The Daily Star - Sit-in for missing marks its sixth year - April 12, 2011

April 12, 2011 12:00 AM

By Reem Harb

The Daily Star

BEIRUT: A woman hunched with age slowly made her way into a crowd of families gathered in Downtown Beirut. The short walk was strenuous, but it was only the most recent leg of a journey that has taken her across Lebanon and Syria in search of her son’s body. The woman was one of dozens of people who gathered for a rally and news conference in Downtown Monday to mark the sixth anniversary of the open-ended sit-in of the families of victims of forced disappearance. The event, held in the Gibran Khalil Gibran Garden in front of the U.N.House, was organized by the Committee of Parents of Lebanese Detainees in Syrian Prisons, the Committee of Parents of Kidnapped and Missing Persons in Lebanon, the Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE) and the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH). “Shame on you, Bashar [Assad]; They have suffered enough in the secret prisons; A quarter of a century in Syrian prisons,” read some of the banners held by the parents of the victims. The director of SOLIDE, Ghazi Aad, called on all government officials, especially the president, caretaker prime minister and speaker, to form a national committee for the victims of enforced disappearance, create a DNA database, ratify the U.N. Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and assign a minister in the next Cabinet the responsibility of monitoring the national committee’s progress. Aad acknowledged that six years have passed since the launching of the sit-in and nothing has been achieved, but stressed that the organization and the committees will continue to demand the right of families in Lebanon to know the fate of the victims of enforced disappearance. Aad held the Lebanese state responsible for the lack of progress in resolving the issue of detainees, especially in its failure to ratify the U.N. declaration. The declaration maintains that states have a duty toward the families of victims of enforced disappearance to investigate their cases in a thorough and impartial way. “The Lebanese state is an accomplice in the crime of enforced disappearances in Lebanon because it has not done anything and, what’s more, it does not want to do anything,” Aad said. Aad also criticized the work of the joint Lebanese-Syrian commission of inquiry, which “has not been able to solve one case in six years.” Aad then questioned why the Lebanese government refuses to publish the report containing the commission’s work. The director of CLDH, Wadih Asmar, also criticized the joint commission in a statement, asking “Why hasn’t this joint commission communicated with the families about their cases?” Hassana Jamaleddine, a member of the Committee of Parents of Kidnapped and Missing Persons in Lebanon, said that the only way to make peace with history is to solve the problem of enforced disappearances. “The person waiting waits, and will continue to wait until he knows the truth,” Hassana said. Back at the demonstration and the hunched woman, Amina Hosli, whose son was kidnapped in 1986 and taken to a Syrian prison, was assisted as she joined the other protesters. “I know my son is dead and I am resigned to the fact, but I call on Syria to give me my son’s body back. Give a mother proof of her dead son,” Amina said. “I ask the world to take pity on us. Four or five of us parents have died in the last six years. I just want to see my son before I die,” said Mikhail Awad, whose son was kidnapped 27 years ago.