WCA Letter to UK PM Mr David Cameron re Syria
The Right Honourable Mr David Cameron
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
10 Downing Street London W1
Stockholm, 30 July 2013
Re: Appreciation for not sending weapons to Syria and the plight of the native Christians
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Your Excellency, Dear Mr Cameron,
We wish to express our deep gratitude towards Her Majesty’s Government for not sending weapons into Syria, but hope that the budget will now be reserved instead for the direly needed humanitarian aid. As we have learned since the outbreak of the war in the country, the move to flood the country with more weapons would only have led to an increase in violence and bloodshed of innocent civilians.
Photo: WPA Pool/ Getty Images Europe
With the Syrian war we are experiencing a nightmarish déjà vu. It is reminiscent of the war against Iraq, which caused the death of countless civilians and a massive exodus of native groups like the Aramean (Syriac) Christians, who have been present in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon since time immemorial. Thankfully, our experience and growing concerns about the position of the dwindling Christians of the Near East were shared by the Right Honourable Mr William Hague, during a meeting with my Vice-President, Mr Daniel Gabriel, at the General Assembly of the UN in New York on 27 September 2012.
Arming unknown groups may not only result in atrocities such as we have seen in Benghazi, but would also have dealt a heavy blow to the strenuous efforts of the global community to achieve lasting peace through dialogue. The World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (“WCA”) holds that initiatives such as the one launched by the USA and Russia, aimed at bringing together the warring parties in order to seek a political rather than military solution, are indeed feasible and should deserve our greatest attention.
Hence we urgently request Your Excellency and Her Majesty’s Government to apply all power bestowed upon You to have all the parties involved in this terrible conflict to join the negotiation table. We further ask You to convince other governments (e.g., France and Saudi Arabia) to follow Your Excellency’s right example in abstaining from causing an influx of weapons to the Syrian battlefields.
We also wish to draw Your immediate attention to the terrible fate of the Greek and Syriac Orthodox Metropolitans of Aleppo, Msgr. Boulos Yazigi, and Msgr. Yuhanon Ibrahim, who, as you are aware, were abducted on 22 April 2013 and never heard of ever since. Tomorrow it will be precisely 100 days that they have been abducted and we ask you to join us in our incessant prayers and tireless efforts to get these men of peace without delay released from the hands of their as yet unidentified captors.
We would highly appreciate a meeting with you, in order for us to inform you about the internationally neglected plight of the Aramean people, including the position of the abducted Archbishops.
We thank you kindly in advance for your urgent consideration and support, and remain yours sincerely,
Johny Messo
President
World Council of Arameans (Syriacs),
Formerly “Syriac Universal Alliance”
