CNN: Is Syria's regime losing Damascus?

جورج صبرا في رد قوي على روسيا

SYRIA | SYDNEY FLASH MOB | #SILENCEISBETRAYAL

بيان6 الشيخ سارية الرفاعي يخاطب مؤيدي النظام والصامتين

BBC's Paul Danahar: Qubair: Sign of growing sectarian strife

The tiny hamlet of Qubair, scene of an alleged massacre, is the latest landmark in Syria's bloody conflict. The BBC's Middle East bureau chief Paul Danahar visited the village with UN monitors and found a worrying portent of sectarian violence to come.

Somehow, when your senses are crushed by the weight of what they are being asked to consume, they switch off.

Then something suddenly kicks them back into life.

For mine, it was the small piece of someone's brain that fell from within the bloodied tablecloth a man had just held up before me.

Suddenly, at that moment, the reality of what I was seeing rushed back into life and the world became razor sharp.

I could smell the burnt flesh even before I stepped up to the window to look inside the house next door.
Shapes that had blurred into the barren landscape came into focus in the fields outside. The horse shot by the stables, the sheep slaughtered by the chicken coup.

The story of what happened began to form.

The attackers walked into this village on Wednesday morning with the intention of killing everything that moved.

Butchering the families that lived in this tiny Sunni Muslim community was not enough to quench their bloodlust. So the animals died too, their carcasses left to rot in the summer sun.

So what was their role? The timing of this attack, as Kofi Annan went to the UN to report on his findings so far, could not have been worse for the regime.

That suggests that some of the militia the government has been accused of creating have spiralled beyond their day-to-day command and control, leaving the army to try to clean up their mess in Qubair before it was met by the world's gaze.

Army losing control


It is symptomatic of the problem the Syrian army faces in quelling this revolution that these murders took place.

It simply does not have enough of its most trusted elite forces to be everywhere at once and so they are dragged around the country, putting down uprisings as they flare up.

When they leave an area behind, the vacuum is filled by opposition forces and the local militia.

In the urban centres the society is mixed. Colleagues may not even know the religion or sect of the person sitting next to them.

But in the rural backwaters the villages are often pockets of individual communities living separately from each other but joined by the same piece of farmland.

One village may be Christian, the next Shia, the next Sunni or Alawite. These communities are vulnerable to the question "whose side are you on?" 

The world witnessed the beginning of the sectarian conflict in Houla. It saw the images of savage brutality.
This week it watched the images of Qubair. It will not end here. There will be more massacres, there will be more people who wake with the expectation of another day only to come face-to-face hours later with men burning with hatred.

There are people alive today who watched the same images on the TV screens as you did. Only one day you may be reading about their deaths at the hands of people who loathe them because of their faith.

This could descend into a war beyond anyone's control. Then the history books will relegate Qubair to one line marking the slow escalation of the conflict.

History will not remember the pool of dark red blood in the corner of the room. It will not remember the pieces of brain scattered among the shoes and spilt rice. But I will.

صور حصرية لموفد العربية خلال قصف تلبيسة في حمص

ويكي شام | قصر الشعب | الموسم الثاني | الحلقة الرابعة

CNN: Struggle to save wounded kids in Syria

CNN: King watched snipers target Syrian kids

The Dictator's Inbox

Article by Foreign Policy

Inside the circuitous trail that brought Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's scandalous emails into the public eye. 

How do emails from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's personal inbox escape the narrow confines for which they were intended, and eventually get exposed to the light of day? It's a story that was born in the presidential palace in Damascus, bounced southeast to Al Arabiya's bureau in Dubai's sleek Media City, traveled the 3,400 miles west to the Guardian's offices in London -- and even made a brief stopover in Foreign Policy's Washington office.
 

From late May 2011 until Feb. 7, Syrian activists had been monitoring the personal emails of Assad, his wife Asma, and a small clique of advisors in real time. According to the activists, they quietly used that information to warn their friends of upcoming actions by the Syrian regime against them. But on Feb. 5, the hacker group Anonymous hacked into the Syrian Ministry of Presidential Affairs and released into the public sphere the names and passwords of the accounts that the activists had been watching.

FP reported on the release of two emails uncovered by Anonymous. One of FP's blog posts was reprinted in Arabic by the opposition news source All4Syria, a website run by Syrian dissident Ayman Abdel Nour, a former friend of Assad from their days in university. According to one of the Syrian activists involved in monitoring the leak, a reader sent an angry message to the president's email address soon after the All4Syria story was released -- and the addresses that the activists had been monitoring for months went dead soon after. At that point, they decided to seek out media outlets to publish the more than 3,000 pages of emails they had culled from the personal accounts of the very top figures of the Assad regime.

The coverage of the email cache has focused on the tawdry details: the picture of a near-naked woman in the president's inbox, Asma's penchant for crystal-studded Christian Louboutin high heels, and the eclectic taste in music revealed by Assad's iTunes purchases. Less well understood is the daunting array of obstacles -- ranging from questions about the email cache's authenticity to the political and cultural sensitivities of the Middle East -- that had to be overcome before the trove was published. And that's a story of the circuitous routes that information often takes in the Middle East before it is revealed.

Weeks after the emails came to light, Syria watchers are still mulling what they tell us about the nature of the Assad regime. David Lesch, a professor of Middle East history at Trinity University who wrote a biography of the Syrian president, described the irony of the fact that Assad did appear to be willing to take advice from young, Western-educated advisors -- but they often counseled him to take an ever more intransigent line.

"Of the ones I've seen, they're very much advising him in his speeches to say things that are traditionally authoritarian," he said. "One of the old guard could have said those things."

Upon receiving the emails, the Guardian and Al Arabiya began conducting largely similar efforts to verify their authenticity. Both outlets sorted through the thousands of emails, cross-checking the events and details mentioned in them with the news from the period. In London, the Guardian staff was able to compile a list of over a dozen individuals named in the emails for whom it had contact information. The staff was able to reach 12 people from that list, all of whom confirmed that their emails in the cache were authentic or that they remembered corresponding with the addresses in question.

The presence of photographs, videos, and even a birth certificate of an Assad family member in the cache helped convince the Guardian that the emails were, in fact, legitimate. "It would be possible to fake it up to that point, but it would take an enormous intelligence agency-style operation to put it together," said Charlie English, the head of international news at the newspaper.

The verification process was the most nerve-racking period for the Syrian activists who had leaked the cache. They had spent months reading Assad's emails after receiving the usernames and passwords from a member of the regime, and they were convinced of the emails' authenticity. But they were forced to wait while the news outlets conducted their own checks.

In Al Arabiya's Dubai headquarters, the problem was not only verifying the emails but navigating the political and cultural sensitivities of the region. The network, which was founded by members of the Saudi royal family, published a story that it was declining to reveal the "scandalous" emails of the Assad family and would only feature emails directly related to the yearlong crisis in Syria.

But other emails raised potential political issues: In one of the most important exchanges, the daughter of the Qatari emir, Mayassa al-Thani, offers the Assads asylum in Doha. While Al Arabiya published the emails mentioning the princess's name, its story only refers to her as "the daughter of a Gulf royal ruler" and a figure who "appeared to be from Qatar."

Far from being concerned about being scooped by a rival outlet, Al Arabiya actually welcomed the Guardian's efforts to publish stories from the email cache before it did. The British newspaper's work gave Al Arabiya the cover to report on the story, while inoculating itself from charges that it was revealing the private correspondence of an Arab ruler.

"Let me be frank on that. There are security concerns," said an Al Arabiya editor. "That's why we were happy that the Guardian published it. And even at first, we aired six TV episodes -- each of half an hour, summarizing the emails. And in the first one and the second one, we gave the credit [for the information] to the Guardian, just because of the very fact that they went before us."

There is evidence that the Syrian regime and its allies did try to prevent reports about the cache from reaching its citizens, as well as people throughout the Middle East. The Guardian's website was reportedly blocked in Syria shortly after it revealed the story, while Al Arabiya's frequency on the Egyptian satellite communications company Nilesat, which the station uses to reach the majority of its viewers throughout the Arab world, was jammed for up to an hour at a time for several days.

The network has previously accused the Syrian regime of blocking its broadcasts, but this time it believed the Syrians had help. "It is jamming coming often from Iran and sometimes from Syria," the Al Arabiya editor said.

Information about Middle Eastern governments, of course, leaks all the time. But never before have thousands of personal emails from an Arab ruler been released into the public sphere. This fact, along with the intensely personal nature of many of the emails, convinced the news outlets that tackled this story that they needed to be handled with the utmost care.

"If you are in Switzerland or in the United States and someone reveals a story that will embarrass somebody else, that somebody else can go to the court and the law will be the judge," the Al Arabiya editor explained. "In a place like Syria, where there has never been any rule of law … they wouldn't agree to appear to respond to the story. It is news about a regime that has no hesitation to kill an opponent just because they are not happy with that opponent. And because these are the emails of the president, we became cautious that they may go that far."

Rapping for Syria: Omar Offendum | #SYRIA (Prod. by Sami Matar)

BBC Panorama Documentary 2012: Homs - Journey into Hell

وثائقي حمص رحلة إلى الجحيم HD - دقة عالية - مترجم

وثائقي: الطريق إلى دمشق - الذكرى الأولى للثورة السورية

الدكتور عمرو خالد || سوريا في القلب || الحلقة الأولى

CNN: Syrians fighting for their children

الرسائل الرئاسية المسربة - الجزء الخامس

الرسائل الرئاسية المسربة - الجزء الرابع

الرسائل الرئاسية المسربة - الجزء الثالث

الرسائل الرئاسية المسربة - الجزء الثاني

الرسائل الرئاسية المسربة - الجزء الأول

CNN: Social media's role in Syria

CNN: As civilians died, Assad's wife shopped

CNN: Assad's private emails exposed

CNN in Homs: 72 Hours under Fire. Part 6

CNN in Homs: 72 Hours under Fire. Part 5

CNN in Homs: 72 Hours under Fire. Part 4

CNN in Homs: 72 Hours under Fire. Part 3

CNN in Homs: 72 Hours under Fire. Part 2

CNN in Homs: 72 Hours under Fire. Part 1

الجزيرة تقرير من داخل سوريا لأول مرة منذ اندلاع الثورة 8 3 2012

BBC: Fleeing Homs with tales of slaughter

CNN: Doctor compares Syria horror to Chechnya

CNN: Journalist on Syria: An Eye Opener

CNN: Syrian Activist Danny Answers Accusations

CNN: Journalist describes escape from Syria

Robert Fisk: The heroic myth and the uncomfortable truth of war reporting

It took a lot of courage to get into Homs; Sky News, then the BBC, then a few brave men and women who went to tell the world of the city's anguish and, in at least two cases, suffered themselves. I could only reflect this week, however, how well we got to know the name of the indomitable and wounded British photographer Paul Conroy, and yet how little we know about the 13 Syrian volunteers who were apparently killed by snipers and shellfire while rescuing him. No fault of Conroy, of course. But I wonder if we know the names of these martyrs – or whether we intend to discover their names?

There's something faintly colonialist about all this. We have grown so used to the devil-may-care heroics of the movie version of "war" correspondents that they somehow become more important than the people about whom they report. Hemingway supposedly liberated Paris – or at least Harry's Bar – but does a single reader remember the name of any Frenchman who died liberating Paris? I do recall my dauntless television colleague, Terry Lloyd, who was killed by the Americans in Iraq in 2003 – but who can remember the name of one of the quarter or half a million Iraqis killed as a result of the invasion (apart, of course, from Saddam Hussein)? The Al Jazeera correspondent in Baghdad was killed in Baghdad by an American airstrike the same year. But hands up who remembers his name? Answer: Tareq Ayoub. He was a Palestinian. I was with him the day before he died.

The flak jacket has now become the symbol of almost every television reporter at war. I've nothing against flak jackets. I wore one in Bosnia. But I've been increasingly discomfited by all these reporters in their blue space-suits, standing among and interviewing the victims of war, who have no such protection. I know that insurers insist correspondents and crews wear this stuff. But on the streets, a different impression emerges: that the lives of Western reporters are somehow more precious, more deserving, more inherently valuable than those of the "foreign" civilians who suffer around them. Several years ago, during a Beirut gun battle, I was asked to put on a flak jacket for a television interview by a journalist wearing one of these 12lb steel wrap-arounds. I declined. So no interview.

A similar and equally uncomfortable phenomenon appeared 15 years ago. How did reporters "cope" with war? Should they receive "counselling" for their terrible experiences? Should they seek "closure"? The Press Gazette called me up for a comment. I declined the offer. The subsequent article went on and on about the traumas suffered by journalists – and then suggested that those who declined psychological "help" were alcoholics. It was either psycho-babble or the gin bottle. The terrible truth, of course, is that journos – and for God's sake, we must stop demeaning our profession by calling ourselves "hacks" – can fly home if the going gets too tough, business class with a glass of bubbly in their hands. The poor, flak-jacketless people they leave behind – with pariah passports, no foreign visas, desperately trying to stop the blood splashing on to their vulnerable families – are the ones who need "help". The romanticism associated with "war" reporters was all too evident in the prelude to the 1991 Gulf War. All kinds of foreign journalists turned up in Saudi Arabia in military costumes. One, an American, even had camouflaged boots with leaves painted on them – even though a glance at a real desert suggests an absence of trees. Oddly, I found that out in the loneliness of that real desert, many soldiers of the genuine variety, especially American Marines, were writing diaries of their experiences, even offering them to me for publication. The reporters, it seems, wanted to be soldiers. The soldiers wanted to be reporters.

This curious symbiosis is all too evident when "war" reporters talk of their "combat experience". Three years ago, at an American university, I had the pleasure of listening to three wounded US Iraqi/Afghan war veterans putting down a journalist who used this awful phrase. "Excuse me, Sir," one of them said politely. "You have not had 'combat experience'. You have had "combat exposure". That is not the same thing." The veteran understood the power of quiet contempt. He had no legs.

We've all fallen victim to the "I watched in horror"/"screaming rockets"/"I was pinned down by shellfire/machine-gun fire/sniper fire" reporting. I suspect I used this back in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. I certainly did in southern Lebanon in the late Seventies. I am ashamed. While we do bear "personal witness" to wars – a phrase I am also deeply uncomfortable with – this kind of Boy's Own Paper stuff is a sign of self-regard. James Cameron caught this best in the Korean War. About to land with US forces at Inchon, he noticed "in the middle of it all, if such a thing be faintly conceivable, a wandering boat marked in great letters, 'PRESS', full of agitated and contending correspondents, all of us trying to give an impression of determination to land in Wave One, while seeking desperately to contrive some reputable method of being found in Wave 50".

And who can forget the words of the Israeli journalist Amira Haas – Haaretz's reporter in the occupied West Bank, whom I often quote. She told me in Jerusalem that the foreign correspondent's job was not to be "the first witness to history" (my own pitiful definition), but to "monitor the centres of power", especially when they are going to war, and especially when they intend to do so on a bedrock of lies.

Yes, all honour to those who reported from Homs. But here's a thought: when the Israelis unleashed their cruel bombardment of Gaza in 2008, they banned all reporters from the war, just as the Syrians tried to do in Homs. And the Israelis were much more successful in preventing us Westerners from seeing the subsequent bloodbath. Hamas forces and the "Free Syria Army" in Homs actually have a lot in common – both were increasingly Islamist, both faced infinitely superior firepower, both lost the battle – but it was left to Palestinian reporters to cover their own people's suffering. They did a fine job. Funny, though, that the newsrooms of London and Washington didn't have quite the same enthusiasm to get their folk into Gaza as they did to get them into Homs. Just a thought. A very unhappy one.

CNN: Conroy on Syria: It's a Salaughterhouse

CNN: Assad doesn't want Homs to be Benghazi

CNN: Syria conflict continues to escalate

The Guardian: 'We've been buried alive': inside Homs' only bomb shelter

 From The Guardian

One of the few western journalists inside the besieged Syrian city tells of the terrible scenes as people shelter from the bombs

Firial Sabur was born five months ago. He doesn't yet know that he has already lost his father. Omar Sabur died on Wednesday after he was shot by a sniper. When Sabur's brother Abdala tried to rescue him, he too was shot dead. On Friday, the baby was dozing in his mother's arms, unaware of the chaotic scenes around him in the only bomb shelter in Baba Amr.

The word "shelter" is an exaggeration: close to a year ago, the shelter was a basement used for wedding parties. Chinese paper lanterns and few paper flowers still hang from the ceiling. There are still hookah pipes. But the parties have long gone and a storm of shrapnel and bullets threatens to cut off this underground room where 220 people, mostly women and children, have sought shelter.

To reach the bunker, you must wait until nightfall. It is the only time that brings some kind of calm to the neighbourhood, when the systematic bombardment comes to an end and the drones that seem to guide the attacks are no longer flying.

Under the cover of darkness, Baba Amr wakes up; its inhabitants emerge into rubble-filled streets. They hurry to salvage what they can and move across the Homs district in cars riddled with bullet holes. It is also the time when you can see the Free Syrian Army moving ammunition up towards the frontline.

Only then can you truly realise the extent of the devastation the enclave has suffered: not a single street has escaped shelling. A drive through the neighbourhood is a journey though sheer ruin..

Many of the houses have been abandoned after being targeted repeatedly by rockets and shells. The shelling is what brought Firial and the others to the shelter, where they gather in family groups, dozing on mattresses.
The women cook for everyone – or rather they improvise. Yesterday there was rice. "A week ago there was no bread. The last delivery was inedible," says Abu Harb, Firial's uncle.

As he speaks, shooting from government snipers can be heard in the background. Even at night, the hunters of human beings are on the lookout and the only way to cross the road is by running.

"We have been buried alive. I feel as if I am in prison," says Harb, 29.

One man, Abu Ahmed, says he has been 20 days without seeing daylight. Only a few dare to leave the refuge – even at night. Last week, two of the residents were injured by a shell in the doorway of the shelter.
The punishment that Homs has taken has brought hardship upon hardship to its inhabitants: Ahmed lost his house in a missile strike. In April he lost a leg when a soldier shot him in the knee and the wound turned gangrenous.

Not far from his mattress lies another amputee who shows the stump left when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded in his house. "Look me in the eyes. I am 56 but I look 100 years old. This place is smothering me," he says.

Dozens of children crowd around a visitor – perhaps one of the only novelties in their life in the shadows. There is no electricity here.

"The children wet themselves from fear. Others wake up with nightmares," says Abu Nida. The 25-year old ended up in the shelter after twice evading death. His family's home was hit by a missile. They moved to another house, and a few days later it was also hit. He has been in the refuge for 19 days.

Rim, his two-year-old daughter, clings to his legs when the explosions intensify. "She says, 'I'm very scared, Daddy.' And I tell her, 'Don't be afraid – say Allahu Akbar [God is great].'"

The inhabitants of Baba Amr – a few more than 20,000 before the offensive – know their daily routine well. The artillery barrages start early, before 7am. After that, going on to the street is suicidal. Those who do run like someone possessed and hide in doorways every time they hear a blast from shellfire.

Only people like Ahmed Abu Leila, who fought the Americans in Iraq, dare to say they are happy. "We prefer to live like this and be free than to live like we did before," says the 28-year-old.

He always carries his "girlfriend" – a Kalashnikov assault rifle – and sometimes an anti-tank rocket as well.
Abu Leila says he belongs to one of the more fearless group of fighters from the Free Syrian Army. They fight in Yakura, the most exposed frontline in Baba Amr – and one of the entry points to the neighbourhood that President Bashar al-Assad's army is trying to take. They call themselves al-Mukatilun al-Tayarun, "the flying fighters".

"This area has been so heavily bombarded that lots of the boys have been sent flying. They get up, give themselves a couple of slaps to wake up, and they carry on fighting," says fellow fighter Wael.

"This is a very dangerous street: we have to run across one at a time," Abu Leila says during a night-time tour of Baba Amr. Despite the relative calm that comes with darkness, government troops and Free Syrian Army fighters are still exchanging fire somewhere nearby. A few bullets whistle overhead, forcing us to take cover.

Abu Mohamed, a doctor at the ramshackle local hospital, has not lost a grim sense of humour. He says that the clinic is a kind of "garage for minor breakdowns". Wounded patients arrive, are bandaged up and then are sent home. "The ones with serious injuries die. We don't have any way to save them," he says.

Diar Abu Salah was one of them: a sniper's bullet hit him in the stomach. All the doctors can do for him is to declare him dead. A few minutes later, a truck arrives to take away his body – space must be made, because the stream of new victims is unending.

In another room, Mohamed, a one-year old boy, cries inconsolably. He was hit in the forehead by a fragment from a shell. "Mother! Mother!" he wails, clinging to his milk bottle.

"Is he a terrorist?" his older brother asks, pointing to the infant.

All I can do is bow my head and carry on taking notes.

Javier Espinosa is Middle East correspondent for El Mundo newspaper

CNN: Filmmaker on Battleground in Homs

CBS News: Syria's wounded rebels must be smuggled out

CNN: Remembering Syrian Activist Rami Al-Sayed

MSNBC Documentary: Horror Inside Homs

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

CNN: Final Colvin's report with Cooper before she died

CNN: Danger reporters face in Syria

CNN: Syrian media rebels lead the web revolution

CNN: Walking through a Deserted Homs

CNN: Grief, fear constant as Syrian families take shelter

CNN: View from inside Baba Amr shows determination amid carnage

CNN's Arwa Damon: Dire Conditions in Syria

Thomas Friedman: Like Father, Like Son

Article by Thomas Friedman on NY Times

Watching the Syrian Army pummel the Syrian town of Homs to put down the rebellion there against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is the remake of a really bad movie that starred Bashar’s father, Hafez, exactly 30 years ago this month. I know. I saw the original.

It was April 1982 and I had just arrived in Beirut as a reporter for The New York Times. I quickly heard terrifying stories about an uprising that had happened in February in the Syrian town of Hama, led by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Word had it (there were no Internet or cellphones) that then-President Hafez al-Assad had quashed the rebellion by shelling whole Hama neighborhoods, then dynamiting buildings, some with residents still inside. That May, I got a visa to Syria, just as Hama had been reopened. The Syrian regime was “encouraging” Syrians to drive through the broken town and reflect on its meaning. So I just hired a cab and went.

It was stunning. Whole swaths of buildings had, indeed, been destroyed and then professionally steamrolled into parking lots the size of football fields. If you kicked the ground, you’d come up with scraps of clothing, a tattered book, a shoe. Amnesty International estimated that as many as 20,000 people were killed there. I had never seen brutality at that scale, and, in a book I wrote later, I gave it a name: “Hama Rules.”

Hama Rules are no rules at all. You do whatever it takes to stay in power and you don’t just defeat your foes. You bomb them in their homes and then you steamroll them so that their children and their children’s children will never forget and never even dream of challenging you again.

Well, 30 years later, the children of those Syrian children have forgotten. They’ve lost their fear. This time around, though, it is not just the Muslim Brotherhood rebelling in one town. Now it is youths from all over Syria. Navtej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef, the editors of “Generation in Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East,” note that more than 100 million individuals between the ages of 15 and 29 live in the Middle East, up from less than 67 million in 1990, and much of what their governments have promised them by way of jobs, marriage opportunities, apartments and a voice in their own future have not materialized. This is what sparked all these volcanic uprisings.

But Syria is not Norway. The quest for democracy is not the only drama playing out there. Syria is also a highly tribalized and sectarian-divided country. Its Shiite-leaning Alawite minority — led by the Assads and comprising 12 percent of the population — dominates the government, army and security services. Sunni-Muslim Syrian Arabs are 75 percent, Christians 10 percent and Druze, Kurds and others make up the rest. While Syria’s uprising started as a nonsectarian, nonviolent expression of the desire by young Syrians to be treated as citizens, when Assad responded with Hama Rules it triggered a violent response. This has brought out the sectarian fears on all sides. Now it is hard to tell where the democratic aspirations of the rebellion stop and the sectarian aspirations — the raw desire by Syria’s Sunni majority to oust the Alawite minority — begin.

As a result, most Alawites are rallying to Assad, as are some Sunnis who have benefitted from his regime, particularly in Aleppo and Damascus, the capital. These pro-regime Alawites and Sunnis see the chaos and soccer riots in Egypt and say to themselves: “Assad or chaos? We’ll take Assad.” What to do? Ideally we’d like a peaceful transition from Assad’s one-man rule to more pluralistic consensual politics. We do not want a civil war in Syria, which could destabilize the whole region. Remember: Egypt implodes, Libya implodes, Tunisia implodes. ... Syria explodes.

I don’t know what is sufficient to persuade Assad to cede power to a national unity government, but I know what is necessary: He has to lose the two most important props holding up his regime. One is the support of China, Iran and Russia. There, the U.N., the European Union and Arab and Muslim countries need to keep calling out Moscow, Beijing and Iran for supporting Assad’s mass killing of unarmed civilians. China, Iran and Russia don’t care about U.S. condemnation, but they might care about the rest of the world’s.

The other prop, though, can only be removed by Syrians. The still-fractious Syrian opposition has to find a way to unify itself and also reach out to the Alawites, as well as Syria’s Christian and Sunni merchants, and guarantee that their interests will be secure in a new Syria so they give up on Assad. Without that, nothing good will come of any of this. The more the Syrian opposition demonstrates to itself, to all Syrians and to the world that it is about creating a pluralistic Syria — where everyone is treated as an equal citizen — the weaker Assad will be and the more likely that a post-Assad Syria will have chance at stability and decency. The more the Syrian opposition remains fractured, the stronger Assad will be, the more some Syrians will cling to him out of fear of chaos and the more he will get away with Hama Rules.

CNN: Fleeing under Attack is a Suicide Run

هاد كل شي صار 7

CNN: Arwa Damon in Syria "Intense Emotions"

CNN: A paid killer in Syria describes his work

CNN Sneaks into Syria to See Carnage

المعارضة السورية وخذلان شعبها

 عبد الرحمن الراشد (الشرق الأوسط)

كما حدث في مصر وليبيا، وقبلهما في تونس، فإنه منذ أن ثارت سوريا لم يكن للمعارضة، الفردية والجماعية، تلك التي في الداخل والتي في المنافي، أي دور في إطلاقها أو رعايتها. مع هذا تبقى المعارضة مفتاح إنجاح أو إفشال الثورة السورية. وفي نظري المعارضة تتحمل مسؤولية أزمة الثورة التي تعيشها حتى الآن. عشرات الآلاف يخرجون كل يوم ويخاطرون بأنفسهم وأولادهم لكن بدون نتيجة. ويمكن تلخيص أزمة الثورة السورية في أن عاما انقضى دون نتيجة سياسية. كل الدول المتعاطفة معها تعلق نقل الشرعية من نظام الأسد إلى الشعب السوري لأنه لا يوجد ممثل متفق عليه.

نحن الآن أمام مشهد غريب، الشعب يجاهد لإسقاط النظام لكن لا يوجد وريث. وتشرذم المعارضة هو الذي أفسد على الشعب السوري فرص بناء دولة في الخارج، وأتاح للنظام اللعب على كل الدول وتخويفها، بما فيها الحكومات التي تتمنى زوال نظام دمشق. غياب معارضة موحدة مكن النظام من تفكيك النسيج الاجتماعي للشعب إلى فئات بعضها يشك في البعض الآخر، ويتهيأ ضده لما بعد سقوط النظام.

فشل المعارضة تسبب في استفراد النظام بالشعب الثائر، وارتفاع البطش، وزيادة الضحايا، وخذلان الجامعة العربية، وطبعا تفويت الفرصة لنقل الشرعية ومحاصرة النظام. روسيا والصين وحتى الولايات المتحدة، كلهم قالوا نرفض الاعتراف بالمعارضة لأننا لا ندري بأي معارضة نعترف، ولا نريد أن نكون طرفا في مشكلة جديدة ونحن نحاول أن نحل مشكلة قائمة. اجتماعات الوزراء في القاهرة تحت سقف الجامعة العربية فشلت في تمرير الاعتراف بالمعارضة لأنه لم يكن هناك اسم وعنوان لهذه المعارضة.

أما آن لرموز سورية تاريخية وقيادات جديدة إدراك حجم الضرر الذي ألحقوه ببلدهم وشعبهم، والانتباه إلى أنهم يفوتون فرصة تاريخية لتغيير النظام قد لا تتاح لهم بعد ذلك؟

المعارضة السورية تعكس بشكل طبيعي فسيفساء المجتمع واتجاهاته، وليست مطالبة بأن تلغي اختلاف توجهاتها ورؤاها، إنما المتوقع منها أن تلتقي في إطار ديمقراطي يرتضي آلية عمل مشتركة ويقبل بالحد الأدنى من الاجتماع على أهداف مشتركة.

لقد تحدى الروس الجانب العربي المتعاطف مع الشعب السوري بأن يقدم بديلا يتفق عليه السوريون في المعارضة. ورفضت الدول العربية طرد النظام من الجامعة بسبب غياب البديل المتفق عليه. وفشلت دعوات منظمات وجماعات وقيادات عالمية، مثل السيناتور ماكين، بتسليح المعارضة، ولم تنجح دعوات افتتاحيات الصحف العالمية أيضا لتسليح المعارضة. أيضا، دول الخليج التي خاطرت بمواجهة نظام دمشق الشرس، وخطر مواجهة حليفته طهران، أعلنت أنها تريد دعم المعارضة، وحثت الجامعة العربية على السماح بتقديم جميع أنواع الدعم، بما فيه الدعم العسكري، لكنها لا تعرف أي معارضة تدعم، معارضة الدوحة، أو أنقرة، أو باريس، أو ماذا؟

المعارضة تفشل الثورة، وليس النظام السوري، بعجزها عن الاجتماع تحت تنظيم يؤكد صوتها. ولو مرت الأسابيع المقبلة باستمرار الفشل، فإن المعارضة تكون هي من ذبح الثورة وخانت ملايين السوريين الذين يتطلعون إلى يوم بدون هذا النظام الشرير.

CNN Reporter Hiding in Syrian Safe House

CNN: Syrians Dismissive of Diplomacy

CBS Reporter: Life on the streets of Syria

CNN: Syrian Activist's Escape tp Freedom

Sky News Reporter: Escape From Homs - Despair Amid Onslaught

CBS: Rare moment of relief in Syria

CBS: Bloodshed in Syria continues

ورقة نعي حافظ الأسد

 ماهر شرف الدين

 من على شاشة التلفزيون السوري قرأ المذيع الدينيّ مروان شيخو نبأ وفاة حافظ الأسد وهو يحرص على إظهار ارتعاش جسمه من خلال ارتعاش الورقة التي أبرزها أمام الشاشة بشكل واضح ومقصود. ولو قُيِّض لشخص، لا يعرف من هو مروان شيخو هذا، أن يرى يومئذ مشهد الارتعاش على الشاشة لتساءل السؤال المنطقي الآتي: هل سبب تلك الرعشة النفاق أم الخوف؟

بالطبع نحن لم نتساءل عن السبب، ليس لأننا نعرف، بل لأن المسألة باتت بديهية في سوريا ولا تحتاج سؤالاً.

كان مروان شيخو يتوقف بين جملة وأخرى وكأنه على وشك الانهيار في نوبة بكاء، وهذا ما فعله – إنما بإتقان أكبر – الشيخ محمد سعيد رمضان البوطي حين صلَّى على الجثمان نواحاً في «مسجد ناعسة» البالغ الفخامة والذي بناه حافظ الأسد تكريماً لذكرى والدته من «ماله الخاص» كما كان يردِّد الإعلام الرسمي باستمرار؛ الإعلام ذاته الذي كان يقول إن الأسد ولد في أسرة فقيرة!

شكّل مروان شيخو جزءاً إجبارياً من ذاكرة السوريين بسبب برنامجه الديني الأسبوعي كل يوم جمعة، والذي كان يتفنَّن فيه بإيجاد الذرائع للحديث عن الرئيس، وهو على كل حال مَن استكمل دزينة ألقاب الأسد حين أضاف إليها لقب «المؤمن الأول».

لكن ذلك اليوم، يوم وفاة الدكتاتور، كان يوم مروان شيخو بلا منازع. فقد نعى شيخو الأسدَ على الملأ، ثم رافق الجثمان إلى المسجد، ثم قرأ كلمة مطوّلة نطق خلالها بجملة فذّة يمكن لعلماء النفس المختصّين بدراسة المجتمعات التي ترزح تحت الدكتاتورية أن يؤلفوا حولها كتاباً كاملاً.

فبعدما صرخ ضمن السيناريو المعروف: «كلنا الدكتور بشار، كلنا الرائد ماهر، كلنا الأستاذ مجد، كلنا إخوة للسيدة الدكتورة بشرى، وكلنا أبناء تلك الفاضلة السيدة الأولى…»، وبعدما تحدَّث عن الجماهير التي خرجت «بصورة عفوية» وهي «تذرف الدموع حزينةً، وفي الوقت نفسه تبايعك (لبشار) وتلتفّ حولك بعفوية»… إلخ، بعدما قال ذلك كلّه، توقف مروان شيخو عن الكلام، ثم قال الجملة الأولى الصادقة في خطابه ذاك: نظر إلى التابوت الذي أمامه وقال مخاطباً الطاغية الميت: «لماذا لا تتكلم… أنت تسمعني الآن».

لقد قال شيخو في تلك اللحظة الجملةَ التي كان سيقولها أي سوري سيقف أمام جثة حافظ الأسد: لماذا أنت لا تتكلم… هل أنت ميّت حقاً؟

كانت جملة شيخو تلك أشبه بيدٍ مرتعشة تهزُّ الجثة بخوف كي تتأكد من أن صاحبها قد مات. يد تمسك جثة حافظ الأسد من كتفها وتهزّها بخوف وتسأل صاحبها: هل أنت ميت بالفعل؟

خلال أيام الحداد تلك زارنا أحد أقاربنا من الشيوعيين وقال لأبي إنه لا يُصدِّق إن حافظ الأسد قد مات. ثم حدّثه عن أن ستالين حين مات بقي قادة الاتحاد السوفياتي أياماً لا يجرؤون على إعلان الوفاة. ثم قال إنه معجب بستالين.

توقَّف مروان شيخو مجدَّداً عن الكلام، وقال الجملة الصادقة الثانية في خطبة النفاق تلك: «لقد تعوَّدنا عليك يا سيدي… لقد تعوَّدنا عليك يا سيدي».

بالفعل، لقد تعوَّدنا عليك أيها الطاغية. لقد تعوَّدنا على الخوف الذي نشرتَه في البلاد، تعوَّدنا على الزنازين وفروع الأمن ونظَّارات المخابرات السوداء، تعوَّدنا على الهتاف بحياتك «إلى الأبد»، لقد تعوَّدنا على «الأبد» الذي اتَّضح بأنه ينتهي في سنة 2000.

ومن بين هذا الركام من المشاعر الغريبة والمتناقضة بزغتْ نكتة ذكية تجمع موت الأسد الابن وموت الأسد الأب (باسل وحافظ)، تقول بأن حافظ حين مات ودخل جهنم فوجئ بوجود ابنه باسل فيها فقال له مستغرباً: «عَ أساس أنت شهيد»! فردَّ عليه باسل: «وعَ أساس أنت للأبد»!

لقد كُسِر شيء كبير في حياة السوريين تلك الأيام، وبعد مضي بعض الوقت اكتشفوا بأن هذا الذي كُسر هو أحد أجزاء التمثال الرمزي لحافظ الأسد في عقولهم. لقد بتنا نسمع الناس – بعدما تأكدت بأن الطاغية قد مات – تنتقد الفساد والظلم بشكل علني، في الباصات والجامعات والسهرات العائلية. لقد بتنا نسمع بشكل صريح أسماء المسؤولين ورجال المخابرات واللصوص الكبار. اكتشف السوريون – بعد ثلاثين سنة من «الأبد» – أن الطغاة بشرٌ ويموتون مثلهم بالسرطان. اكتشفوا أن ثمة من هو أخبث من حافظ الأسد وأن تكنية السرطان باسم «المرض الخبيث» محقَّة.

في تلك السنة وقع بين يديَّ كتاب لسارتر اسمه «الذباب»، وهو كناية عن مسرحية تشرح بعمق مسألة الحرّية.

كان هذا الكتاب أفضل ما يمكن لي قراءته في تلك الأيام التي أعقبت موت الدكتاتور. وبسببه تمنّيت لمرّة واحدة أن أكون ممثلاً مسرحياً كي أؤدي المشهد الختامي في تلك المسرحية. يتحدَّث ذلك المشهد – كما أتذكَّر – عن اكتشاف الحرية فجأة. فأورست بطل المسرحية الذي قُتل أبوه الملك على يد زوجته وعشيقها الذي حلَّ ملكاً مكانه، لم يكن يعرف ما عليه فعله: هل ينتقم لوالده أم يرضى بقَدَره؟

وأثناء ذلك كان يطلب عونَ الإله جوبتير في إرشاده إلى ما يجب عليه القيام به. وكان هذا الإله يحثُّ أورست على الرضا بالنصيب.

لكن أورست الذي اكتشف حرّيته فجأة قرَّر عدم الانصياع للإله جوبتير، وبالتالي الثأر لأبيه.

وعلى الفور يذهب الإله جوبتير إلى الملك ليُحذِّره من أورست، طالباً منه تجهيز جيشه. إذَّاك يسأله الملك متعجِّباً: وهل أورست قوي إلى هذه الدرجة؟ فيجيبه الإله بجواب من أبلغ ما يكون: «أورست يعرف بأنه حرّ».

لقد حكى الإله جوبتير للملك عن السرّ الذي يحتفظ به الطغاة وهو «أن الناس أحرار وهم لا يعرفون ذلك».

في تلك الأيام اكتشف السوريون ذلك السرّ من دون الحاجة إلى قراءة مسرحية سارتر. ولذلك، وخوفاً من هذه المعرفة التي باتت على وشك الانفجار، سمح النظام السوري بخروج ما سُمِّيَ لاحقاً بـ«ربيع دمشق» الذي هو في الحقيقة ربيع تلك الجملة عن اكتشاف الحرّية، خصوصاً بعد مهزلة تعديل دستور البلاد في خمس دقائق للإتيان بابن الطاغية رئيساً مكانه.

وبعدما ارتفعت يد مروان شيخو لحمل ورقة نعي الأب، ارتفعت أيدي شبيهة بها في مجلس الشعب موافقة على تعديل الدستور وتنصيب الابن رئيساً، ولم يكلِّف رئيس المجلس عبد القادر قدّورة نفسه آنذاك عناء عدّ تلك الأيدي المرتفعة، حيث قال دون فاصل زمني حقيقي بين السؤال والجواب: «موافقون؟ إجماع»… جامعاً الكلمتَين في جملة واحدة متصلة وعديمة المعنى ككل الشعارات التي ملأت البلد طوال ثلاثين عاماً.

ألجموا الدساتير العربية الجديدة كي لا تلجمكم!

الشرق القطرية

  فيصل القاسم

صحيح أن غالبية المواطنين العرب لم يكونوا يعرفون أي شيء عما تحتويه دساتير بلادهم، لأن الثقافة الحقوقية تكاد تكون غائبة تماماً في عالمنا العربي، أو مغيبة قصداً من قبل الأنظمة الحاكمة. فآخر شيء تريده تلك الأنظمة أن يعرف المواطن حقوقه، فما بالك أن يدافع عنها أو يطالب بها. والأمر الآخر أن الشعوب نفسها لم تكن تهتم بالدساتير لأنها كانت تعرف سلفاً أنه لا أحد يعمل بها من الرؤساء إلا عندما يحتاجونها للإمعان في الاستبداد و"دوس الشعوب" وتطويل مدة البقاء في الحكم إلى ما شاء الله. بعبارة أخرى، فإن الرؤساء العرب كانوا يستخدمون الدساتير كحذاء يلبسونه ويخلعونه متى يريدون لغاياتهم الخاصة فقط. وقد شاهدنا كيف كان رؤساؤنا ينسون الدساتير لعقود وعقود ثم يتذكرونها فجأة عندما يريدون تمرير مراسيم أو قوانين جديدة على هواهم. لا عجب أن الأديب السوري الراحل محمد الماغوط اعتبر في إحدى مسرحياته أن الدستور قد أكله الحمار على اعتبار أن قيمته في حياتنا السياسية لا تساوي قيمة العليق الذي يتناوله الدواب. وحتى لو كان هناك مواد جيدة في بعض الدساتير، فلم تكن مطبقة على أرض الواقع لأن قوانين الطوارئ كانت تدوس كل القوانين والأعراف الدستورية، وتجعلها مجرد عبارات للاستهلاك اللفظي لا أكثر ولا أقل.

لكن الآن وقد استفاقت الشعوب من كراها، وبدأت تدرك حقوقها، وتنتزعها ببسالة عظيمة من أيدي الطغاة، فقد أصبحت الدساتير مهمة للغاية في الحياة السياسية العربية الجديدة بعد سقوط الديكتاتوريات والطواغيت الذين كانوا يضربون بالدساتير عرض الحائط. لهذا لابد أن تراقب الشعوب أو على الأقل النخب الثورية والفكرية والثقافية الدساتير التي بدأت تظهر بعد الثورات، وتكشف محتوياتها على الملأ أمام الجماهير وبلغة مبسطة وواضحة، كي تتعرف الشعوب عن كثب عن مجموعة القوانين الجديدة التي دفعت من أجلها دماء وتضحيات غزيرة جداً في ثوراتها المباركة. كما لا يجب أن تصوت عليها إلا بعد أن تقرأها كلمة بكلمة. وحذار وألف حذار أن يتم سوق الشعوب إلى الاقتراع على الدساتير الجديدة بالطريقة الغوغائية القديمة التي كان يسوقها فيها الطواغيت إلى الاستفتاءات الحقيرة، حيث كان الناس يصوتون بنعم بشكل أوتوماتيكي تحت ترهيب كلاب الصيد الذين كانوا يراقبون صناديق الاقتراع، ويجبرونهم على التصويت بالإيجاب للطغاة غصباً عنهم. يجب على الشعوب من الآن أن تدخل إلى غرف التصويت المغلقة وتدلي بأصواتها بسرية تامة، وحذار أن تستسلم للنظرات الإرهابية للمشرفين على الصناديق من كلاب الأجهزة الأمنية وتقوم بالتصويت بنعم. فالزمن الأول تحول، إنه عصر الشعوب وليس عصر الطواغيت وكلاب صيدهم كما سماهم عبدالوهاب البياتي. باختصار، إياكم وألف إياكم أن توافقوا على الدساتير الجديدة إلا إذا كنتم مقتنعين تماماً بما تحتويه من مواد. وراقبوا تحديداً المواد التي تمنح الرؤساء صلاحيات تعطيل الدساتير بالقوانين الاستثنائية أو قوانين الطوارئ الحقيرة. 

ولابد للشعوب أيضاً أن تتأكد من المواد الدستورية المتعلقة بصلاحيات الحكام، فمن المعروف أن الرئيس العربي كان يمنح نفسه في الدساتير القديمة صلاحيات ومناصب أسطورية قد تصل أحياناً إلى سلطات الآلهة، وحسب أحد الدساتير العربية كان لأحد لرؤساء ثلاثة عشر منصباً لا يحلم بها حتى آلهة الإغريق والهنود والمصريين القدماء، ومن المضحك أن الرئيس العربي كان يضع نفسه دائماً فوق المحاسبة حتى لو خان الوطن، فكيف تحاسبه السلطة القضائية، وهي أعلى السلطات، إذا كان هو رئيس مجلس القضاء الأعلى!؟

إن أول ما ينبغي على المشرعين أن يفعلوه في الدساتير الجديدة تجريد الرؤساء من صلاحياتهم الخرافية، وجعل الأنظمة الجمهورية الجديدة أنظمة برلمانية تكون فيها السلطة الحقيقية للبرلمان، لا للرئاسة كما كان الحال في كل الجمهوريات العربية الساقطة والمتساقطة. ففي الماضي كانت مجالس الشعب مجرد زائدة دودية، أو كما وصفها أحد قادة الثورة المصرية "دورات مياه" يقضي فيها الرؤساء حاجاتهم. أما رؤساء الوزراء فكانوا مجرد موظفين لا حول ولا قوة لهم ينفذون توجيهات رئاسية محددة، ناهيك عن أن الوزراء لم يكن باستطاعتهم تعيين فرّاش من دون موافقة الأجهزة الأمنية المرتبطة بالرئاسة.

باختصار شديد يجب على الدساتير الجديدة أن تجعل من الرؤساء العرب القادمين محكّمين أكثر منه حكاماً على غرار الملكيات الدستورية. ولا بأس أن يكون الرؤساء الجدد مثل ملكة بريطانيا التي تسود ولا تحكم، لأن الحكم متروك لممثلي الشعب الحقيقيين المتمثلين بأعضاء البرلمان الذين تتشكل منهم السلطة التنفيذية المتمثلة بالحكومة والسلطة التشريعية المتمثلة بالمجلس الوطني أو مجلس الشعب. والأهم من كل ذلك جعل رئيس الجمهورية قابلاً للمحاكمة وليس فوق القانون. فقد شاهدنا كيف حاكم الفرنسيون رئيسهم المسن جاك شيراك على قليل من الفساد، بينما يتمتع الرؤساء العرب بسلطات تفوق سلطات الملوك والسلاطين في القرون الوسطى، والويل كل الويل لمن يذكرهم بسوء فما بالك أن يطالب بمحاكمتهم.

لا تستهينوا أبداً بالدساتير الجديدة، ولا تمرروها كما مرر الجزائريون الدستور الأخير الذي لم يكن سوى ضحك على الذقون. حذار وألف حذار أن يحدث للجمهوريات العربية الثائرة ما حدث في الجزائر بعد ثورة التسعينيات، حيث دفع الشعب الجزائري تضحيات جساماً على مدى عقد من الزمان في وجه جنرالات الطغيان، ثم قبل بإصلاحات سطحية أبقته رهناً للمؤسسة العسكرية الطاغية. فليقرأ الجميع تجربة الجزائر قبل تكرارها، كي لا تقولوا لاحقاً: "وكأنك يا بو زيد ما غزيت". 

Slate Magazine: An illustrated guide to the Assad clan. How long can it cling to power?

How did it come to this for Bashar Al-Assad?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2012/02/bashar_al_assad_syria_s_autocratic_ophthalmologist.html

وثائقي "شارع الموت" يكشف جرائم "الأسد" في حمص

الفيلم تم تصويره قبل أيام من مجزرة مروعة شهدتها المدينة

CNN: Doctors - Syria withholding basic care

CNN: Homs Residents - Strikes come from afar

Sky News Reporter Inside Syria

الشعب السوري يستغيث

حسين شبكشي (الشرق الأوسط)

الحديث أن نظام بشار الأسد طائفي ويرجح كفة طائفته العلوية على غيره لم يعد مجالا للبحث، والحديث عن كون نظام بشار الأسد عروبيا ومقاوما هو أكذوبة وفضحتها حقائق الأيام والأحداث، ولذلك بات من العبث الحديث عن شرعية وجدارة هذا النظام أو إمكانية تصديق وعوده والالتزام بطروحات الإصلاح التي كررها وأعادها أياما طويلة بلا مغزى ولا معنى ولا فائدة.

الآن المشهد السوري لم يعد للإصلاح ولا السياسة مكان فيه، إننا نتعامل مع كارثة إنسانية مثلها مثل الزلازل والبراكين والفيضانات، ولكنها كارثة تسبب فيها نظام «دموي» أدمن على قتل شعبه وشعب غيره. الذاكرة لا تزال حية بما حدث في «حماه»، التي مر منذ أيام ثلاثون عاما على ذكراها الأليمة، وللفلسطينيين واللبنانيين ذكريات أليمة وحزينة ودامية مع رموز هذا النظام وحاشيته الذين عاثوا قتلا ودمارا فيهم. 

وها هو الابن بشار الأسد يواصل نفس النهج الدموي في شعبه ويوسع دائرة القتل لتشمل أعدادا كبيرة من القرى والمدن، ولكن ستبقى مدينة حمص أيقونة هذه الثورة المباركة التي سترفع على ضفاف نهرها العاصي راية علم سوريا الجديد الخالي من البعث، علم الاستقلال الحر، تلك الحقبة الكريمة من التاريخ السوري المجيد قبل أن يلوثها قتلة الشعب.

مشاهد الأيام الأخيرة لا يمكن التعامل معها إلا كمأساة بشرية بامتياز، مأساة أشبه بـ«الهولوكوست»، محرقة اليهود الشهيرة، إبادة رواندا في أفريقيا، ومجازر دارفور، أو فظاعة الخمير الحمر في كمبوديا.. هذا هو الوضع في سوريا، حرب مجموعة ضيقة في الحكم تبيد شعبها بالطائرات والدبابات والقنابل والصواريخ وكأنها حرب مفتوحة تحاصر فيها السكان وتمنع عنهم الطعام والأدوية وتقطع عنهم الكهرباء ووسائل الاتصال وتسمم مياه الشرب وتحرمهم من غاز التدفئة.

إنها مشاهد وحشية بامتياز، مشاهد تخالف كل تعاليم الأديان والمواثيق والأنظمة والقوانين والحقوق الإنسانية، وبالتالي بات من الضروري والمهم التعامل معها على أنها مشكلة إنسانية، والتدخل الفوري لإنقاذ الشعب السوري من مصير أسود ودموي.

السوريون انتفضوا وبلا عودة، لقد قرروا التحرر والحصول على مبتغاهم الأعظم وهو الحرية والكرامة التي حرموا منها أكثر من أربعين عاما. أيقنوا أن الشعار الكئيب الذي كان النظام القمعي ينادي به، وهو: «إلى الأبد يا أسد»، كان شعارا شعبيا ولكنه في واقع الأمر كان هدفا ونهجا سياسيا يطبق بشكل مستمر وبالتدريج حتى يصبح واقعا متكاملا ومقبولا، جيلا وراء جيل، وهو ما حصل عندما ورّث حافظ الأسد الحكم بشكل «كاريكاتيري» إلى ابنه في مشهد هو أقرب للكوميديا منه إلى علوم السياسة المحترمة.

أشلاء الجثث من الأطفال والنسوة والشيوخ والرجال في حمص والزبداني ودرعا وتلكلخ تملأ هذه المدن والجرحى بالعشرات، مشاهد لا يمكن أن توصف إلا بالجريمة، ومن وراءها إلا بالمجرمين.

العالم الإسلامي كان «يهب» غضبة لرسوم حقيرة بحق نبيّه، ولقاء ما يحدث من قوى الإجرام المحتلة في إسرائيل بحق الفلسطينيين، وانتفض العالم العربي بحق محمد الدرة حين قتل بدم بارد من الجيش الإسرائيلي، واليوم هناك العشرات من نماذج محمد الدرة يقتلون يوميا ولا حراك ولا ردة فعل كافية. الضغوط الشعبية مطلوبة على المجتمع العربي والإسلامي والدولي لنجدة الشعب السوري الذي أباح النظام دمه وأطلق العنان للقضاء عليه كما يبدو بضوء أخضر واضح حصل عليه من روسيا وبدعم من العراق ومن إيران، ولكن كل ذلك سيسرع في إسقاط أي نوع من الدعم والتأييد والشرعية لنظام أجرم في حق شعبه وفقد آدميته وأخلاقه وشرعيته.

الشعب السوري يناديكم فلا تخذلوه. النظام السوري هو أشبه بمس شيطاني أصاب الشعب السوري ولا بد من إخراج المس من الجسد الطاهر.

People in Homs feel trapped, says the BBC's Paul Wood

Syrian opposition groups say the city of Homs has come under the heaviest shelling in days, despite the president's pledge to engage in dialogue.

The BBC's Paul Wood has spent several days inside Homs, and he sent this report about conditions inside the besieged city.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16956335

CNN: First-hand Look Inside Syria

CNN: Reporter Inside Syria While Under Attack

CNN: Hacked e-mails reveal Syrian spin used to defend crackdown

Syria Under Siege: Photographs by Alessio Romenzi

Syria is a country with two clashing armies. On one side is President Bashar Assad and his more than 200,000 men, tanks, mortars and weapons from Russia. Opposing them is a phenomenon called the Free Syrian Army, a loose franchise of lightly armed military defectors and, in some areas, civilians, who are waging a growing number of guerrilla campaigns in their hometowns and cities. The FSA fighters count on weapons that enter clandestinely from Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. Every Syrian man who flees across the border is “FSA in waiting,” according to a human-rights activist in Jordan, where Kalashnikovs have been going for about $1,600. Most of the men go back into Syria as soon as they secure a weapon, he says.
Back in their homeland, they face a regime that is out to annihilate all who oppose it. Photographer Alessio Romenzi was among the enemies of the Assad government, with fighters of the Free Syrian Army and people of Bab Amr, a rebellious district in the besieged city of Homs. On assignment for TIME, he took shelter with locals in a basement of a home in Bab Amr. There, no one dares to step outside or even venture upstairs for fear of government shells crashing onto them. Bodies have been dragged into homes from the streets so they will not rot out in the open. It is too dangerous to hold funerals. Romenzi counted 25 civilian fatalities in just two hours of bombardment in the area. As he wrote in an e-mail, “The word ‘safe’ is not in our dictionary these days.”

Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2012/02/08/syria-under-siege-photographs-by-alessio-romenzi/#ixzz1lrZ3xtxf

الجزيرة - الدكتور عمار القربي يتحدث عن حمص 06.02.2012.

Charlie Rose: The Crisis in Syria

A discussion about the the crisis in Syria with Fouad Ajami of Stanford University; Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times; Joshua Landis of the University of Oklahoma; and Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton University. http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/12139

CNN: How Assad Tactics are Working in Syria

CNN: Activist Describes being Jailed in Syria

NY Times: Soldier Says Syrian Atrocities Forced Him to Defect

HATAY, Turkey — Ammar Cheikh Omar recalled the first time he was ordered to shoot into a crowd of protesters in Syria. He aimed his AK-47 just above their heads, prayed to God not to make him a killer and pulled the trigger.

Mr. Omar, 29, the soft-spoken and wiry son of Syrian parents who immigrated to Germany in the 1950s, grew up in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, a prosperous village of half-timbered 16th-century houses, where he listened to Mariah Carey and daydreamed about one day returning to Syria.

Today, he is still trying to make sense of his unlikely transformation from a dutiful German student to a killer for the brutal Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and, ultimately, a defector. “I was proud to be Syrian, but instead became a soldier for a regime that was intent on killing its own people,” Mr. Omar said on a recent day, chain-smoking at a cafe in this Turkish border town. “I thank God every day that I am still alive.”

Human rights groups and Syrian activists said he was one of thousands of Syrians who had inadvertently found themselves deployed as foot soldiers for a government that the United Nations estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since the crackdown on demonstrators began in March.

Soldiers are typically conscripted at age 18, with members of Syria’s Sunni majority making up the bulk of the army ranks and minority Alawites, who come from the same religious group as Mr. Assad, often serving as high-ranking officers or in the state security apparatus. Mr. Omar, a highly educated Sunni with flawless Arabic, gained entry to a security unit attached to the Interior Ministry.

Human rights groups estimate that there are at least 5,000 defectors; an exact number is difficult to confirm because many remain in hiding. “Mr. Omar’s harrowing tale fits an all-too-familiar pattern in which soldiers are deployed away from their hometowns to help ensure that they will be less likely to refuse an order to kill,” said Ole Solvang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who has interviewed dozens of Syrian defectors, including Mr. Omar. “He was one of the lucky ones, as he managed to escape.”

There is no way to corroborate much of Mr. Omar’s account of his journey to becoming an enforcer for the Assad government. Though human rights groups and activists operating in Syria say it fits the pattern of hundreds of defectors who have fled the country, it is simply one man’s tale. It began in 2004 when he left Germany for Aleppo, in Syria’s north, with the aim of getting in touch with his roots, studying law, improving his Arabic and finding a wife.

He managed to do all that, entering law school, marrying a doctor and, eventually, having a child. His parents, meanwhile, had moved back to Aleppo because his father wanted to live out his final years in the old country.

In late 2010, Mr. Omar was conscripted into the Syrian military, just weeks before a Tunisian fruit seller immolated himself and set off the wave of regional protests that eventually buffeted Syria. At first, said Mr. Omar, who had always felt like an outsider in Germany, he was proud to be serving the government. Soldiers were initially told that their main task was to defend the country against Israel, he said. But when demonstrations erupted, they were told that the protesters were “terrorists” or “armed gangs” sponsored by foreign forces. Access to cellphones, non-state television or the Internet was strictly prohibited; breaching that rule was punishable by up to two months in jail.

Mr. Omar’s first deployment was in the southern city of Dara’a, near Jordan, where he and his 350-strong unit were sent in March to help crack down on intensifying demonstrations. He said he had been ordered to arrest and shoot at dozens of protesters, including many young students, who had scrawled antigovernment graffiti on the walls of the town.

“The army needed everyone. It was very brutal,” he said. “But if there’s an officer of the Mukhabarat next to you,” he added, referring to the country’s feared security services, “you don’t have a choice but to shoot.”

Every soldier was armed with 60 bullets and given new ammunition each night, Mr. Omar said. His unit shot at the protesters from above a roof overlooking the mosque, killing at least six people and wounding dozens more. One of his fellow soldiers began to scream uncontrollably when he realized that his 18-year-old brother, demonstrating below on the street, had been shot. The soldier buried him two days later.

Shaken by what he had seen, Mr. Omar said, he was determined to defect. But before he could act, he was sent to Duma, northeast of Damascus, the capital, to work in a security unit interrogating detainees.

Mr. Omar said he had been asked to take notes during the interrogation of prisoners, some as young as 15 years old. He said demonstrators had been blindfolded and forced to strip to their underwear before their hands were tied behind their backs. Interrogations were conducted by four or five soldiers and officers in a dark, windowless room. He said the interrogating officer had ordered him to write down confessions naming protest leaders, confessions that detainees were then asked to finger stamp rather than sign, since their hands were bound.

To force confessions, Mr. Omar said, the soldiers tortured the detainees with electrified cattle prods, beat them or urinated on them. Some passed out. Others bled heavily. Many disappeared.

“The soldiers demanded to know why they had gone to the streets and who had paid them,” he recalled. “It was painful to watch. At the beginning I couldn’t sleep, but after a while, I got used to it. But I could not live with myself if I had remained.

” As the protests gathered pace over the summer, Mr. Omar was sent to the central city of Hama, where he was relieved of his AK-47 and instead given a shield and a stun gun, he said. With tens of thousands of people on the streets in Hama, he said, he hoped he could disappear into the crowd. At noon on July 26, he said, he and two fellow officers decided to defect from their army base, changing into civilian clothes and jumping over the base’s wall.

They found refuge in the homes of people opposed to the Assad government, Mr. Omar said, and wrapped scarves around their heads to conceal their faces. Fearing that he would be kidnapped or “disappeared” in Syria under some false pretext, Mr. Omar made a video, which he posted on YouTube, to establish that he had defected.

The defectors traveled to the Turkish border in daylight, eventually abandoning their car and walking through woods to avoid detection. At 7 a.m. on July 30, he said, they crossed illegally into Hatay, where they met up with members of the rebel Free Syrian Army, settling in a refugee camp.

At the camp, a gaunt and pale Mr. Omar produced another video to post on YouTube, in which he said he was ashamed that he had been part of Mr. Assad’s forces. “I will never forget the dead bodies of young and old men, but also women and children on the streets,” he said, dressed in a uniform of the Free Syrian Army and appearing with a Syrian flag.

Appealing directly to Germany, he added, “Hitler died in Germany, but awoke in Syria.” Germany eventually helped get him out of the camp so he could get a stamp in his passport to remain in Turkey.

Mr. Omar joined the rebel army, a scruffy group numbering around 10,000 soldiers, whose mandate is to protect civilians from the government. He is now helping to smuggle wounded rebels into Turkey, some of whom he houses in his home He said he supported the political demonstrations but warned, “We cannot afford to meet guns with only talk and slogans.”

He fears for his family, including his wife, their 1-year-old daughter and his parents. After his escape, he said, his brother-in-law was fired from his architecture job, and the family’s house in Aleppo was vandalized.

But he said he had no regrets. “My family knows I made the right choice.”