By PANA
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Deeply concerned about the protracted civil war in Syria, the Africa Forum has said it supports a peaceful resolution of the conflict, in line the with the fundamental position agreed by major players in the world.
“As Africans, we strongly urge that all Member States of the UN, without exception, should desist from taking any military action in Syria of any kind, including using the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government as justification for such action,” the Forum said in a statement released Monday by the African Union Commission.
The Africa Forum, which brings together former African heads of state and government with its executive secretariat in Pretoria, South Africa, said the international community should rely on the UN to establish whether and what chemical weapons were used, where and when, and who used them.
“We have been and are opposed to all international interventions which have added and would add fuel to the fire, by arming any and all the Syrian belligerents.
“We have received with horror the news that chemical weapons have been used in this conflict, and strongly condemn this,” the Forum affirmed, stressing that “no foreign power should insert itself in the immensely destructive Syrian civil war as a belligerent, even on the basis that it seeks to deter the use of chemical weapons.”
The statement, signed by 43 members of the Forum, urged all African and other governments throughout the world to take urgent action through the UN “in the fundamental interest of the peoples of Syria and the rest of the world”.
“Any action which practically repudiates the UN Charter would be an historical regression that takes all humanity backwards towards an unacceptable past,” the Forum insisted.
