THE COUNCIL OF LEBANESE AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS

   CLAO   Founded in 1989 to serve the USA and Lebanon.

                                          4401-A Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 273, Washington, DC 20008

                                          Eastern USA: P.O. Box 181116 Cleveland, OH  44118  ***  Western USA: P. O. Box 661823, Los Angeles, CA 90066

March 06, 2005                                                                                         PR050306   

Open Letter To President Assad

 Sovereignty Belongs To The people And Certainly Not To

 Installed Puppet Regimes

The Council Of Lebanese American Organizations (CLAO) finds your speech on March 5, 2005 to be unacceptable, insulting, and packed with threats. The UN Security Council resolution 1559 is clear concerning the complete withdrawal. Mr. Assad, you have declared that you are not going to work against the will of the United Nations but yet you only announced pulling back to the Bekaa, and later, without committing to any schedule, to the Syrian Lebanese borders! Hence, Mr. Assad, you remain manipulative and defiant to say the least. You have also insulted the Lebanese people and their political leaders for taking the stand against the Syrian occupation, labeling them as traitors, while in truth and by definition, traitors are only those who support being occupied particularly when the occupation takes place despite the will of the vast majority of the people and on the hands of such a brutal and totalitarian regime like yours. Mr. Assad, you have expressed your fears about instability after the withdrawal while your intelligence network is busy arming Syrian surrogates in Lebanon!

In the same speech, Mr. Assad, as you were attempting to argue that the issue of withdrawal should have been only negotiated between the Syrian and Lebanese regimes, you have stated that “who would be more qualified to request sovereignty other than the regime running the country.” CLAO is not surprised at all how dictators define sovereignty since people do not have a say in their nations. Mr. Assad, for your information, sovereignty belongs to the people and only the people and certainly not to installed puppet regimes. Mr. Assad, it is a secret to no one that the Lebanese regime is a Syrian puppet installed despite the will of the people.