Category: Syria

صدمة لم يتلوها أي رعب

مع حلول يوم الجمعة الماضي أعلن النظام السوري الحرب الفعلية على شعبه وقتل على الأقل مئة متظاهراً في ذلك اليوم. وخلال هذا الأسبوع وقعت مناطق سورية عدة تحت وطأة الحصار. الدبابات السورية التي لم تقرب صوب الجولان المحتلة منذ عام 1973 نشطت الآن وتحركت لتدخل درعا عروس الجنوب, فأغلقت الطرق والشوارع فيها وقطعت المياه والكهرباء والاتصالات. ثمة تقارير عن نقص في الغذاء في درعا وهيمنة الذعر العام, وجثث ملقاة في الشوارع تتعفن على مهلها. وفي ضاحية “دوما” ينتشر القناصون ويطلقون الناس على المشاة, أما بانياس الساحلية فتحاصرها الدبابات, بينما أصبحت”مضايا” وهي بلدة جبلية على الحدود اللبنانية, بلدة محتلة.  لا بد أن النظام يتمنى أن يوقف تهريب الأسلحة عبر الحدود أو أنه يتمنى لو يوقف نزوح السوريين وهربهم عبر منافذ التهريب, فلقد عبر الآلاف من سوريا إلى لبنان خلال الأيام الأخيرة ولقد اعتُقِل خمسمئة شخصاً على الأقل وأُودِعوا غرف التعذيب السورية.

يجب أن نلاحظ هنا أن العنف هائل وواسع لكنه أيضاً يُطَبَّق بطريقة تكتيكية, إذ يهدف التصعيد المفاجىء إلى إحداث صدمة عند الشعب ودفعه للانصياع, لكن الذخيرة الحية لم تُستَخدَم في كل مكان ولقد حاولت قوى “الأمن” ألا تقتل المتظاهرين الأكراد في الشمال الشرقي لخوفها من أن يطلق هذا شرارة عصيان مسلح. والمظاهرات التي حصلت في قلب دمشق تم تفريقها بالعصي والغاز المسيل للدموع عوضاً عن إطلاق الرصاص الحي. يبدو أن النظام لا يريد أن يقتل أبناء رجال الأعمال المهمين في دمشق, لكن إلى متى سيبقى النظام على موقفه هذا !

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Some Shock, No Awe

By last Friday, if it hadn’t already done so, the Syrian regime effectively declared war on its own people, killing at least a hundred protestors. Throughout this week parts of Syria have fallen under outright siege. The tanks and infantry which haven’t peeped across the occupied Golan since 1973 entered the southern city of Dara’a, cutting roads, telephone and internet, water and electricity. Reports from the city speak of food shortages, generalised terror, and corpses stinking in the streets. Snipers are firing at pedestrians in the Damascus suburb of Douma. Tanks surround the coastal city of Banyas. Madaya, a mountain town on the Lebanese border, is also occupied. The regime may wish to stop weapons being smuggled across the border, or it may wish to stop Syrians fleeing via the smuggling routes. Thousands have crossed to Lebanon in recent days, and at least five hundred have been rounded into the regime’s torture chambers.

The violence has been massive, but also tactically applied. The sudden escalation is intended to shock the population into obedience. Yet live ammunition has not been used everywhere. Security forces have tried not to kill protesting Kurds in the north east, fearing that would trigger a genuine armed insurrection. Demonstrations in central Damascus have been dispersed with batons and tear gas rather than live fire. The regime doesn’t want to kill the sons of important businessmen, not yet at least.

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Easter Blood

On Friday the saviour died for our sins

That we might live.

Dumuzi, on the blood river’s brink

Takes the plunge.

Israa Yunis, seven years old, takes the plunge

And the little boys of Dara’a whose skulls they smashed

The brave men of Jableh, the warm women of Bayda

The intellectuals, the street kids, the people of truth

Walk into the waves.

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Web of Lies

by Maysaloon

banner reads: My Sect Is Freedom

It is quite amazing to see the web of lies being woven now that the situation in Syria becomes critical. The official narrative, and one which a considerable chunk of the Syrian population wish desperately to believe, is that the protests are being provoked by unknown foreign elements that are trying to destabilise the country. The official media is focusing exclusively on the deaths of members of the security services, ignoring the hundreds of deaths amongst the mostly peaceful protesters that have taken to the streets across Syria. I say that many people wish desperately to believe the official narrative because many people simply don’t want to see more bloodshed and death on the streets of Syria. Many people are also afraid and don’t wish to be seen as accepting the fact that the Syrian government is now at war with its own people.

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الجمعة العظيمة

بالأمس القريب رفع الرئيس بشار الأسد قانون الطوارىء, وحلّ محاكم أمن الدولة سيئة السمعة وسمح بالتظاهر السلمي. ولكن بعد صدور المرسوم الرئاسي تقدم أحد المحامين في الحسكة بطلب إذن لتظاهرة سلمية فاعتقلته قوات الأمن.

واليوم , يوم “الجمعة العظيمة” قامت مظاهرة ضخمة, سلمية وعزلاء في كل المناطق السورية. لجأ الجيش والشرطة والميليشيات إلى استخدام الذخيرة الحية والعصي الكهربائية والغاز المسيل للدموع ضد المتظاهرين. قٌتِل على الأقل 88 ابناً وابنة من أبناء السوريين, ومنعت قوى النظام بعض المصابين من تلقّي المساعدة الطبية اللازمة, بينما تمّ اعتقال مصابين آخرين من فوق أسرّتهم في المشفى. يمكن رؤية هذا

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Four Points on Syria

picture by Ali Farzat

1. Obama Should Shut Up

Obama’s claim that the Syrian regime is receiving Iranian assistance to repress protests is a statement which could inflame sectarian hatred inside Syria, as Obama’s Zionist advisors know very well. (This because Iran is Shia, a target of Saudi-Wahhabi propaganda, and the Syrian dictator is an Alawi, whereas the majority of Syrians are Sunnis). Obama gave no evidence to support his claim. The regime may be using Iranian bullets and tear gas. The Egyptian, Tunisian, and Libyan regimes have recently used American bullets and tear gas against their respective peoples. And America has offered its full support to the Saudi occupation of Bahrain and the Khalifa reign of terror there, which includes midnight arrests, extrajudicial executions, the destruction of Shia mosques, and assaults on hospitals and medical staff. The United States continues to assist the same dictatorships it has assisted for decades, and to function as the lifeline of the Zionist apartheid state. Obama’s statement could be a message to the Asad regime: if you distance Iran and the resistance, we will help you survive this crisis. But the Asad regime knows its only popularity arises from its support of resistance. Alternatively, Obama may have decided that Bashaar will fall, and the message is to the Syrian people, to encourage sectarian hatred amongst them and make it more difficult for them to build a stable, inclusive nation after the Asads capable of confronting the Zionist project.

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Fisk on the Syrian Uprising

The veteran Middle East reporter for the UK’s Independent newspaper discusses the shooting of protesters on “Great Friday”.

Fisk argues that the Syrian president is fast losing control of the situation, though he is unlikely to go quietly.

With his belated concessions, Assad is “is now enduring the failures that he committed 11 years ago,” the journalist says.

Great Friday

banner reads: was the martyr Hatem Hana, a Christian, also a Salafi?

Yesterday President Bashaar al-Asad lifted the Emergency Law, dissolved the notorious State Security Courts, and legalised peaceful protests.

After the president’s decree, a lawyer asked permission to hold a protest in Hasakeh. He was detained by security forces.

Today – ‘Great Friday’ – large, peaceful, unarmed protests were held in all regions of the country. Police, army and militia used tear gas, electric rods and live ammunition against the people. At least 88 sons and daughters of Syria were murdered. Regime forces prevented some of the wounded from receiving medical help. Other wounded have been arrested from their hospital beds. (Here are ugly scenes in Homs).

Damascus is under lockdown, mukhabarat clustering on every corner. Someone I know tried to cross the city today for entirely apolitical reasons. During the journey he was taken off the bus (with everyone else) and marched to a police station where he was questioned and his details recorded. But protests and gunfire still roared from the suburbs as far into the city’s heart as Meedan.

Words are one thing, actions another. The president’s words have no meaning at all.

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Two Syrians

Here are two slightly differing takes on accusations that the protests in Syria have an overly Sunni and anti-minority character. First, from someone in Damascus:

There are claims that the Ismailis weren’t part of these protests but actually al-Salamiya was one of the first towns in Syria to protest after Daraa, then other areas followed.

In Banias last Friday, the Sheikhs invited an Alawite speaker to address the protesters.

I find the word “Islamist” quite problematic. I mean, in Syria many are religious, but Islamists? what does that even mean? They want to impose an Islamic state? Doesn’t that mean that the Syrian people would be supportive of the Ikhwan’s ideology? What’s interesting is that many disapprove of the regime AND the Ikhwan’s ideology, so we’re talking about conservative Muslims not Islamists, conservative when it comes to their daily lives and when it comes to their daughters, but when we talk about Islamists, we’re talking about a political discourse that wants to turn Syria into an Islamic state, a discourse that we haven’t heard thus far in any of these protests, nor from Sheikhs of Banias, Douma and Homs, who addressed the president with a statement and clear demands.

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