Local Coordination Committees view the Arab initiative as a good foundation on which to build solutions for the national crisis that began when the Assad regime decided to meet the people’s uprising with violence. There are caveats: we do not trust the regime or its president, and we do not consider them legitimate; also we have reservations about conducting multi-candidate presidential elections in 2014. But we are open to other proposals in the initiative if there are sufficient Arabian and international guarantees for them to be implemented.
Current information suggests that the regime will reject the initiative, or only accept a version that has been stripped of much of its content, and without any guarantees for implementation. Syrians, who have already been killed and tortured in their thousands, will not accept any proposals or arrangements that leave Bashar Assad, the intelligence service and the death squads in control of their lives.
Syrians call upon the Arab League and all Arab people to stand alongside them in their just struggle for freedom from oppression, and to deny the murderous Assad regime any further opportunities, which it has been freely allowed so far, to continue using force against the Syrian people.