SYN stresses dangers from Lebanon oil slick

   A delegation from the Coalition of the Left, Movements and Ecology (SYN) party on Wednesday visited the offices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Athens to be briefed on a huge oil slick caused by Israeli bombardment of fuel depots in Lebanon and ways that it could be handled.

    SYN Political Bureau member Panos Trigazis afterward noted that Lebanon was now also faced with an ecological catastrophe that threatened the entire Eastern Mediterranean, in addition to the horrors of war and the problems of refugees.

    More than 20,000 tonnes of crude oil had polluted more than 100 miles of coastline in Lebanon and Syria and were now threatening to spread to the shores of Turkey and Cyprus, he added.

    He called for the immediate coordinated mobilisation of UNEP, the EU and all the countries that have signed the Barcelona Treaty in order to "neutralise this major ecological bomb" and reiterated SYN's demands for an immediate cessation of the war, or at least a immediate and substantially long ceasefire that would allow clean-up crews to tackle the oil slick.

    Trigazis also stated that SYN was in contact with Leftist organisations and environmental movements in the Mediterranean and Europe in order to organise an coordinated condemnation of the oil spill, which he termed a "major ecological crime", while stressing that Cypriot officials that he contacted were extremely concerned about the possible repercussions of the spill.

    A UN official said that several countries had responded and mobilised in response to the spill but no plan of action could be carried out while the war was still underway since it would require volunteers to take part.