The Assyrian Democratic Organization
The 10th General Conference of the Assyrian Democratic Organization has come to give a boost to its already advanced democratic experience as it carried major changes to the organization’s leadership and its structures as a whole in order to embody the will of renovation and to make way for a new leadership to carry out the organization’s visions and thoughts and to make the shift from underground activity into an open one in order to have the nationalist action developed at this stage of time through which our people is passing. All this has come into being as a result of the great efforts exerted by the former leadership bodies in order to firmly establish a lasting, continuous and renewable institutionalized experience within the organization.
Overriding slogans and mottos was nothing but a way to give more weight for the will of a serious work and a step toward a modern, reliable, rational and transparent political discourse. Such discourse will certainly lean on genuine potentials that exist among our people and, at the same time, will be capable of going along with the speedy developments the region is undergoing. Also, this discourse will pave the way to achieve interaction and conformity between the leadership in the homeland and the ADO’s chapters to best serve both our national and nationalist causes.
The region is passing through a stage of crucial and decisive developments imposed by the American occupation of Iraq and the ousting of the authoritarian Saddam Hussein. This occupation has led to create a regional and international power imbalance and to change many concepts which have been prevailing for long time on the levels of thought and political practice in the region as a whole. The conference carefully examined these situations and deeply studied them. No doubt, the nationalist dossier within the framework of Iraqi political scene was significantly considered. The Assyrians’ (Syriac/Chaldean) situations were seriously discussed. Therefore, all the necessary support for our factions and institutions in Iraq was stressed in order to enable our people to continue their distinct civilized role and in order to gain a constitutional recognition of their nationalist rights as an indigenous people which their roots extend deep in Iraq’s soil and history. In this context, the Assyrian Democratic Organization reiterated its readiness to cooperate with all vital and effective Assyrian factions in the homeland and Diaspora to achieve this noble objective. The conference also has come to conclude that after Iraq was liberated from dictatorship, the situation needs all Iraqi ethnic and religious elements to join forces in order to cope with the state of chaos and stumble resulting from the power vacuum and to build a democratic, pluralist Iraq. Despite the clearly unfair representation of our people in Iraq, the conference has seen that forming the national political and administrative (Iraqi) structures at this stage is an important step to restore Iraq’s unity and sovereignty and to end the (U.S.) occupation as soon as possible through founding an elected government which takes over Iraq’s affairs and through putting a permanent constitution for the country which ensures a fair representation for all Iraqi people elements, including Assyrians.
At this phase of time, democracy, human rights and minority causes have increasingly become some of the most outstanding issues that preoccupy people everywhere. And, our Assyrian (Chaldean/Syriac) people, like the rest of Syrians, have not distanced themselves from this fact as these issues come on top of their interests. In fact, our people have overcome the feeling of being a merely self-centered minority as which some people would like to take them. Our people have come to realize that they are an indigenous people and an important and basic element of the general national structure. Hence, our political factions, with the ADO coming first, have bound nationalist cause to the national one and made the homeland the core of its political struggle for their demands. Furthermore, we have always sought to rally our people’s potentials in Diasporas to serve the national causes as we believe in that our people’s nationalist cause can only be solved within the national framework and through a comprehensive, democratic solution which ensures pluralism and political and nationalist diversity within the framework of the national unity. Based on this understanding, the conference’s stress on the need for ADO to be open to all political national factions and elites in Syria on purpose for gaining official recognition of our people as an indigenous one has been viewed as one of (Syria’s) national needs. Also, contributing to the national dialogue based on recognizing the other, deepening the values and principles of democracy and human rights in the public life have been stressed to support the reformation process which has started in Syria and to smooth away all obstacles reforms face. Thus, we will work to pave the way to build the state of law and institutions in which justice and equality prevail.
Late August 2003 / 6753
Assyrian Democratic Organization
Central Committee
