For Immediate Release
Toronto, February 1, 2002 — In the same week as the world remembers the 1982 massacre of 20,000 Syrian civilians by their own government, the current Syrian regime has been accused by Great Britain, a fellow UN Security Council member, of smuggling illegal Iraqi oil exports through the country to the open market. In the past, according to press and intelligence reports, the proceeds of such illegal sales have been used to procure arms, buy components for weapons of mass destruction, or build palaces for Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein.
The fact that individuals implicated in the massacre are part of the current Syrian ruling elite is especially troubling. Over a period of three weeks, Syrian troops fired thousands of artillery shells into a cordoned-off area of the city to target dissidents, bulldozed the entire wreckage and ground the human remains into oblivion.
Rochelle Wilner, President of B’nai Brith Canada, remarked: “We asked the Canadian government in the summer of 2001 to publicly oppose the election of Syria to the Security Council. We felt that Syria did not meet the UN’s criteria, which states that candidates must make a ‘contribution … to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization’. Syria’s past record, as illustrated by the atrocities at Hama, as well as its current violations of Security Council resolutions, vindicate such concerns.”
Frank Dimant, Executive Vice President, noted: “Is it any surprise that a government with the blood of so many of its own citizens on its hands gives weapons, monetary support and provides offices to some of the most vilified terrorist organizations in the world, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad? Does our government have nothing to say on this issue?”
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For further information call Rochelle Wilner, President of B’nai Brith Canada at (416) 254-1010 or
Ruth Klein, National Director of Advocacy at (416) 346-0114
B’nai Brith has been active in Canada since 1875 as the community’s foremost advocacy and volunteer organization.
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