Eleven years ago, Iba Abdo fled to the Netherlands and now the Master student of International Relations and Diplomacy writes blogs about the uprising in her native country and is calling for military intervention. “It’s a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea: all the options are bad.”
“One of my earliest memories was seeing the prison gates as a child. A man was standing a few metres away, behind the fence. My mother pointed to him and said ‘That’s your father.’”
Iba Abdo (1987) fled to the Netherlands from Syria in 2001; currently she is attending the Leiden International Relations and Diplomacy programme and blogging on the uprising in Syria in attempt to rouse an unresponsive world to intervene.
“My father was a member of the Communist Labour Party; every so often, there would be large-scale military campaigns to arrest political dissidents like the one in 1987 when they threw my father into gaol. At the time, I was only four months old and hardly knew him. He was in there for seven years, and for the first three and a half years, my mother, my two elder sisters and I did not know whether he was dead or alive. When we finally had some news, we went to visit him; we were allowed to see him for ten minutes.”
Abdo lived in the town of Al Qamishili near the Turkish border where her mother taught at a Christian school. The family were forced to demonstrate for Assad’s party, even during her father’s imprisonment. “We walked around the town carrying flags, banners and shouting slogans like: ‘The Baath Party is good for us.’”
“My father didn’t talk about his experiences very much after his release but it must have been very bad: thieves and murderers are treated better than political prisoners, who are regarded as truly evil.”
The family tried to return to their old life. “My father was a cabinet maker and he opened a shop, but the intelligence service made life hard for him. They are everywhere: the neighbours, the butcher, the baker, all of them are watching. You can’t trust anyone, not even your own relatives. People take note if anyone says anything political and even complaining about the high prices is dangerous because that’s criticising the government.”
Her father decided to flee in 1999. “He was registered on Amnesty International’s list of political prisoners, so the Netherlands granted him asylum without much fuss and we followed him 2001.”
The images of atrocities from Syria are scarce, but they always manage to shock Abdo. “I hardly dare watch the news any more, but I force myself to. I want so much for things to get better, as the people have lived in dire circumstances for forty years.”
The situation in the town of Homs is certainly very dire: “The Baba Amr district, in the south-western part of the town, is a disaster area. The Red Cross are waiting at the edge of the district to help the wounded, but they are not allowed in – it’s barbaric. People are not just killed by missiles or bombs now, they are also dying of hunger and lack of medical care.”
Describing Syrian society and the role of the Assad family, Abdo says: “Syria is a totalitarian state with Assad as its Sultan. The Assads are Alawis, a group that consists of about ten per cent of the population. They are above the law and can do whatever they like. The Alawis were once weak, but they have gathered other minority groups around them, such as the Christians, Ismailis and Druze, and granted them privileges . A classic example of divide and conquer.
“You are not allowed to challenge Assad’s authority; the protesters know the price they will have to pay. The best that will happen is that you will be sent to prison, but they would just as soon gun you down.
“It’s not just the killing: they hack the bodies to pieces. I can’t explain why they are committing these atrocities. Whole families are murdered and you can see decapitated babies. But despite their fear, people are still demonstrating.” She has another example of a bizarre situation: “You see images of a street, a man has been shot. On both sides of the street, people standing by to help him, but they can’t because of the snipers, so they try to pull him to the side with ropes and some fencing.”
In Abdo’s opinion, military intervention is essential. “We need humanitarian corridors, safe havens, in the North and South, and if these could be combined with a no-fly zone, it would protect the people. Soldiers are afraid of deserting because they are frightened that their families will be arrested. Give them somewhere to go.”
And arm the insurgents, says Abdo. “I don’t want my country to succumb to civil war, but it’s a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea: all the options are bad. It would be best if the population of major cities like Damascus and Aleppo also revolted, because the regime couldn’t cope with that for long. That would halt the killing machine.”
So long as that is not happening, other measures are necessary, but Russia and China are obstructing any UN intervention. “The Russian interest in Syria is so great, they won’t drop Assad very easily: he’s their only ally in the Middle East. The arms industry makes billions out of him and the Russians have ports and army bases there.”
And things are not helped by the fact that the NATO will not support any military operations. “I have repeatedly heard high NATO officials say that any military intervention in Syria is out of the question and I think: what a stupid thing to say. Okay, so you don’t want to help, but there’s no need to shout it out, that just makes Assad stronger. Why not hold naval exercises off the coast. Scare him and put some pressure on him.
“If the West won’t take up arms to help the Syrian people, they should still consider their own interests. If the international community doesn’t do something soon, Syria might become a failed state where terrorists and the like can do as they please, right next to the Israeli border – I don’t think that the West would want that to happen.”
Despite all the bad news, Abdo expects that Assad will fall. “The regime has completely lost any legitimacy it may have had. All the Syrian people need is a little push and they will all revolt. I hope that that international community can give them that push.”
Follow Iba Abdo’s blog at
http://syrischeopstand.blogspot.com
Twitter: @ibaabdo
More than seven thousand casualties
»»»The Baath party came to power in Syria after a coup in 1963; Syria is currently the only country where this party is in power. An infamous example of another country where the Baath party ruled was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.«««
»»»The Assad family has led the party since 1971, when Hafiz al-Assad became the Syrian president. The use of force against its own population is not anything new in Syria: in 1982, President Assad violently quelled demonstrations and revolts in the town of Hama and murdered tens of thousands of civilians, mostly from the oppressed Sunni majority.«««
»»»Hafiz al-Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son Bashar. Following the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, on 15 March 2011, people in Syria took to the streets to protest against the Assad family’s regime.«««
»»»The army forcefully intervened and one year after it began, the Syrian uprising is estimated to have cost more than 7,600 lives.«««