Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Raed Saleh Speaks To U.N. Security Council Arria Briefing June 26th
Raed Saleh Speaks To U.N. Security Council Arria Briefing June 26th
Raed Saleh Speaks To U.N. Security Council Arria Briefing June 26th
I would do this
In an incredibly candid and powerful address Raed
Saleh, head of the White Helmets, speaks truth to
power at the UN Security Council Arria Briefing on
the 26th of June
Your Excellency ambassador Roman Oyarzun, Permanent
Representative of Spain to the United Nations,
Your Excellency ambassador Francois Delattre, Permanent
Representative of France to the United Nations,
Gentlemen, Representatives of UN Security Council member
states,
First, I would like to thank you for extending this generous
invitation to the Syrian Civil Defence (The White Helmets)
and asking its head to attend this session to convey the
message of the search and rescue teams in Syria about the
suffering of the Syrian people due to the regimes bombing
with indiscriminate weapons, particularly barrel bombs.
I am not a politician, nor am I a diplomat. I am just a search
and rescue worker. Therefore, I beg your forgiveness if I
sound candid the tragedy of my people demands it.
First, I would like to invite you to watch this short video as it
provides a glimpse of the work we carry out in the aftermath
of barrel bomb attacks and what this work means to us.
What you have seen is just one example of a single rescue
operation that succeeded in saving a child. We have been
the false message that they cannot live except under the rule
of the Assad family.
This is, of course, one of the main reasons that millions of
Syrians have been displaced to neighboring countries, and
its a real obstacle to the establishment of effective
institutions that can govern on the ground.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the unrelenting
indiscriminate killing of Syrians with these barrel bombs and
other lethal weapons, the obstacles preventing Syrians from
establishing civilian administrative institutions in liberated
areas, and the absence of a political solution on the horizon
are all fueling the spread of extremism.
Ladies and Gentlemen, what do you expect a simple Syrian
citizen like me to ask from this council? Do we ask for more
ambulances that the Syrian Regime will soon destroy
anyway? Do we ask for more digging tools to recover bodies
and limbs and bury them? Or do we ask for new resolutions
condemning these acts to be added to the previous list of
resolutions that youve signed, while some of you are still
supporting the Syrian Regime politically, materially and
militarily, including with spare parts for the aircraft used to
drop these barrel bombs and kill more Syrians?
The international community has lost its credibility for Syrians
in the absence of any political will to end the killing in Syria,
and the UN Security Council has been transformed from the
Security to the Insecurity Council in the eyes of the
downtrodden because it has failed to uphold its own
resolutions.
The Syrian people who are being killed every day, Ladies and
Gentlemen, hold you responsible and demand that all
measures available to end the killing, particularly with
indiscriminate weapons, be taken immediately.