Formed in 1979, the Conference on Disarmament is a multilateral disarmament forum established by the international community which rotates its presidency according to the alphabetical order of countries’ English names every four weeks.
Now, it’s Syria’s turn to take a whack at the Presidency of the international forum.
The Americans, still sticking to the chemical weapons attack in Douma narrative, despite the overwhelming evidence that there was no chemical weapons attack in Douma, much less a CW attack carried out by the Assad regime, and which conducted a missile strike on Damascus and surrounding areas, to negligible effect, is walking out and speaking out in protest of Syria’s turn at the forum’s presidency.
The US is widely known to have employed depleted uranium munitions in its Iraq war, which war has led to the deaths of over 1 million Iraqis. Either the bad guys had a military of 1 million strong, or else lots of innocent people prematurely met their maker because America needed to make them more free and to find those WMDs Saddam happened to be hiding somewhere.
Syria is ‘audacious’ for taking up its role in the international conference, according to the Americans, who are ‘outraged’ at Syria’s alleged malign activities, apparently for daring to attempt to purge its nation of destabilizing and murderous forces, preserve its territorial integrity and that of its government.
The UK, always standing up for Washington’s policies, and who joined America on its missile strikes in Damascus, also denounced the presidency of a Syrian rep, which is actually in accordance with the manner in which the conference rotates its presidency, and is now pushing to change the system on how the presidency of the conference is decided, because, as it stands, it means giving a voice to every member, and that’s just not how America and its buddies roll.
Apparently, only America and its friends should have the opportunity to participate and have a voice in international forums and negotiation bodies.
Middle East online reports:
GENEVA – The United States led a protest Tuesday against Syria taking over the Conference on Disarmament, calling it “a travesty” at a time when Damascus is widely accused of using chemical weapons.
The US ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament (CD), Robert Wood, briefly walked out of the room in protest when the Syrian representative took the floor.
“Syria’s presence here is a travesty,” he said just before the session began.
“This regime has committed countless crimes against its own people through the use of chemical weapons, and it is just unacceptable for them to be leading this body,” he insisted.
Syria’s ambassador Hussam Edin Aala meanwhile slammed the protest as “sensational propaganda” and “characterised by double-standards.”
Syria on Monday took over the rotating presidency of the CD, according to a decades-old practice among the body’s 65 members following the alphabetical order of country names in English.
But despite the mechanical nature of Syria’s arrival at the helm of the CD, following Switzerland and Sweden, a number of country representatives voiced their outrage that a representative of Damascus was presiding over the body that negotiated the chemical weapons ban.
More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria’s civil war began in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
After hundreds of people died in chemical attacks near Damascus in 2013, a deal with Russia was struck to rid Syria of chemical weapons, staving off US air strikes.
But the United Nations and Western countries have accused Damascus of carrying out a number of chemical attacks since then.
A suspected chlorine and sarin attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7 this year triggered punitive missile strikes against alleged chemical weapons sites in Syria by the US, Britain and France.
– ‘Sad, shameful day’ –
During the first open CD session of Syria’s presidency on Tuesday, the United States led a number of diplomats in protest.
Wood briefly left the room when Syria’s ambassador Aala opened the session, before returning to voice Washington’s displeasure from the floor.
“Today marks a sad and shameful day in the history of this body,” he told the assembly.
“Simply put, it is a travesty that the Syrian regime, which continues to indiscriminately slaughter its own people with weapons banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention, should presume to preside over this body,” he said.
Wood stressed that the US would not “permit ‘business as usual’ in the CD while Syria presides over this body.”
He said his country would be represented “in this hall to ensure that Syria is not able to advance initiatives that run counter to the interests of the United States.
“But we will fundamentally alter the nature of our presence in the plenaries,” he said, before moving in protest to a seat usually reserved for assistants.
Wood’s words were echoed by a number of ambassadors from other countries, including Britain and Australia.
“The UK deplores the fact that Syria will assume the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament, given the regime’s consistent and flagrant disregard of international non-proliferation and disarmament norms and agreements,” British ambassador Matthew Rowland said in a statement Monday.
But he pointed out that all CD members including Syria had to agree to change the rotating system.
The French representative also said Syria “does not have the moral authority to lead this body.”
Others, like the representatives of China and North Korea meanwhile offered their “congratulations” to the new president of the CD, while the representative of Syrian ally Russia slammed the US and other critics for “poisoning the atmosphere” at the CD.
In the following volley of accusations, Wood countered that he was “more concerned about the poisoning of the Syrian people”.
The CD, which is not a UN organisation but meets at UN headquarters in Geneva, is a multilateral disarmament forum that holds three sessions a year. It negotiates arms control and disarmament accords and focuses on the cessation of the nuclear arms race.
The US State Department issued a condemnation of the Syrian presidency of the Conference in a statement by spokeswoman Heather Nauert:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department voiced outrage on Tuesday over the Syrian government’s assumption of the presidency of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament for the next month, saying Damascus lacked credibility to preside over the body because of its use of chemical weapons.
“We are outraged at the Syrian regime’s blatant disregard for human life, its serial violations of and contempt for its international obligations and its audaciousness in assuming the presidency of an international body committed to advancing disarmament and non-proliferation,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing. “Syria lacks the credibility to assume the presidency.”
Meanwhile, the US, in a coalition with its allies, France and the UK, just carried out its military strike on Damascus in blatant violation of international law before an international investigative body could carry out an investigation on the matter under of contention, but is using alleged violations of international law as an impetus to denounce Syria and the CD for assuming its legitimate role, as provided for by the very rotating system of the CD that every party to it agreed upon when it was formed. That’s just seems a little bit hypocritical, maybe, just a little bit. .
But I’m quite certain Washington is really, really, reeeeellly concerned about the security and quality of life of the people that the US is helping the Saudis slaughter in Yemen, or the preventing of food supplies going into Venezuela, or the safety and livelihood of the populations of Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Latin America as it destabilizes nation after nation economically or through bloody military coups and interventions, in stark, blatant, violation of international law. or any code of ethics that happens to place a value on human life and liberty.
Even if Syria was up to the stuff that Washington and its cohorts accuse it of, that would basically make them rank amateurs compared to the Americans, they really know how to exterminate civilian populations, they’re the professionals.
You could just ask the Koreans about that, given that the American’s bombed about a third of their population into oblivion, to the point that the Americans ran out of targets to bomb when they were engaged in a hot war with them, but since they were American bombs, those bombs were probably really careful not to blow up any civilians.
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