Vatican's U.N. observer urges caution on reports of chemical attack in Syria
August 23, 2013 - Rushed judgments in times of war and conflict, especially by the
media, do not always lead to the truth and will not bring peace, said the Vatican
observer at United Nations agencies in Geneva, including the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
Speaking to Vatican Radio on Thursday after reports of chemical attacks outside Damascus,
Syria, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, said people are rightly concerned and outraged by
images circulating on the Internet and on television showing dozens of dead civilians,
including children. Syrian opposition forces said more than 1,000 people died in the
attacks; other activists put the number in the hundreds. If confirmed, it would be
the worst reported use of chemical arms in the civil war that started in March 2011.
Syrian state television denied government forces had used poison gas and said the
accusations were intended to distract a team of U.N. chemical weapons experts in Syria.
The U.N. Security Council met Aug. 22 and said that exactly what happened in the attacks
needed to be clarified. "We must not rush to judgment without having sufficient evidence,"
Archbishop Tomasi said. "The international community, through the U.N. observers who
are already present in Syria, can shed light on this new tragedy." Rushing to judgment
in a situation of conflict can make matters worse, he said. "I have the impression
that the press and media don't consider all the aspects that create these situations
of violence and continuous conflict," the archbishop said. "We saw this in Egypt
with the case of the Muslim Brotherhood, where indiscriminant support for them led
to more violence." The only way forward is dialogue, Archbishop Tomasi said. He
said Pope Francis had underlined that violence will not bring a solution and, therefore,
a dialogue must begin so that we can arrive at Geneva II (Middle East peace conference
on Syria), where representatives of all parts of Syrian society can be present, explain
their thinking and try to create some kind of transitional government. The conference
will fail, the archbishop said, if some groups are excluded. And nothing will move,
he said, if countries and groups continue sending weapons either to the army or to
the opposition. "You cannot create peace by giving them new weapons," he said. (Source:
CNS)