Lebanonwire.com | Lebanese seek UN help in tracing relatives feared held in Syria

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April 30, 2005

Lebanese seek UN help in tracing relatives feared held in Syria

BEIRUT - A lobby group for families of around 440 Lebanese believed to be still held in Syria despite its troop withdrawal from its smaller neighbour sought help from UN chief Kofi Annan Saturday in establishing their fate.

"We call upon you ... to take any measures necessary for the appropriate resolution of the longstanding plight of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of Lebanese," said Ghazi Aad, head of Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE).

Aad called on Annan to ask his special envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, to raise the issue during his next trip to the region as part of his mission to verify the completion of Syria's withdrawal, officially declared on April 26.

"We hold that no withdrawal of the Syrian army is complete without having appropriately addressed and solved this issue," said Aad.

Reading a letter he said he had sent to Annan, Aad called for the establishment of an international inquiry into the disappearances which he described as "crimes against humanity."

He was speaking at a demonstration outside UN offices in Beirut where relatives of the missing have been maintaining a hunger strike since April 11.

He was flanked by Marie Daunay, president of the Paris-based campaign group Support of Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily (SOLIDA), and Elie Abu Aoun, Lebanon representative of the France-based Nouveaux Droits de l'Homme.

"We cannot consider that Syria has done its duty and left Lebanon. Syria has to diclose the fate of the Lebanese missing or detained, and it has to release all Lebanese detainees," one of the relatives, Violette Nassif, told AFP.

"We want to draw Annan's attention to our case which did not appear in his last report to the Security Council on the Syrian withdrawal, despite our file being given to UN officials who promised to relay it to Roed-Larsen."

According to human rights watchdogs, 440 Lebanese have been reported missing or detained in Syria, including women and youngsters.

In December 2000, Syria freed 54 Lebanese prisoners from its jails.

It said it regarded the releases as closing the issue, even though Lebanese authorities later opened an inquiry under pressure from relatives and their supporters. The results of that investigation have yet to be released.