[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2509-2510]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      RUSSIAN ATROCITIES IN ALEPPO

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we have heard a lot about President Trump's 
admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom most objective 
observers regard as a murderous thug and a kleptocrat. As we consider 
the President's statements lauding Putin for being a ``strong leader'' 
and his silence about the imprisonment and assassinations of Putin's 
critics and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, and 
atrocities in Syria, I am reminded of the remarks delivered on December 
13 by Samantha Power, former Permanent Representative to the United 
Nations, at the U.N. Security Council.
  Ambassador Power delivered a passionate appeal to the Security 
Council to take action to protect civilians under assault in Aleppo, 
including to hold in contempt the governments of Syria, Russia, and 
Iran for their war crimes in Syria. Her remarks stand as a stark 
contrast to what we are hearing from the White House today. This is a 
time to condemn Vladmir Putin's aggressions against the people of 
Russia, of Ukraine, and of Syria--not to regard him as an example of a 
leader to emulate.
  It is also a time for Republicans to stand up for our own democracy, 
after the Russian Government, at Putin's direction, actively sought to 
sway the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election. The unanimous 
conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies is that Putin, a former KGB 
agent, ordered a cyber attack on our electoral system in favor of 
Donald Trump. Russia's goals ``were to undermine public faith in the 
U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her 
electability and potential presidency.'' Yet the White House and 
Republican leaders in Congress have been silent, apparently unconcerned 
about a foreign assault on our electoral system, refusing to even 
support an independent investigation. Imagine what they would be saying 
if their candidate had lost. They would be demanding a new election and 
trying to shut down the government.
  I ask unanmious consent that Ambassador Power's remarks be printed in 
the Record to serve as a reminder of the scale of the humanitarian 
disaster in Syria perpetrated by Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin and 
our moral obligation to pursue accountability for those responsible.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Remarks at a UN Security Council Emergency Briefing on 
     Syria
       Ambassador Samantha Power
       U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
       U.S. Mission to the United Nations
       New York City
       December 13, 2016


                              AS DELIVERED

       Thank you. Here is what is happening right now in eastern 
     Aleppo. Syrians trapped by the fighting are sending out their 
     final appeals for help, or they are saying their goodbyes. A 
     doctor named Mohammad Abu Rajab left a voice message: ``This 
     is a final distress call to the world. Save the lives of 
     these children and women and old men. Save them. Nobody is 
     left. You might not hear our voice after this.'' A 
     photographer named Ameen Al-Halabi wrote on Facebook: ``I am 
     waiting to die or be captured by the Assad regime. Pray for 
     me and always remember us.'' A teacher named Abdulkafi Al-
     Hamdo said: ``I can tweet now but I might not do it forever. 
     Please save my daughter's life and others. This is a call 
     from a father.'' Another doctor told a journalist: ``Remember 
     that there was a city called Aleppo that the world erased 
     from the map and history.''
       This is what is happening in eastern Aleppo. This is what 
     is being done by Member States of the United Nations who are 
     sitting around this horseshoe table today. This is what is 
     being done to the people of eastern Aleppo, to fathers, and 
     mothers, and sons, and daughters, brothers, and sisters like 
     each of us here.
       It is extremely hard to get information, of course, out of 
     the small area still held by the opposition. You will hear 
     this as an alibi as a way of papering over what video 
     testimony, phone calls, and others are bringing us live. You 
     will hear this invoked--that it is hard to verify. It is 
     deliberate. The Assad regime and Russia backed by Iran using 
     militia on the ground have done everything they can to cut 
     off the city. So you will hear, ``well, we don't really know, 
     maybe it's made up''--but they are hiding what is happening 
     from the world. It would be easy for independent 
     investigators to get in along with food, health workers, and 
     others; but instead, the perpetrators are hiding their brutal 
     assault from the world willfully. But consider the accounts 
     that have made it out--so many of them--first responders 
     describing children's voices from beneath the rubble of 
     collapsed buildings. There are no first responders or 
     equipment left to dig them out, and no doctors left to treat 
     them. Bodies lying in the streets of eastern Aleppo, but no 
     one dares collect them, for fear of getting bombed or shot to 
     death in the process. Up to a hundred children are reportedly 
     trapped right now, in a building under heavy fire. 
     Terrorists. Clearly--young children--they must be terrorists 
     because everybody being executed, everybody being barrel 
     bombed, everybody who's been chlorine attacked, you're going 
     to be told they are all terrorists--every last one of them, 
     even the infants.
       The regime of Bashar Al-Assad, Russia, Iran, and their 
     affiliated militia are the ones responsible for what the UN 
     called ``a complete meltdown of humanity.'' And they are 
     showing no mercy:
       No mercy despite their territorial conquests--even now, no 
     mercy. In the last 24 hours alone, pro-Assad forces 
     reportedly killed at least 82 civilians, including 11 women 
     and 13 children.
       These forces are reportedly entering homes and executing 
     civilians on the spot, as we have heard. And according to the 
     Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, foreign 
     militias like Iraqi Harakat Al-Nujaba organization are 
     involved in these killings. Where civilians are able to run 
     the gauntlet and make it across the frontlines, Syrian 
     intelligence agencies are pulling people aside and sending 
     them away, perhaps to be gang-pressed to the front lines, 
     likely to the same prisons where we know the Assad regime 
     tortures and executes those in its custody.
       In light of these reports, we join others, especially the 
     Secretary-General, in one of his final appeals, reiterating 
     our call to the Assad regime and Russia to stop their assault 
     on Aleppo, to protect civilians. We call on Russia and Assad 
     to allow impartial, international observers into the city to 
     oversee the safe evacuation of the people who wish to leave, 
     but who justifiably fear that if they try, they will be shot 
     in the street or carted off to one of Assad's gulags.
       The Assad regime and Russia appear dead set on seizing 
     every last square inch of Aleppo by force, no matter how many 
     innocent bodies pile up in their wake. But we keep insisting 
     on answering the UN call for access, for safe and orderly 
     evacuation, because we are not willing to accept that 
     innocent men, women, and children can be butchered simply 
     because they happen to live in a conflict

[[Page 2510]]

     area. Our shared humanity and security demands that certain 
     rules of war hold, the most basic. And it is up to each and 
     every one of us here to defend those rules.
       To the Assad regime, Russia, and Iran--three Member States 
     behind the conquest of and carnage in Aleppo--you bear 
     responsibility for these atrocities. By rejecting UN-ICRC 
     evacuation efforts, you are signaling to those militia who 
     are massacring innocents to keep doing what they are doing. 
     Denying or obfuscating the facts--as you will do today--
     saying up is down, black is white, will not absolve you. When 
     one day there is a full accounting of the horrors committed 
     in this assault of Aleppo--and that day will come, sooner or 
     later--you will not be able to say you did not know what was 
     happening. You will not be able to say you were not involved. 
     We all know what is happening. And we all know you are 
     involved.
       Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history 
     that define modern evil, that stain our conscience decades 
     later. Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and, now, Aleppo. To the 
     Assad regime, Russia, and Iran, your forces and proxies are 
     carrying out these crimes. Your barrel bombs and mortars and 
     airstrikes have allowed the militia in Aleppo to encircle 
     tens of thousands of civilians in your ever-tightening noose. 
     It is your noose. Three Member States of the UN contributing 
     to a noose around civilians. It should shame you. Instead, by 
     all appearances, it is emboldening you. You are plotting your 
     next assault. Are you truly incapable of shame? Is there 
     literally nothing that can shame you? Is there no act of 
     barbarism against civilians, no execution of a child that 
     gets under your skin, that just creeps you out a little bit? 
     Is there nothing you will not lie about or justify?
       To the members of this Council, and all Member States of 
     the United Nations: Know that the ghastly tactics we are 
     witnessing in Aleppo will not stop if the city falls. The 
     regime and its Russian allies will only be emboldened to 
     replicate their starve-and-surrender-and-slaughter tactics 
     elsewhere. This will be their model for attempting to retake 
     cities and towns across Syria.
       It will not end with Aleppo. And it will not focus on 
     terrorists. It never has, and there is no evidence that it 
     will.
       This is why it is so essential that each of us right here--
     no matter how small a country you are, no matter what your 
     view of sovereignty, if you share our view that terrorism is 
     one of the singular causes on earth worth fighting, it 
     doesn't matter--you have a responsibility to denounce these 
     atrocities. We have just heard the Secretary-General state it 
     plainly. You have to tell those responsible that they must 
     stop. This isn't the time for more equivocation, for self-
     censoring, for avoiding naming names, for diplomatic niceties 
     of the kind that are so well-practiced here on the Council. 
     Say who is responsible. Appeal to Moscow, to Damascus, to 
     Tehran, that they have to stop. Use every channel you have--
     public, private, bankshot, through someone who knows someone. 
     The lives of tens of thousands of Syrians still in eastern 
     Aleppo--between 30,000-60,000 people--and hundreds of 
     thousands more across the country who are besieged, depend on 
     it.
       I thank you.

                          ____________________