesman of the
National Coordination Committee (NCC), said: "Our position is against any [western]
aggression against Syria. There is no [option of] military aggression against the regime, it will
be against.. the population."
The NCC, which consists of a dozen or so secular, leftist political parties inside Syria, is not a
member of the Syrian National Council (SNC), the coalition of opposition groups recognised as
the legitimate representative of the Syrian people by several western governments. The latter
has long supported western military intervention against Assad; the former does not.
The NCC's Manna, a veteran human-rights activist whose brother was killed by the Assad
regime, said US ordnance won't "make the distinction between military and civilian targets. I
saw what happened in Iraq..and all the [previous] American interventions."
Manna's brother was killed by the Assad regime but he doesn't support military intervention
Manna added: "We are against the intervention in Syria of Hizbollah [and] of foreign fighters
from al Qaeda. We cannot build democracy in Syria with others."
Criticising the United States, Turkey, Israel and other regional powers, he said: "We are not in
favour of a satanic intervention against a satanic regime."
Several other opposition groups have criticised the NCC for being too soft on the Syrian
government, with the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) dismissing it as "just the other face of the
same coin". But Manna insisted that the "political opposition outside Syria" is a "minority
inside the country". The NCC spokesman claimed that "the majority of Syrian society is
against any [foreign military] intervention".
Referring to the proposed 'Geneva II' UN-backed peace conference in Switzerland, Manna
warned that "we have now the opportunity.. to push all parties, the regime and the opposition,
to go to Geneva.. Up to now, [the Assad regime] accepted it had to go to Geneva.. I am not
sure [Assad] will go at the end of the year."
bashar al assad
Manna wants pressure to be put on Assad and the rebels to attend peace talks in Geneva
However, most of Syria's opposition groups, as well as a growing number of Western
diplomats, believe Assad will not agree to negotiate with his opponents unless there is a
credible threat of US-led military action. Manna disagrees. "If [Assad] doesn't accept [he has]
to go, Russia will change its position [of support] because it is an essential part of Geneva II."
Responding to his critics who take a more hardline stance against the regime, and insist on
Assad's resignation as a precondition to peace talks, Manna said that the rebels had been
refusing to negotiate with the Syrian president for over two years "and we lost more than
70,000 people in Syria because of this position". The prolonging of the Syrian civil war, he
explained, "is only in the interests of Assad and al Qaeda".
For Manna, there is no alternative to negotiations. "The regime and the opposition must go to
Geneva II without preconditions," he told HuffPost UK. "The only precondition is applying [the
principles of the] Geneva communique. And this is in the interests of the democratic
opposition, not of al Qaeda [or] the Islamists." The Geneva communique, published in June
2012, called on all parties to the conflict to recommit to a "sustained cessation of armed
violence" and immediately implement the then UN envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan.
In recent days, US and UK officials have spoken about the importance of "enforcing the
international norm with respect to chemical weapons" and taking military action to punish the
Assad regime for its alleged use of sarin gas against civilians in Ghouta, east of Damascus on
21 August.
Manna, however, pointed out that enforcing international law "is not a decision for Congress or
for the French parliament.. We don't accept any unilateral decision from any country in the
world, whether it is the US or Iran or the UK."
On 4 Sep 2013 at 17:14, kees op amok.antenna.nl wrote:
> Ik vind wel dat deze Georges Sabra op een punt gelijk heeft. Het staat
> mij ook tegen om samen met Assad-aanhangers te demonstreren. Ik vind
> eigenlijk dat een eventueel comité tegen westerse interventie in Syrië
> als een uitgangspunt zou moeten hebben dat verzet tegen het regime
> gerechtvaardigd is en wat mij betreft dat we ook solidair zijn met het
> geweldloze verzet. Het militaire verzet heb ik wel problemen mee,
> omdat het volgens mij steeds meer wordt overheerst door jihadisten en
> lokale sterke mannen. Het aanvankelijke volksverzet is deels
> getransformeerd tot een sektarische burgeroorlog. Kees.
>
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