Syria: a humanitarian disaster

The talk about Bashar al-Assad’s regime being sectarian and giving preference to his Alawite sect over others is not up for debate, but it is a lie to call the al-Assad regime an advocate of Arabism and resistance, and this has been exposed by the reality of the recent days and events. Therefore it is absurd to talk about the legitimacy and merits of this regime, or the possibility of it adhering to its promises or committing to the proposals of reform that it has repeated and returned to on many occasions, without any meaningful point. The Syrian scene today has no place for reform or politics; we are dealing with a humanitarian disaster, like an earthquake, a volcano or a flood. However, this particular disaster has been caused by a bloodthirsty regime addicted to killing its own people. What happened in Hama is still fresh in the memory, thirty years on from its painful anniversary. Furthermore, the Palestinians and the Lebanese especially have sad, painful and bloody memories of the key figures of this regime and its entourage, who wreaked death and destruction upon them. Here the son Bashar al-Assad is continuing the same bloody approach against his people, and broadening the circle of murder to include large numbers of towns and cities. However, the city of Homs will remain the icon of this blessed revolution, and soon, on the banks of the Orontes river, the flag of a new Syria free from the Baath will be raised, the flag of free independence, that of the dignified era of glorious Syrian history, before it was tainted by leaders killing their own people. The scenes of recent days can only be considered a human tragedy par excellence, a tragedy resembling the “Holocaust”, the Rwandan genocide in Africa, the massacres in Darfur, or the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. This is the situation in Syria, a war carried out by a narrow group holding power and exterminating their own people with planes, tanks, bombs and missiles. It is like an open war besieging the population and preventing them from food and medicine, cutting off their electricity and means of communication, poisoning their drinking water and depriving them of gas heating. These are exceptionally brutal scenes; scenes contrary to all the teachings of religion, international conventions, regulations, laws and human rights. Therefore it is important and necessary to treat the matter as a humanitarian problem, and intervene immediately to save the Syrian people from a dark and bloody fate. The Syrians have risen up and will not turn back; they have opted for liberation and are seeking to obtain their great goals, namely the freedom and dignity that they have been deprived of for over forty years. They have realized that, although once popular, the bleak slogan advocated by the repressive regime: “forever al-Assad”, is actually the regime’s underlying goal. It is a political approach that has been applied continuously and gradually until it became a complete and acceptable reality, generation after generation. This is what happened when Hafez al-Assad farcically bequeathed power to his son in a scene that was nearer to comedy than respectably politics. The remains of men, women, children and the elderly fill the towns of Homs, Zabadani, Daraa and Talkalakh, along with dozens wounded. These scenes can only be described as criminal acts, with criminal leaders behind them. The Islamic world once vented its anger at the despicable charges lodged against the Prophet Mohammed. Furthermore, it was outraged by what happened at the hands of the criminal occupying forces of Israel against the Palestinians. The Arab world rose up for Mohammed al-Dura when he was killed in cold blood by the Israeli army, yet today there are dozens of examples of Mohammed al-Dura being killed every day, and there is no Arab mobilization or sufficient reaction. Public pressure must be placed on the Arab, Islamic and international community to help the Syrian people. The Syrian regime is spilling their blood and has unleashed a campaign to eliminate some of them, and it seems to have gotten a clear green light from Russia, with the support of Iraq and Iran. However, all this will only accelerate the declining support and legitimacy of the regime committing crimes against its own people, having lost its sense of humanity and morality. The Syrian people are shouting out and they will not fail. The Syrian regime is like a demonic spirit that has possessed the Syrian people, and it must be eradicated once and for all to restore purity to the country’s body.