Catholic nun exposes Syrian "rebels"

Vanguard August 2013 p. 10
Nick G.

Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix (above), superior of a Carmelite convent near Qara, 90 kilometres from Damascus, has recently toured Australia to speak on events in Syria.

All of her meetings were very well attended. Her audiences included many members of the Syrian community in Australia.

Mother Agnes-Mariam said that she was not a supporter of President Assad and had viewed the first demonstrations against his regime as "beautiful" and peaceful.

Foreign provocateurs created tensions

However, she said, she had noticed that as the demonstrations progressed there began to be faces of people she did not recognise, and who were not known to the people attending her monastery.

These strangers to the community then began acting provocatively. They were often armed and fired on the Syrian security forces who, in turn, began shooting at the demonstrators.

Reports from other parts of Syria confirmed this as part of a nation-wide pattern.

None of this was reported accurately by the media.

Eye-witness to "rebel" atrocities

She had personally seen unidentified "rebel" forces killing people indiscriminately, including security forces personnel.

She had gone with a French reporter to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) "rebels" and asked them to arrange for her to meet some of the people the "rebels" had claimed to have been victims of the regime – people who had been shot or tortured by the security forces.

She and the French reporter had waited for hours but the "rebels" could not produce one person to verify their claims against Assad’s forces.

On a visit to Homs she saw and heard evidence of women being abducted by the FSA. She presented photos of a man thrown from a top floor window and killed by the "rebels". There was also a shop owner who had been killed by the "rebels" because he defied their orders to close his shop. She described beheadings by the "rebels", including those of a whole group of around one hundred women and children.

She claimed that "rebels" had freed common criminals from the jails to create havoc, to destroy property and sow divisions amongst the people.

She reported on the rape of Christian women and the killing of priests and moderate Muslims.

She said the French and the Americans were aware that the FSA was faction-ridden but dominated by Al Qaeda, but that they were prepared to support these "rebels" for the sake of achieving regime change.

She said the "rebels" were coming from all over the globe, pursuing their own extreme religious agendas whilst serving as proxies for the Western powers. She said that CIA estimates had suggested that if elections were held today, as many as 70% of the population would support the current government and that was why foreigners and criminals were being promoted and supported by the big Western powers as "freedom fighters".

(Above: Al-Nusrah rebels, trained by the CIA, execute Syrian soldiers)

Syria, she said, had once been peaceful, much like Australia. In 18 years she had never seen a beggar in the streets. Now, 9 million people had been reduced to poverty and hunger and were more or less begging for aid.

She called for the ending of outside interference in Syrian affairs, for Australian neutrality, and for humanitarian aid to victims on both sides of the conflict.