YouSaid · the spoken record

Power

lines on the record: 1,841
first: 2013-08-06
most recent: 2019-07-09
sittings or episodes: 165
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“A pause is the absolute least we can do, but we can and must do better than a pause. We must continue to work to end this conflict - and end it not by the devastating military means that the Al-Assad regime and Russia are intent on pursuing, which will only prolong and deepen the suffering we are now witnessing.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“He is grossly underweight and routinely has difficulty breathing. Without access to baby formula, Umm Leen has taken to feeding him ground-up rice. When parents in Aleppo have a new baby, Umm Leen said, "some believe they are making up for the children they have lost. But for me in these conditions I think it is a huge mistake. After I gave birth to him, I felt so sad. Did I give birth to him to see a life like this?" This is what it is to be a parent in eastern Aleppo, where mother and fathers live in perpetual fear that their children will be taken from them, whether by the flash of a barrel bomb or the slow, gnawing attrition of illness - man-made illness 4 and starvation. The Security Council must not stand by as more and more children like Umm Leen's hang in the balance.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“If it does so, placing its military aims over the survival of Syrian men, women and children, Member States must swiftly consider the other tools we can employ at the United Nations, including through the General Assembly, to apply more effective pressure. Let me conclude. Umm Leen is the mother of seven kids in eastern Aleppo. She has already lost one child during the war - her 12-year-old boy - who was killed when his heart was pierced by shrapnel. In the midst of the siege now, she worries that she will lose more. Her daughter is beset with an awful cough, but there is nowhere to take her since the children's hospital was bombed. But her sickest is her youngest child, a baby she had during the siege, who is now just three months old. The baby has been dogged by serious health problems since he was born prematurely.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“This draft resolution should be brought to a vote without delay, and it should be adopted with the Council's unanimous support. This is a no-brainer. Anyone who says otherwise does not have the survival of Syrian civilians at heart. But let us also be real. While any pause in the butchery that we are witnessing in eastern Aleppo would be welcome - and we are in favour of it - a brief pause to get a bit of food and medicine in before the savage bombing resumes is not a solution. It is barely even a Band-Aid. It is a sign in some ways of just how low our bar has become. Russia may again use its veto to prevent the Security Council from offering help to the desperate civilians in eastern Aleppo, as it did in October.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“No, it is because they know that there is a good chance they will be pulverized if they stay where they are. As we all know, and as others have argued persuasively here today, Egypt, Spain and New Zealand have presented a draft resolution that would require an immediate halt to military action in Aleppo for a minimum of 10 days. If implemented, this halt would give the civilians of eastern Aleppo a brief break from the relentless bombardment. It would allow some aid to reach people who are surviving by digging through trash for scraps and by eating weeds. It would allow for an orderly departure facilitated by the United Nations. It would also get at least some medicine to doctors who have been compelled to operate on patients without anaesthetic, sometimes in the middle of the street alongside their bombed-out hospitals and clinics.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“And if Syrian and Russia propaganda is any predictor, we may hear how civilians upon escaping are embracing regime forces as liberators. Do they really expect us to believe that civilians who have been starved - who have not received a morsel of food since July - have been barrel-bombed, mortared, pick-off by snipers and threatened with annihilation are likely to meet the people responsible for those horrors as their saviours? Is that how it works? Is that how any of us would feel or act? The reason people are fleeing by the thousands is not because they trust a regime that has killed hundreds of thousands of its own people and systematically tortured tens of thousands more Syrians in its gulags, tagging the bodies of those it kills with serial numbers.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“We are all broken records on the Council - including those who are actively involved in carrying out the siege of Aleppo - in saying that there is no military solution to this brutal conflict and that the only way out is a political solution. But that is pablum. The regime and Russia believe the opposite. They are pursuing their approach; they are strategic. They are following a blueprint. They believe in a military solution. The choice they are giving civilians is explicit. It is the same choice they included in a previous leaflet: leave or be annihilated. For those who choose to leave, the regime and its Russian allies have promised residents of eastern Aleppo passage through so-called safe routes. I am sure we will hear more about these routes today.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“The Council should not have to demand compliance with international humanitarian laws or with our prior resolutions, yet here we are urging two States Members of the United Nations, one of which holds a permanent seat on the Council, to abide by those basic standards and to stop ripping up the rule books, which will have effects way beyond Syria for our children and grandchildren. When it seemed impossible to imagine a more horrific situation, in fact the crisis got worse. The past five days have witnessed one of the most extreme bombardments of civilian areas in the entire life of the conflict, ravaging what was left of the once majestic eastern part of Aleppo. The objective is simple - to take eastern Aleppo by force with no regard for the consequences it may have for innocent civilians. We are all in the broken-record club.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“The 14,000 terrified civilians, some completely hysterical, who have been driven into Government-held territory under gunfire and air strike attacks are also our referees. Endless numbers of authenticated photos and videos of human-caused slaughter are our referees. There is no denying the truth and the facts, not even in the upside-down land which the perpetrators of this slaughter inhabit. For months since the siege of eastern Aleppo began, we have met in the Council to demand the basics. We have called for the Al-Assad regime and Russia to allow unfettered humanitarian access to the Syrians in the city and to stop systematically bombing the city's hospitals, schools and markets and the bases of the first responders. Those are appeals that the Security Council should not even have to request - should not ever have to request.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“They are great authorities in general on propaganda, but we have to recognize that they have an interest in trying to create a post-truth world where all facts are contested and there is no truth but just one person's claim or one country's claim or one party's claim against another. Syria and Russia, as they lie and kill civilians in Syria, count on there being no referee who will adjudicate truths, on the one hand, from lies, falsehoods and fictions, on the other. That is their gamble. But we have referees. The United Nations briefers we have just heard from are our referees. They have no interest in doing anything other than calling it as it is. They are independent; they are humanitarians. The carnage is a fact. It is a truth and it is now.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“I would ask Council members and all citizens of the world to just force themselves to take a break from their day and watch the images from eastern Aleppo - parents cradling their children in agony; civilians on foot mowed down while carrying their suitcases, which lie beside their lifeless bodies. We will likely hear from the representatives of Syria and the Russian Federation today that these images are made up; they are propaganda. That is an argument we have been hearing in the past few meetings. Now I have to acknowledge that both the Syrian Government and the Russian Government have significant expertise in making things up.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“Planes - Syrian Government planes - take brief breaks from bombing runs to blanket eastern Aleppo with leaflets. We have talked about leaflets here before, but one of the leaflets dropped a few days ago reportedly read: "Do not be stupid. Think about yourselves and your families. Victory is coming for the Syrian Arab Army. Think quickly because time is passing and it is not on your side." We all know that time is not on the side of the civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo. The longer the bombing raids go on and the greater their intensity, the higher the odds that they or someone they love will be maimed or killed. But leaving carries extraordinary risks, such as being detained or disappeared by regime soldiers or killed on the death trip itself, where snipers are having a field day, it seems.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“The words we are hearing out of eastern Aleppo now are as dark as any we have heard in our lifetimes. A "death trip" - that is what civilians are calling their journey to flee eastern Aleppo, according to a teacher who as of yesterday had decided to stay there. According to the Red Cross, 20,000 people have fled eastern Aleppo just since Saturday - 20,000 people in four days on a death trip. One fleeing woman was seen pushing a wheelchair with her dead mother in it. She told a reporter, "My mother died of hunger", and said that they had almost nothing to eat for five months. In another part of the city, amateur footage showed stray body parts scattered among debris where an air strike had reportedly just killed at least 20 people. Survivors wept over the remains.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“I thank Special Envoy De Mistura, Under-Secretary-General O'Brien and Mr. Cappelaere for their appropriately grim briefings. Like my British colleague, I would like to respond to the question that Under-Secretary-General O'Brien said is posed to him wherever he goes, whether in Syria or in the region, or when meeting with citizens or politicians. Why cannot the Security Council come together to find a solution? I have to say that we grapple with a lot of really difficult questions. That is not one of them. It is a very straightforward and very unfortunate fact that the Security Council does not come together to answer the cries of the civilians we have heard about again today because Russia, a permanent member, does not want to. That is it. It is very straightforward.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7822 (2016) · source
“We call on all Member States to remain united in imposing consequences on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for its many dangerous choices.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“The door remains open for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to choose a different path - a path of negotiations towards complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. When the Democratic People's Republic of Korea makes that choice, the United States - and I know the Council - will be ready to engage, and with sustained international pressure, it is possible to change the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's calculus. To do that, the members of the Council and all States Members of the United Nations must fully implement the sanctions that we have adopted today. The strength of this resolution and our ability to change the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's threatening, belligerent behaviour depends on Member States exercising maximum vigilance to enforce each and every one of the provisions in today's resolution.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“For the first time, today's resolution also recalls that, in keeping with Article 5 of the Charter of the United Nations, if the Democratic People's Republic of Korea continues on its current path, systematically and flagrantly violating its Charter obligations, it could see some or all of its rights and privileges here at the United Nations suspended. The United States is realistic about what today's resolution will achieve. No resolution in New York will likely persuade Pyongyang to cease its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons tomorrow, but this resolution imposes unprecedented costs on the regime of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for defying the Council's demands.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“That includes the North Korean people, of course, but also those of other nationalities in its territory, including unjustly detained Americans and those abducted from countries such as Japan and the Republic of Korea, whose families, in some cases, have endured decades of suffering from not knowing the fates of their loved ones. The defence of human dignity is a basic demand, and it is long overdue coming from the Council. The same clique of leaders responsible for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons is the one responsible for systematically abusing their people at home.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“Even though we have heard it before - and many of us have repeated it - it is worth underscoring the commission's finding that "[t]he gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world." (A/HRC/25/63, para. 80) The situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea reaffirms what we have said elsewhere - when Governments flagrantly violate the human rights of their own people, they almost always show similar disdain for the international norms that help ensure our shared security. For the first time, this resolution enshrines that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea must respect the welfare and inherent dignity of people in its territory.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“As the United Nations commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea found in its 2014 report (A/HRC/25/63), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea arbitrarily detains between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners in its gulags, where they are subjected to deliberate starvation, forced labour, executions, torture and rape, among other abuses. As the report notes, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea seeks nothing less than total control of organized social life, through tactics ranging from summary executions to forced indoctrinations to the methodical repression of freedom of expression.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“They are commercially available components that have civilian uses, such as sophisticated electronic sensors, but that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea can use to build advanced military equipment, including radar systems, night vision and stealth technology. I began by talking about the fact that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea made the choice to pursue nuclear weapons, but, before closing, I would like to discuss another choice that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea regime has made - the choice to systematically violate the human rights of its people.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“On land, the resolution emphasizes that cargo heading into and out of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea by road or rail must be inspected. At sea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will no longer be allowed to mask its ships and evade scrutiny by flying the flags of other countries or controlling other vessels with their crews. And by air, Member States should inspect the baggage of anyone flying into and out of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In the next 15 days, the Security Council's Democratic People's Republic of Korea Sanctions Committee will make another important determination, publishing for the first time a list of conventional arms dual-use items that will no longer be allowed to enter the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“In the past, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has tried to enable nuclear and ballistic-missile officials to travel by giving them phony diplomatic titles. Meanwhile, Democratic People's Republic of Korea officials posted in embassies abroad have spent their time running businesses and brokering arms sales to fund the regime's military. But an arms dealer with a diplomatic passport is still an arms dealer. So from now on, States must restrict the travel of those affiliated with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes or other prohibited activities, diplomatic passports or not. Thirdly, the resolution imposes unprecedented measures to restrict the flow of illicit materials into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“The Council might ask why on earth would we ban the export of monuments. It turns out that exports such as a statue of Laurent Kabila, standing in Kinshasa today, two statues for which Robert Mugabe paid $5 million to be stood up in Zimbabwe upon his passing, and countless others found around the world generate tens of millions of dollars for the regime. We have called out countries that host Democratic People's Republic of Korea labourers by urging those countries to take steps to ensure that wages are not supporting the Democratic People's Republic of Korea regime's prohibited programmes. Secondly, the resolution makes it much harder for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to use diplomats to advance its prohibited programmes.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“In addition, the resolution imposes a new ban on the export of copper, nickel, silver and zinc, which will eliminate another $100 million or more in annual hard-currency revenue for the regime. In total, therefore, the resolution will slash by at least $800 million per year, the hard currency that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has to fund its prohibited weapons programmes, which constitutes a full 25 per cent of its entire export revenues. But we knew going into this negotiation that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has found itself masterful at using non-traditional means to stash currency, and the resolution goes after some of the less obvious ways that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea makes money. We have banned the export of monuments.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“Contrary to the letter and the spirit of resolution 2270 (2016), that coal export revenue has not been used to help the people of North Korea. It has been used to further build up the regime's illegal weapons programmes. So the resolution imposes a new, binding cap on how much coal the Democratic People's Republic of Korea can ship out of the country, cutting what the country earns by approximately $700 million per year from its 2015 total, or more than 60 per cent of its coal export revenue. Much of this coal trade involves Democratic People's Republic of Korea companies with links to the regime and its prohibited nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“It tried to cover up its business dealings abroad, and it looked for openings to smuggle illicit materials by land, sea and air. Today's resolution systematically goes after each of these illicit schemes. Let me highlight three ways in which the resolution breaks new and important ground. First, the resolution imposes major new restrictions on the sources of hard currency, in particular coal exports, that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is using to pay for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Of course, resolution 2270 (2016) bans coal exports not exclusively used for what the Council called "livelihood purposes", but the coal revenues of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have remained about high, accounting for about one-third of its entire export revenue.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“We are also grateful for the critically important contributions made by Japan and the Republic of Korea, which face a grave threat that one Korean official likened to living with a Cuban missile crisis every day. Lately, the Council has been divided on many issues, but the unanimous adoption of new sanctions shows that, as long as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea pursues this dangerous and destabilizing path, the Council will impose ever harsher consequences on those responsible. In March, the Council adopted what were then the toughest sanctions to date on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but that country remained as determined as ever to continue advancing its nuclear technology. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea found ways to continue diverting revenue from exports to fund its research.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is determined to refine its nuclear and ballistic missile technology to pose an even more potent threat to United Nations Member States and, more broadly, to international peace and security. Let us consider what the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong Un, said after testing an engine for a long-range missile in April - that North Korea "can tip new-type intercontinental ballistic rockets with more powerful nuclear warheads and keep any cesspool of evils in the Earth, including the United States mainland, within our striking range". The United States recognizes China for working closely with us in negotiating the extremely rigorous and important resolution 2321 (2016).”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“I thank the Secretary-General for being here on such an important occasion. We are here because of dangerous choices made by a State Member of the United Nations - the Government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - including the choice to be the only country in the twenty-first century to conduct a nuclear test; the choice to defy the Council's clear and consistent requirements by testing nuclear devices twice this year alone; the choice to continue producing fissile material for its nuclear programme; the choice to accelerate prohibited ballistic missile launches to an unprecedent rate - more than two dozen since January, including from new delivery systems such as submarines; the choice to keep threatening neighbours and countries continents away with nuclear annihilation. These choices reflect a calculated strategy.”
2016-11-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7821 (2016) · source
“The perpetrators must also know that, like their ignominious predecessors throughout history, they will face judgment for their crimes.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“His mom had to leave Madaya but left Omar behind, so he did not get recruited into the Government's security forces. Omar says, "There is nothing to eat. We are being strangled here. It is like I am in prison". Omar has one other thought; one that you might expect from any teenager: "I miss my mum waking meup in the morning." We - not just members of the Security Council, but all States Members of the United Nations - must be clear that the Al-Assad regime, Russia and their allies are responsible for that destruction, which is both physical destruction and, for countless children like Omar, psychological destruction. In the face of that destruction and overwhelming suffering, the perpetrators must know that the pursuit of a military solution is as foolish as it is brutal. Attacks on civilians fuel terrorism; they do not defeat terrorism.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“ISIL atrocities are in a category unto themselves, which is why the United States leads a 67-member coalition to defeat that terrorist organization. Let me conclude: in January, the United Nations and the world raised the alarm that the people in the community of Madaya, besieged by allies of the Al-Assad regime, were starving. Today we have reports of starvation again. Save The Children reported recently that Madaya is now also seeing an increse in child suicide attempts, something virtually unheard of in the town before. One of those kids is a 15-year-old named Omar. Omar told a reporter recently, "There is nothing left for me here, and I felt the easiest thing to do was to kill myself. I tried to throw myself from the balcony, but it wasn't high enough." Omar's father is in jail.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“They include Major General Jamil Hassan, Brigadier General Abdul Salam Fajr Mahmoud, Brigadier General Ibrahim Ma'ala, Colonel Qusay Mihoub, Brigadier General Salah Hamad, Brigadier General Shafik Massa, Major General Rafiq Shehadeh and Hafez Makhlouf. The United States will not forget the cases of the many Syrians who have suffered so much at the hands of individuals like those, and we will continue fighting to hold them accountable for their hateful crimes. I wish to stress that the United States recognizes that non-State groups have also committed many abuses against detainees, including torture. We condemn any group using such tactics in the strongest terms and we demand that immediate access be granted to monitor all detention facilities, whether regime, terrorist or opposition.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“They were dangling in the air. They brought three sticks; they were hitting me everywhere. After they were done beating me with wooden sticks, they took the cigarettes. They were putting them out all over my body. It felt like a knife excavating my body, cutting me apart." We know where torture has taken place and where it continues to take place: facilities that include military intelligence branches numbers 215, 227, 235 and 251; the air force intelligence investigation branch in Mezzeh military airport; the Sednaya Prison and the Tishreen and Hharasta military hospitals. The commanding officers and prison officials who work at those facilities should know, too, that the international community is watching and that they, too, will one day be held accountable.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“I know right now today, with the wind at their backs, these individuals feel impunity. However, so did Slobodan Milosevic, Charles Taylor and countless war criminals before them. Today's atrocities are well-documented, and the civilized world's memories are long. Secondly, the Al-Assad regime must end the suffering and torture in detention centres throughout Syria. The regime continues to imprison tens of thousands of Syrians, including women, children, doctors, humanitarian workers, human rights defenders and journalists, subjecting many to torture, sexual violence and inhumane conditions. Here is how a Syrianjournalist named Shiar described his experience at military intelligence branch No. 235: "They had me stand on a barrel and they tied rope around my wrists. Then they took away the barrel. There was nothing below my feet.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“Today I would like to specify some of the names of those involved since 2011 in killing and injuring civilians by conducting air and ground-based Syrian Government military assaults on cities, residential areas and civilian infrastructure. The United States will not let those who have commanded units involved in these actions hide anonymously behind the facade of the Al-Assad regime. We know who some of these commanders are. They include Major General Adeeb Salameh, Brigadier General Adnan Aboud Hilweh, Major General Jawdat Salbi Mawas, Colonel Suheil Al-Hassan and Major General Tahir Hamid Khalil. Russia and the Al-Assad regime's merciless attacks must end and those behind such attacks must know that we and the international community are watching their actions and documenting their abuses, and that one day they will be held accountable.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“We condemn, in the strongest terms, all indiscriminate shelling by opposition forces into the civilian areas of western Aleppo. Those attacks have reportedly caused more than 60 casualties since 1 November. We agree with Russia that there can be no justification for such attacks, but I ask: Will Russia condemn - here in the Chamber today, or any day - even a single air strike by the Al-Assad regime? Choose any of the hospitals that the A1-Assad regime has destroyed, or any of the schools. Will Russia ever condemn its ally, Bashar Al-Assad, here at the Council for a single one ofthose attacks? We have been attending meetings like this one for more than five years. Despite all ofthe carnage inflicted by the regime partners, they have uttered not one critical, nor even skeptical word.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“First, the Al-Assad regime and Russia must stop the campaign of attacks that has destroyed countless schools, hospitals, homes and other civilian infrastructure. Take just some of the recent air strikes. Between 13 and 15 November, five hospitals in Syria were struck - five hospitals in two days. After air strikes hit another hospital in eastern Aleppo on 18 November, every hospital in that city is now reportedly out of service due to attacks by Russia and the Al-Assad regime: every single hospital, serving a population of 275,000 civilians, is out of commission. On 6 November, an attack by the Al-Assad regime on a Damascus suburb reportedly killed at least six children in a kindergarten. The United States recognizes that it is not just the Al-Assad regime and its allies that are causing civilians to suffer in Syria.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“When we renewed the Joint Investigative Mechanism for Syria last week (see S/PV.7815), I and many members spoke of how we could not uphold the norm against chemical weapons use if we did not know which party was using chemical weapons. In that regard again, to uphold the humanitarian demands of the Council, we need to speak frankly and very specifically about which parties are responsible for the suffering of the Syrian people. That means condemning the atrocities committed by terrorist organizations like Jabhat Al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - which the United States has done and will continue to do - but it also means telling the truth about Russia and the Al-Assad regime's actions. Today I will focus on just two features of regime and Russian terror.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“Consider that residents of eastern Aleppo reportedly received text messages warning people to flee before a "strategically planned assault" would happen. Consider that last month (see S/PV.7785) Russia vetoed a draft resolution (S/2016/846) in the Security Council meant to end atrocities in Aleppo. Those also were not humanitarian gestures. Remember that eastern Aleppo is not an isolated case, it is part of a countrywide strategy across Syria. Russia and the Al-Assad regime are waging a campaign that includes sieges, the blocking of humanitarian aid, the indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas and the use of barrel bombs. Therefore, we members of the Council need to separate fact from fiction today.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“Would any of us trust that regime with the lives of our family members, with our kids, with our parents, with our siblings? Consider that when Russia paused its air strikes over eastern Aleppo they did so unilaterally, meaning that they never deigned to coordinate their efforts with the United Nations or any other organization actually providing aid. That was not a humanitarian gesture. Consider that during this pause in strikes Russia and the Al-Assad regime never gave the United Nations permission to deliver a single parcel of food or medicine to eastern Aleppo - not one. That was not a humanitarian gesture. Consider that Russian war regime planes dropped leaflets warning the people of eastern Aleppo to leave or be annihilated, as many of us discussed at our previous briefing (see S/PV.7795).”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“A horrifying video from eastern Aleppo affirms a shocking inhuman barrage on civilian neighbourhoods. Of course, we will hear today from the Syrian regime and the Russian Federation a very different narrative. Russia will no doubt talk at length about how its unilateral pause in air strikes over eastern Aleppo was some kind of humanitarian gesture. The reality is that the Al-Assad regime and Russia are continuing their starve-get-bombed-or-surrender strategy in eastern Aleppo: bombing the city's 275,000 residents and pausing to see if any will surrender to the Al-Assad regime - a regime that, as both we and the Syrian people know, has systematically tortured those who have found themselves under its custodial authority.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“I thank the Under-Secretary-General O'Brien and the World Health Organization Country Director Hoff for their comprehensive and deeply disturbing briefings. I thank them, as always, for presenting us with the unvarnished and unbiased facts. Their remarks show once again what happens when the conflict continues and when Russia and the Al-Assad regime relentlessly pummel civilian areas from the air and regularly block deliveries of humanitarian aid on the ground. In opposition-held eastern Aleppo, at least 289 people are reported to have been killed since Tuesday. One Syrian volunteer reported 180 air strikes on eastern Aleppo on Saturday alone. Think of what you were doing on Saturday and imagine being subjected to 180 air strikes while doing it.”
2016-11-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7817 (2016) · source
“There is very little in the history of the Syrian conflict that the Security Council has been able to agree upon. Chemical weapons are one such exception to the general rule of Council division. The fact that we can achieve agreement in that narrow but important domain should motivate us. It should motivate us to work harder to stop the slaughter of civilians by other means, and it should motivate us to achieve the political solution that has long eluded the people of Syria, who continue to be attacked in a savage manner to this very day.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“There are sharp differences in the Council when it comes to the conflict in Syria; that is clear. But, the unanimous renewal of the mandate reflects one important principle that we share - our unequivocal collective opposition to the use of chemical weapons. That principle led us to adopt resolution 2118 (2013), requiring Syria, whose regime had just carried out a horrific attack, killing at least 1,400 people, to dismantle and destroy its chemical weapons programme under international supervision. That principle led us to create the Joint Investigative Mechanism and to now extend the Mechanism, and it is on the basis of that principle that we should continue to act to hold parties accountable for using chemical weapons against Syrian people.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“For example, there were numerous reports on 10 August and 6 September that Al-Assad regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs with toxic chemicals on neighbourhoods in eastern Aleppo, sickening dozens of Syrians and killing at least five people. As long as the parties to the conflict in Syria use chemical weapons and as long as previous cases can still be investigated, the Council needs to determine who was involved- and we need the Joint Investigative Mechanism to do it. But the Council's responsibilities do not end once we know the facts. We already know that the Al-Assad regime and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant were involvedin chemical attacks. The members of the Council now need to work together to make sure that those who use such gruesome weapons face consequences.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“But there is no question that perpetrators who know - as they did before 7 August 2015 when the Mechanism was authorized - that they would never be identified, those perpetrators felt a greater sense of impunity than they must feel now. Even if the Mechanism makes only a small difference in keeping the parties from using chemical weapons, it would save lives and help safeguard a crucial global norm. That is well worth the Council's full and sustained support. Thirdly and finally, there is so much investigative work left for the Mechanism to complete. The Mechanism has so far only been able to make attribution in four of the nine cases that were initially selected for investigation, and new potential cases continue to emerge.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“In the 19 months before the Mechanism was established, there were more than 120 allegations of chemical weapons attacks, but in the 15 months after the Mechanism began its work that number has dropped to approximately 35 alleged attacks. Let us be clear - one chemical weapons attack is one too many and is completely unacceptable and worthy of our collective condemnation. We also know that there are other likely causes, as the Syrian regime has established a pattern of using chemical weapons when it is struggling using conventional means; Russia's entry into the war in September 2015 has given Damascus a significant battlefield edge. Perhaps that explains some of the drop in use.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“Until the Mechanism was created, the Security Council received briefings in the passive voice - hearing that chemical weapons "were being used" in Syria, but never hearing which parties were using them. It was, honestly, bizarre. Ifthe Council had failed to extend the Mechanism today, we would have been wilfully blinding ourselves to learning the truth about who is responsible for some of the most deplorable crimes imaginable. We would not have been able to uphold a norm against chemical weapons use if, as a Council, we had decided we did not want to know who was using chemical weapons in the first place. Secondly, evidence suggests that the Mechanism is in fact helping to dissuade actors from using chemical weapons. This is really important.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source