Speech
Ahmad al Jarba
President of the Syrian Coalition
Office of the President
March 25, 2014
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, kings, princes and presidents of the Arab states,
Your Excellency the Secretary General of the League of Arab States,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to begin by addressing my thanks to the brotherly State of Qatar for its efforts during its presidency of the 24th session of the Arab Summit, and I wish all the success to the brotherly State of Kuwait in its current presidency of the 25th session of the summit.
To begin,
A Syrian and an Arab greeting crying out to your well-known chivalry and protection of the Arabism which is bleeding on the soil of Syria; Syria, waging its own battle and your big battle with the smallest of means and the weakest of options, in Damascus, Deir Ezzor, Qalamoun and Lattakia, where its tormentor carries on with regional and international support amidst the free world’s weakness and marginalization.
We do not complain, for to whom can we complain when we all share the same concerns …
In the name of all our people, and in your name, we raise the voices of our pain and of our hopes to demand that the major countries abide by their responsibilities and pledges, on the basis of which we fought in the midst of the Geneva 2 negotiations, which Assad buried with the contents of Geneva 1, giving with his allies, and with his nomination to an illegal presidential term, the last rites to what was left of the power of the international community.
It is our common battle, and I know that disagreements between brothers fade when home are violated; your homes, dignity and lives in Syria are violated.
Today we are not where we were before Geneva 2, nor can we be. Today, we are at the moment of right – our right to liberate our country – and of truth, and the bitter but clear truth is that the Syrian people are subject, by proxy; to a ferocious war hitting Syrians at the knees, aiming at making all Arabs, beginning with Syrians, kneel.
I do not ask you for a declaration of war, but I ask that you support our cause and find a solution guaranteeing the interests of our people and our country, and the interests of all Arabs. We want you to announce your call to defend the land and the people of Syria in the face of one of the most horrific wars being waged on a defenseless people. Our call to you can be summarized in three points:
First, putting pressure on the international community to commit to its pledges to provide heavy weapons to our revolutionaries, who have given their lives for the freedom and the dignity of all Syrians and Arabs.
Second, increasing humanitarian support in all its components to your Syrian brothers suffering inside and outside the country, whose patience is running out.
Third, giving attention to the conditions of Syrian refugees and Syrian residents in Arab countries, especially in Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon; they are guests in these states and they should go back to their country when the current situation is over. We are against Syrians remaining outside their nation, in any case.
Let me say quite frankly that keeping Syria’s seat empty in your midst sends a clear message to Assad that he can kill and that the seat will wait for him to resolve his war. This is how the regime understands the message, and our people ask themselves: if the West failed to provide us with the needed weapons, what prevents our brothers from resolving the matter of our seat amongst you? I would like to add that reality dictates that the Syrian embassies in Arab capitals should be given to the National Coalition, after the regime lost its legitimacy and nobody remains to cater to Syrians’ interests in Arab capitals, making their situation even worse.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is no longer acceptable for you to watch the situation of Syrians for a moment longer, while you see the war to which we are subjected. They have ganged up on us with evil and aggression, and Yabroud, after Qusayr, is witness to their not having left a single home undemolished or unviolated. You have all watched leaked clips showing the slogans and behavior of sectarian hatred; they entered villages like Tatars and distributed flowers and sweets over the corpses of men and children, and they distributed them in the southern Dahieh to mark the victory of their treacherous barrels and bullets.
Dear Arabs, they gave to Syrian mothers, on their last holiday, the corpses of their loved ones trampled by mercenary feet on television. A salute of respect to every Syrian mother who, on Mother’s Day, held pictures of her sons to her chest and on her walls, and no hand which contributed or took part in these crimes of shame in Syria, or no one who was silent, will be delivered.
Dear Arabs, their hatred is dispersing blood through tanks, guns and planes in our capitals, without a power or a conscience to deter them, so what are we waiting for? In Yabroud right was knocked down by brute force. But in all of Janta in Lebanon, and in the Golan, after Damascus Countryside and Ain es Saheb, we all witnessed how Bashar and his ally Nasrallah bowed before Israel’s tyranny and dragged their tails in shame, reserving a fake right to retaliate which won’t happen even if Israeli army soldiers stepped with their soles on their mercenaries’ necks.
In contrast, your revolutionary brothers in Daraa, Kassab, Homs, Aleppo and elsewhere confirm every day and every hour that right will prevail second to none. Out of destruction and siege, they take strength, a strength which is only missing a bold Arab decision supporting our right and our struggle for our nation and our people. Those who doubt it need only ask Assad’s forces, Hezbollah’s mercenaries or ISIS how they were defeated in Aleppo, Idlib and the heart of the coast in Kassab in a single day – a day of pride in which the Assad regime’s positions and villages fell just two days after they had celebrated, with their mercenaries, a victory over the rubble of noble Yabroud.
From this podium, we declare that the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces will safeguard the unity and the safety of all Syrians, including those in areas under regime control. We declare that the Coalition and the Free Syrian Army, in the battle against the regime and its forces, will respect Syrians in those areas and protect their property in all circumstances.
Our people, we are neither lacking in men nor in determination, and blood is cheap for the sake of our cause. What we wanted and still want from you is a decisive position for support, uninterrupted and unwavering to political conditions, for the protection of Syria as a country and as a people, and to ward off the dangers from Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq and elsewhere as a result of the situation in Syria.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we stand on Kuwait’s soil filled with the blood of its people and of the Arabs who contributed to its liberation, after the unfortunate war between brothers was imposed on it. Kuwait is a live witness, reminding us that had it not been for the decisive Arab position which moved the world, we would not have been here today in this dear country and with its kind people.
Syria today beseeches you, from the State of Kuwait hosting the donors’ conference, assuring you that it is targetted as part of a more dangerous project for all Arabs; silence over it today will result, after all of Syria, in yet a new Syria and it will open wars in the region, including a Gulf war.
Ladies and Gentlemen, many thought that the resolve of the Syrian people would break and that our will to live in freedom would be defeated; yet, here we are commemorating the third anniversary of our revolution, victory looming from its cradle in Daraa where children drew the sign of the revolution on the walls of that school. Here are the lions of Hauran, writing the signs of victory with blood and carrying with the southern winds the tidings of victory to captive Damascus.
Ladies and Gentlemen, what is happening in Hauran and Lattakia and the rest of Syria today, after three years of revolution, is a school and a lesson to anyone who doubted that the Assad regime would come to an end; to everyone still hesitating, we say make your decision because we have made ours. Victory is near, and it is nearer with your help and support.
Peace be upon you.
