.- Western military aid to Syrian rebels could prove disastrous for the country, according to the Damascus-based head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.
“It is time now to have some accord,” Patriarch Gregorios III told CNA on March 15, “and not to arm the opposition, not to attack the regime.”
There is a window of opportunity, he said, to “call both sides” to negotiate and prevent a civil war. But if this opportunity passes, “it will be more difficult because the opposition will be united, maybe more armed, and then more blood. Then it is finished.”
“In order to avoid this very, very sorrowful, very dark end, let us go the way of concord, of dialogue.”
The Eastern Catholic leader spoke to CNA shortly after he met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, to discuss the Church’s prospects in the midst of a conflict that is drawing worldwide attention.
That same day, the Patriarch confirmed that Pope Benedict would be visiting Lebanon from Sept. 14-16, with the possibility of a stop in Syria “if the situation improves.”
Syrian Christians and other religious minorities are concerned about what the future may hold, if the regime of President Bashar al-Assad collapses. The worst-case scenario is a power struggle between different Muslim groups, as has occurred in Iraq.
But Patriarch Gregorios believes there are alternatives to a sudden regime change that could plunge the country into chaos. He is also convinced that the Church can help the cause of peace in the “shaken Arab world” at large.
“I am very convinced that all Syrians can go on a new way together. It is my vision as a Christian. And my hope is that this vision can also be taken into consideration by my partners in Europe.”
In his own comments on the Syrian situation, Pope Benedict has favored a path of negotiation and dialogue between the regime and its opponents.
.- Almost all Christians in the conflict-torn Syrian city of Homs have fled violence and persecution, amid reports that their homes have been attacked and seized by “fanatics” with links to al-Qaida.
With ninety percent of Christians having reportedly left their homes, the violence is driving fears that Syria could become a “second Iraq” with church attacks, kidnappings and forced expulsions of believers.
The exodus of 50,000 or more Christians has taken place largely in the past six weeks. It is part of al-Qaida-linked militant Islamic groups’ “ongoing ethnic cleansing” of Christians, according to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.
Homs has been home to one of Syria’s largest Christian populations and Church sources say that the faithful have borne the brunt of the violence. They have escaped to villages, many of which are in mountains 30 miles outside the city.
Islamists have allegedly gone from house to house in the Homs neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan and have forced Christians to leave without giving them a chance to take their belongings.
The crisis in Homs has increased fears that Islamists are gaining influence in the region in the power vacuum left by the overthrow of other Arab governments in the “Arab Spring.”
The comparisons with Iraq are also ominous. Anti-Christian violence in Iraq has helped drive the Christian population from 1.4 million in the late 1980s to less than 300,000 today.
In both Syria and Iraq the Church is being targeted for its perceived close links with regimes under attack from opposition parties and rebel groups.
The uprising in Syria started in March 2011 with protests advocating political reform. The uprising has become increasingly militarized. More than 8,000 people have been killed in the conflict in the past year, U.N. figures say.
Many in the opposition are from the country’s Sunni majority, while religious minorities continue to back President Bashar al-Assad. The exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has said it will not monopolize power in a new regime but will back a democratic state with equality for all citizens and respect for human rights.
On March 26, Syrian government forces shelled Homs and carried out arrest raids. A human rights group says that government forces appear to be preparing to retake rebel-held parts of the city, the Associated Press reported.
The government has accused insurgents of terrorism and international conspiracy, while the government itself faces accusations of torture and massacres of civilians.
The Christian community has suffered from terrorist attacks in other cities.
On March 18, a car bomb explosion targeted the Christian quarter of Aleppo, close to the Franciscan-run Church of St. Bonaventure. Aid to the Church in Need is helping families of the victims.
“The people we are helping are very afraid,” said Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, who is overseeing the aid program. “The Christians don’t know what their future will hold. They are afraid they will not get their homes back.”
The displaced people of Homs are desperate for food and shelter. Aid to the Church in Need has announced an urgent $100,000 aid package to relieve their needs.
Each family will receive $60 each month for basic food and lodging. Organizers of the assistance hope that they can return home by the summer.
Bishop Audo told Aid to the Church in Need that it is very important to help those in distress.
“Pray for us and let us work together to build peace in Syria,” he said.
Patriarch Gregorios said the Pope was “very attentive” to the vision he outlined, for Christians “to be instruments of peace in the Middle East.”
“Unless we come to a calm, we cannot have a real ‘spring,’” said the patriarch. He wants to see the Arab world united and peaceful, not divided along the fault-lines of religious identity and political agendas.
During 2011, Patriarch Gregorios called on Western leaders not to support the revolutions taking place in several Arab countries. Instead, he urged them to back gradual reforms and changes, in order to avoid destabilizing complex and sometimes volatile situations.
In Thursday’s interview, he stressed Western countries’ duty to help Syria in a responsible and peaceful way. What is needed, he said, is not arms and incitement, but “dialogue, not only between Syrians and Syrians, but a call to dialogue in the Arab world, a call to unity in the Arab world.”
He also cautioned Western observers of the Syrian conflict against developing a distorted idea of what is happening in his country.
“We have much disinformation, misinformation and manipulation,” he noted. “In Damascus, I really live in peace, (with) schools, churches, businesses and so on. The suburbs are sometimes calm, sometimes not. And there are some times when it is very dangerous, other times when it is not.”
During the March 15 press conference at the Melkite headquarters in Rome, he indicated that some Western media outlets should scrutinize their sources more carefully.
“I have first-hand information,” he told reporters, contrasting this with “information from the television.”
“My best friend, a Maronite bishop named Paul Zayah, has a nephew who lives in Dubai. Walking in the street on his way to work, he hears behind him a person who picks up his cellphone and says, ‘I’m in Homs now. I can see how the army of the regime is attacking the houses, women, mothers and children.’”
“That’s ‘news’ from a ‘primary source,’ fresh from the town of ‘Homs,’ – but he was in Dubai,” the Melkite patriarch said. “And this goes on and on.”
