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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.

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 10^th 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

Nobel peace laureate.    www.peacepeople.com

Peace people, 224 Lisburn Road, Belfast. Bt9.

23.5.2013

N.B.  See the Afghan Peace Volunteers’ Open Letter to Kofi Annan here and here

“Love letters from Kabul – on emotions”

A fairer life for all

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/2013/05/love-letters-from-kabul-on-emotions/

Dear friends and fellow human beings,

9th May , 2013 ( Gregorian calendar )

20^th Saur , 1392 ( Afghan calendar )

From Abdulhai

I can’t quite bear to see the forever-sorrow in my mother.

She walks in a sad way.

Once, I had called from Kabul to speak to her in Bamiyan, and I can’t recall what I had laughed over. She thought I was ridiculing her, despite my explanations of how I would never ridicule her, my widowed mother.

Since then, I’ve been calling her less often because I don’t quite know how to respond to her sadness.

I mean, I myself have a heaviness which sits inside. I used to cry easily as a kid, until I was older.

Last year, when I got angry with Hakim, and I said I wanted to leave the community, it hurt me very much to hear Hakim say, “If you really want to go, you are free to leave.”

Watch ‘Can Abdulhai and Samia be happy in Afghanistan?’

http://youtu.be/WcQ8prnX-zs

Can you imagine why, like most other Afghans, I sometimes get tired of my feelings?

My mother and I and all, we are all war children.

From Samia

Hakim asked me to describe what makes me happy.   

‘Friends and family’ was my answer.

On a wall in the Afghan Peace Volunteers’ house, one of the volunteers, Sadaf, had painted two doves flying away from a cage, into the blue ‘lake’.

I told Hakim this drawing was a happy one. “Why?” Hakim asked.

“The doves are beautiful.”

From Hakim

Part of the loss of human dignity experienced by Afghans is the feeling that no one notices.

Bare mountains, rivers drying up, children with malnourished cheeks, beings under ‘burqas’, chair-less tent schools, fatherlessness, family-less-ness…..and yet, still un-regarded.

I re-print some thoughts I had sometime in 2004 ( italicized below ) , as I crossed over the harsh, no-man’s land from Quetta to Kandahar, learning from Abdulhai whom I met years later that we often walk like we’re in a prison, and that we can be happy when, like the imaginative art offered by doves, we labor daily to be free.

As I was going on foot from the Pakistan Immigration office into Afghanistan, I quietly felt fatigued, wishing for the comforts of home and the company of friends. But we have all taken this road before, venturing past unfamiliar limits and handling uneasy tasks, knowing that while it is ideal to travel together, sometimes, we need to walk a little way on our own.

Near the Pakistan Afghanistan border

Crossing the border

I wanted to shout out loud

As I crossed the border alone

Just so I could hear my voice

Above the bareness of my bones

The lines that divide our hearts

Are a hazy black and white

I can’t tell a right from a lie

Or when a struggle becomes a fight

I remembered the orphan boy Najib

His hard work and his strife

How he took that foreign journey

His mistake or his hope or his life

These zones, these places of nowhere

Can strengthen or cripple our course

Such that when we cross those borders

For a second, our history breathes a pause…

For a moment, I lost my resolve

Love,

Abdulhai, Samia and Hakim

“Love letters from Kabul – on fairer thoughts”

A fairer life for all

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/2013/04/love-letters-from-kabul-on-fairer-thoughts/

Dear friends and fellow human beings,

26^th April , 2013 ( Gregorian calendar )

6^th Saur ,1392 ( Afghan calendar )

From Abdulhai

I think life is unfair.

But I also know that it is people who make life unfair.

Like the older student at my school who regularly surrenders his personal pistol to the school security guard for ‘safe’-keeping.

One day, the security guard was coming out of the school bathroom as I entered it. Ten minutes after I had returned to my class, the security guard was threatening me, “Tell me where the pistol is! You must have taken it when I had gone to the bathroom!”

The security guard brought me to the school administration office where, without asking any questions, the teachers joined the guard in pressuring me to ‘surrender’ the pistol they were accusing me of stealing.

My heart was sinking with doom.

I thought, “This is TROUBLE. They’ll take me to the police station next, pay bribes and make up a story. I’ll be the scapegoat.”

Then, a teacher turned up to say that the pistol had been found.

God knows the number of innocent souls who are today sitting in prisons or worse, who have been killed.

God ought to know.

Afghans say that people get killed just like flies do.

Abdulhai hopes

From Samia

I did okay enough in the grade placement test to enroll in the 3^rd grade. I’m one of the older girls in class, but I don’t really mind, as I want to put on my uniform and have my name called in class.

Some teachers like some students better than the others, and they show it. What I find most insulting is when they treat me in a different way because I am poor.  

How happy I was the day I registered at the school! Walina and I visited Hakim that same day, having walked in a slight drizzle. We told him, ‘’We’re going to school!”

Yes, I’m finally getting somewhere.

Watch video ‘Samia finally goes to school’

From Hakim

The inequalities today are cliff-edge catalysts that have caused Time Magazine’s ‘Protesters’ to crystallize on the streets everywhere.

It no longer feels alright for us to remain helpless and pacified before huge systems of money and power to which we have been saying a subservient ‘yes’.

These systems have made a handful of elite corporatists and rulers very rich, while all of us, including the elite, become less and less like free human beings.

These systems make us avid consumers of the next empty thing. We busily stop feeling sorrow for others. We erroneously think that war is necessary.

We are trapped by norms more than we are freed by ideals.

Meanwhile, the hungry are dying every five seconds of our modern, technologically advanced life, and the glaciers are melting. We tolerate such disparities, but see that everything is dying, including ourselves, and that tolerance is no longer enough.

Everything is dying

So the Afghan Peace Volunteers are experimenting with what we can do through tiny acts.

We feel we need to wake up differently each day.

We feel a need to walk through the injustices and inequalities soaking the streets.

We discover the value of being broken people.

We realize that we cannot survive without love.

We find ourselves torn ‘between doom and finally getting somewhere’.

I hear Abdulhai observing that the rich, pistol-armed students are those who are respected, and Samia speaking blandly about being beaten by her teacher in class, and I walk out onto the verandah to feel the Kabul drizzle stain the dust on my face.

I’m gripped by the unfairness of unfairness, and I tell Abdulhai gently, dizzily, that surely, there is no mortal time left to hesitate.

Love,

Abdulhai, Samia and Hakim

“Love letters from Kabul – on safety”

A fairer life for all

http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/2013/03/love-letters-from-kabul-on-safety/

Dear friends and fellow human beings,

15^th March , 2013 ( Gregorian calendar )

25th Hut ,1391 ( Afghan calendar )

From Abdulhai

I feel safe with my mother and family, and with the few friends who care for me.

Everything needs to be safe, even the trees and the flowers. They need space to grow and bear fruit.

Here in Afghanistan, we don’t have that space.

Maybe someday, I will feel safe, when war and its silliness ends, and people can live together. But maybe not. Though we feel uncomfortable with armed persons, we ignore the discomfort. We still believe the fantasy that somehow, weapons make us safer. 

I sometimes wonder, “How did we human beings come to be like this?”

What happened?

We had a tree planting day in Kabul before I went back to Bamiyan for the Afghan New Year. As I was digging the ground with a pickaxe, I remembered working in the open mountain fields of Bamiyan and turned to Hakim to say, “Hakim, I can’t believe I’m going home tomorrow.”

From Samia

We seem to hear voices everywhere telling us, “You are stupid. You are weak students. You are poor. You were brought up badly.”

We can’t escape these voices. We are never safe.

Walina and Wajia and I felt this way again this week. We ‘ran’ to Hakim to complain, to sulk and to find some room to be ourselves.

Surely, there’ll be a limit to our patience.

I’m not sure if this world was meant for little girls.

From Hakim

Afghanistan is the worst country on earth for a child to be in, so how could we fantasize that the 50 NATO coalition countries have brought security for one of the poorest people on earth?

Who are we kidding?

The Geneva based UN Committee on the Rights of the Child released a report and recommendations to the U.S. government which said it “was ‘alarmed’ at reports of the deaths of hundreds of children from US attacks and air strikes in Afghanistan.”

The U.S. military strongly rejected this report as ‘categorically unfounded.’

To the U.S. military, I say this: it is shameful to argue with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child over the possible ‘deaths of hundreds of children’. You are disappointing little children. I suggest we try to find the children’s graves.

I suggest that this is not the ‘better world’ children long for.

When we heard that six-year old Toor Jan and seven-year old Odood had been killed while tending to their cattle and collecting firewood, we took our hearts of sorrow and rage to the streets of Kabul. We went with two cows, remembering that the two children were tending to their cattle on their last day.

We are those two children. ( Watch our protest at http://youtu.be/VW43_Y2qkWw ). We wanted to be human again.

Yes, I’m enraged by armed groups like the Taliban who knowingly or unknowingly kill children too.  But no, I don’t want to lose my rage. I want to preserve it.

Weapons and bombs do not embody any ‘virtue’ which we would wish Abdulhai or Samia to find solace in.

You may disagree or get angry with peace activists on the necessity of some wars, but please hear the children.

Hear their soft and clear voices. See the age-old messages they have on their faces – watch them imagine the future : “We are waging war against Afghan children.”

“We are waging war against Afghan children.”

Everything needs a safe space where people aren’t killing one another and then accusing one another of ‘categorically unfounded lies’.

Even the trees and the flowers are imagining that space.

Love,

Abdulhai, Samia and Hakim