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TIME Magazine
Jan 30 2014
Syrian Christian Leaders Call On U.S. To End Support For Anti-Assad Rebels
By Elizabeth Dias
The stories told by five top Syrian Christian leaders about the
horrors their churches are experiencing at the hands of Islamist
extremists are biblical in their brutality.
Bishop Elias Toumeh, representative of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of
Antioch and All the East, tells of the funeral he led ten days ago for
the headless body of one of his parishioners in Marmarita. Rev. Adeeb
Awad, vice moderator of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and
Lebanon, explains how the rebels blew up his church and then pointed
the finger at the regime. Bishop Armash Nalbandian, primate of the
Armenian Church of Damascus, says he received word on Facebook from a
fellow bishop in Aleppo that two congregants were traveling when
opposition fighters stopped their bus, made them present their
Armenian IDs, and then took them away. The fighters, Nalbandian
recounts, returned to the fellow passengers a few hours later with a
box, which they said were cakes. Inside were the two Armenian heads.
The bishops' stories are difficult to independently verify, and the
war's death toll goes far beyond just Christian communities in
Syria-more than 130,000 people have been killed since the fighting
began, and at least two million others have fled the country. But they
are emerging as part of a concerted push by Syrian Christians to get
the U.S. to stop its support for rebel groups fighting Syrian
president Bashar al Assad. "The US must change its politics and must
choose the way of diplomacy and dialogue, not supporting rebels and
calling them freedom fighters," says Nalbandian.
The group is the first delegation of its kind to visit Washington
since the crisis began three years ago, and its five members represent
key different Christian communities in the country. Awad, Toumeh, and
Nalbandian were joined by Rev. Riad Jarjour, Presbyterian pastor from
Homs, and Bishop Dionysius Jean Kawak, Metropolitan of the Syrian
Orthodox Church. The Westminster Institute and Barnabas Aid, two
groups that focus on religious freedom and relief for threatened faith
communities, sponsored their trip.
Given the United States' increased support for non-terrorist rebel
groups in the wake of the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons, the
religious leaders' mission is a long shot. The bishops are asking the
United States to exert pressure on countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
and Turkey to stop supporting and sending terrorist fighters to Syria.
"The real problem is that the strong military opposition on the ground
is a foreign opposition," Awad explains, arguing that US support of
opposition groups means support for foreign terrorist fighters. "They
are the ones killing and attacking churches and clergy and nuns and
burning houses and eating human livers and hearts and cutting heads,"
Awad says.
The Syrian Christian churches are not publicly calling for outright
support of the Assad regime. Doing so would further endanger their
followers and hurt the moral component of their case, given the
regime's alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. Instead,
they're meeting privately with law makers, diplomats and think tanks.
Sunday evening, they spoke with Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) at St. John the
Beloved Catholic church in nearby McLean. On Monday, they held court
at the Heritage Foundation and Catholic University of America. On
Tuesday, they met with Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Rep. Robert Aderholt
(R-AL) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and then met with leaders of the
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Wednesday's lineup
included Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Joe
Manchin (D-WV), State Department officials including Lawrence
Silverman, Near East Affairs deputy acting aecretary, and Uzra Zeya,
acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights,
and Labor, and then a final stop at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
It's been a difficult issue to gain traction on, if for no other
reasons than that support for Christians and endangered minorities can
appear as support for Assad and that an entire country is being
destroyed by war, not just Christian communities. President Obama only
briefly mentioned Syria in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
"In Syria, we'll support the opposition that rejects the agenda of
terrorist networks," he said. "American diplomacy, backed by the
threat of force, is why Syria's chemical weapons are being eliminated,
and we will continue to work with the international community to usher
in the future the Syrian people deserve--a future free of dictatorship,
terror and fear."
Traction in Congress has also been a challenge, but a handful of
leaders are speaking out. The U.S. House of Representatives passed
legislation in September, authored by Wolf and Eshoo, to create a
special religious minorities envoy at the State Department who would
work for policy options to protect faith communities, but the bill has
yet to move forward in the Senate. "Meeting with the delegation of
Syrian Christian church leaders this week provided a constructive
opportunity to raise awareness and to discuss concrete steps that can
be taken to help protect Christians and other religious minorities in
Syria," says Eshoo. "Christians in the U.S. should be informed by
their leaders about the atrocities taking place in Syria. The history
of violence against religious minorities must not be allowed to repeat
itself."
Wolf has championed the cause during his congressional tenure, but he
is retiring at the end of this term. Newer leaders like Aderholt see
it as a time to take a stand. "Most Americans do not realize that
Christians across the Middle East are in grave danger and have often
been forced to leave their home countries due to persecution and
threats from radicalized Muslims," he says. "If we want a true
democracy to emerge from this region, Christians and other religious
minority voices must share in the decision-making process, and
certainly not be persecuted and fear for their lives due to extremist
elements that are pouring in to Syria."
The bishops' stories are similar to other grim instances of violence
against Christians during the war. Christian schools in Damascus were
shelled in November. The next month, a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns were
taken from Mar Takla Monastery in Maaloula. Rebel groups abducted two
bishops near Aleppo last April. Jesuit priest Paolo Dall'Oglio, whom
TIME wrote about in 2012 when he visited the United States on a
similar lobbying trip, has been missing and feared dead since July.
http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/30/syrian-christian-leaders-call-on-us-to-end-support-for-anti-assad-rebels/
From: Baghdasarian
Jan 30 2014
Syrian Christian Leaders Call On U.S. To End Support For Anti-Assad Rebels
By Elizabeth Dias
The stories told by five top Syrian Christian leaders about the
horrors their churches are experiencing at the hands of Islamist
extremists are biblical in their brutality.
Bishop Elias Toumeh, representative of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of
Antioch and All the East, tells of the funeral he led ten days ago for
the headless body of one of his parishioners in Marmarita. Rev. Adeeb
Awad, vice moderator of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and
Lebanon, explains how the rebels blew up his church and then pointed
the finger at the regime. Bishop Armash Nalbandian, primate of the
Armenian Church of Damascus, says he received word on Facebook from a
fellow bishop in Aleppo that two congregants were traveling when
opposition fighters stopped their bus, made them present their
Armenian IDs, and then took them away. The fighters, Nalbandian
recounts, returned to the fellow passengers a few hours later with a
box, which they said were cakes. Inside were the two Armenian heads.
The bishops' stories are difficult to independently verify, and the
war's death toll goes far beyond just Christian communities in
Syria-more than 130,000 people have been killed since the fighting
began, and at least two million others have fled the country. But they
are emerging as part of a concerted push by Syrian Christians to get
the U.S. to stop its support for rebel groups fighting Syrian
president Bashar al Assad. "The US must change its politics and must
choose the way of diplomacy and dialogue, not supporting rebels and
calling them freedom fighters," says Nalbandian.
The group is the first delegation of its kind to visit Washington
since the crisis began three years ago, and its five members represent
key different Christian communities in the country. Awad, Toumeh, and
Nalbandian were joined by Rev. Riad Jarjour, Presbyterian pastor from
Homs, and Bishop Dionysius Jean Kawak, Metropolitan of the Syrian
Orthodox Church. The Westminster Institute and Barnabas Aid, two
groups that focus on religious freedom and relief for threatened faith
communities, sponsored their trip.
Given the United States' increased support for non-terrorist rebel
groups in the wake of the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons, the
religious leaders' mission is a long shot. The bishops are asking the
United States to exert pressure on countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
and Turkey to stop supporting and sending terrorist fighters to Syria.
"The real problem is that the strong military opposition on the ground
is a foreign opposition," Awad explains, arguing that US support of
opposition groups means support for foreign terrorist fighters. "They
are the ones killing and attacking churches and clergy and nuns and
burning houses and eating human livers and hearts and cutting heads,"
Awad says.
The Syrian Christian churches are not publicly calling for outright
support of the Assad regime. Doing so would further endanger their
followers and hurt the moral component of their case, given the
regime's alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. Instead,
they're meeting privately with law makers, diplomats and think tanks.
Sunday evening, they spoke with Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) at St. John the
Beloved Catholic church in nearby McLean. On Monday, they held court
at the Heritage Foundation and Catholic University of America. On
Tuesday, they met with Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Rep. Robert Aderholt
(R-AL) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and then met with leaders of the
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Wednesday's lineup
included Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Joe
Manchin (D-WV), State Department officials including Lawrence
Silverman, Near East Affairs deputy acting aecretary, and Uzra Zeya,
acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights,
and Labor, and then a final stop at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
It's been a difficult issue to gain traction on, if for no other
reasons than that support for Christians and endangered minorities can
appear as support for Assad and that an entire country is being
destroyed by war, not just Christian communities. President Obama only
briefly mentioned Syria in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
"In Syria, we'll support the opposition that rejects the agenda of
terrorist networks," he said. "American diplomacy, backed by the
threat of force, is why Syria's chemical weapons are being eliminated,
and we will continue to work with the international community to usher
in the future the Syrian people deserve--a future free of dictatorship,
terror and fear."
Traction in Congress has also been a challenge, but a handful of
leaders are speaking out. The U.S. House of Representatives passed
legislation in September, authored by Wolf and Eshoo, to create a
special religious minorities envoy at the State Department who would
work for policy options to protect faith communities, but the bill has
yet to move forward in the Senate. "Meeting with the delegation of
Syrian Christian church leaders this week provided a constructive
opportunity to raise awareness and to discuss concrete steps that can
be taken to help protect Christians and other religious minorities in
Syria," says Eshoo. "Christians in the U.S. should be informed by
their leaders about the atrocities taking place in Syria. The history
of violence against religious minorities must not be allowed to repeat
itself."
Wolf has championed the cause during his congressional tenure, but he
is retiring at the end of this term. Newer leaders like Aderholt see
it as a time to take a stand. "Most Americans do not realize that
Christians across the Middle East are in grave danger and have often
been forced to leave their home countries due to persecution and
threats from radicalized Muslims," he says. "If we want a true
democracy to emerge from this region, Christians and other religious
minority voices must share in the decision-making process, and
certainly not be persecuted and fear for their lives due to extremist
elements that are pouring in to Syria."
The bishops' stories are similar to other grim instances of violence
against Christians during the war. Christian schools in Damascus were
shelled in November. The next month, a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns were
taken from Mar Takla Monastery in Maaloula. Rebel groups abducted two
bishops near Aleppo last April. Jesuit priest Paolo Dall'Oglio, whom
TIME wrote about in 2012 when he visited the United States on a
similar lobbying trip, has been missing and feared dead since July.
http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/30/syrian-christian-leaders-call-on-us-to-end-support-for-anti-assad-rebels/
From: Baghdasarian