Hariri Lashes Out at International Community's Silence over Assad's 'Massacres'
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri “strongly condemned” Wednesday's Reef Damascus massacre, considering that the problem lies in “the international community that continues to allow Syrian President Bashar Assad to commit crimes.”
“No words can describe the massacre inflicted by Assad’s forces on hundreds of children, women and innocent Syrian civilians in the suburban Damascus town of Ghouta,” Hariri said in a released statement.
He continued: “This massacre is comparable to other horrible crimes in history, such as those committed by Hulagu and Hitler, the massacres of Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia, to the massacres of the Haganah in Palestine and Sabra and Shatila.”
The former premier accused Assad of “losing any human feeling towards his people.”
“The problem, however, is not with Assad only, but it lies in the international community that is allowing the Damascus murderer to persist in committing massacres and systematically destroying Syrian cities and their history.”
Hariri elaborated: “The worst is that there are, among Arabs and Muslims, parties that are covering these murders and participating in them. They are not moved by the horrible images reported by the media.”
He called on the international community “to shoulder its responsibility once and for all and stop the policies of inaction towards the regime's activities.”
Also, Hariri warned on the other hand Lebanese factions “who insist on getting involved in the ongoing genocide in Syria.”
“History will have no mercy for the murderers and killers and it will certainly not grant any certificates of moral and human innocence to Bashar’s accomplices in burning Syria,” he said.
Meanwhile, the head of the al-Mustaqbal bloc former PM Fouad Saniora stated that Ghouta massacre is the “worst event that can ever cross someone's mind.”
"We have never witnessed such crimes except in rare historical cases when human beings were turned into predators that have no mercy,” Saniora expressed in a released statement.
He also accused the international community of “allowing the Syrian regime to reach this degree of violence and nonchalance.”
"We urge Arabs and the international community to stop these massacres and try this criminal regime through conducting a quick and transparent probe into this event."
Saniora addressed Lebanese political parties, calling on them to give a “firm and honest stand towards the activities of the Damascus regime.”
Syria's main opposition group accused the government of "massacring" more than 1,300 people in chemical weapons attacks near Damascus on Wednesday, saying many of the victims choked to death.
Videos distributed by activists, the authenticity of which could not immediately be verified, showed medics attending to suffocating children and hospitals being overwhelmed.
More footage showed dozens of people laid out on the ground, among them many children, some of them covered in white sheets.
The claim of chemical weapons use, which could not be independently confirmed, was vehemently denied by the Syrian regime which said it was intended to hinder the work of the U.N. weapons inspectors already in the country.
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