Syrian activists and supporters have been sharing a video of Juan Carlos Giordano, the Argentinian MP and leader of the ‘Izquierda Socialista‘ (Socialist Left) party, itself a member of the Trotskyist ‘Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores’ (Workers’ Left Front) coalition, giving a powerful speech on the situation in Aleppo at the Buenos Aires City Council.
The speech was made as the fall of Aleppo entered its final stage with Assad regime forces and pro-regime sectarian militias, backed by Russian air power, defeating the remaining rebel forces in the city. This was accompanied by the mass evacuation of tens of thousands of East Aleppo residents to the relative safety of rebel-held countryside.
Here is a transcript of his speech and its translation:
My motion of privilege, that we have brought up in this parliamentary work, is about denouncing an international genocide. When one is asked in what way is an MP, the chamber of deputies of the nation affected? An international genocide! A crime against humanity perpetrated against the people of Aleppo, Syria, which we want to condemn. And this flag represents not the dictator Bashar al Assad, but the rebellious people of Aleppo against the dictatorship of Bashar al Assad. What has been named the Guernica of the 21st century, where bombs condemned by the international community have been dropped… on hospitals, schools… Where the civillian population has been murdered, [where] 95 per cent of all physicians have fled. Aleppo has been put under siege, food and medicine were not allowed to enter. The dictatorship of Bashar al Assad, the bombardment from Russia with the complicity of the United States and the complicity of the European Union, because this is a people that rose up against dictatorship as part of the Arab Spring in 2011 and [the situation] transformed into a civil war, provoking a humanitarian catastrophe. Therefore, we defend the people of Aleppo, the rebellious people of Syria against Bashar al Assad, against the bombardment and imperialist interference. And we are demanding that the national government break all diplomatic relationships with this dictatorship, corner the dictator and side with the rebellious peoples struggling with dignity against dictatorships in the world. Thank you, Mr. President.
The reference to the bombing of Guernica, the April 26, 1937 bombing of the city at the behest of the Spanish nationalist government by its allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, echoes the work of Portuguese artist Vasco Gargalo, whose work ‘Alepponica‘ shows some of the actors in the Syrian conflict the way Picasso drew his famous painting ‘Guernica’ in 1937.
https://globalvoices.org/
Commentaire: Izquierda Socialista fait partie du Front de Gauche argentin avec le Partido Obrero et le Partido de los Trabajadores Socialista, à ce dernier est lié le site "Révolution Permanente", composante du NPA.