Features
Inside Daraa
The story of this ancient town is the story of the Syrian uprising: State
brutality, funerals and growing fury.
Hugh Macleod and a reporter in Syria Last Modified: 19 Apr 2011 19:38
The uprising that spread all over Syria was sparked in the ancient town of
Daraa [REUTERS]
The only outside visitors the people of Daraa are allowed to receive these days
are friends and family attending funerals.
To access the city where Syria's uprising began a local reporter simply had to
tell the guards at the first checkpoint the truth: The husband of his wife's
cousin had been killed while protesting for freedom and he was there to help
bury him.
At three more checkpoints on the road into the city, security men scoured the
car for cameras, recorders or laptops, anything that could be used to document
the death and destruction that has been wrought on this ancient and
increasingly arid farming town on the border with Jordan.
Click here for more in-depth Syria coverage
It was here on March 6 that the spark that lit the Syrian uprising was struck:
The arrest, detention and torture of 15 young boys for painting graffiti
slogans of the Arab revolution "As-Shaab / Yoreed / Eskaat el nizam!" "The
people / want / to topple the regime!" on a wall, copying what they had seen on
television news reports from Cairo and Tunis.
The boys, aged between 10 and 15, were taken to one of the cells of the local
Political Security branch, under the control of General Atef Najeeb, a cousin
of President Bashar al-Assad.
There in the gloomy interrogation room the children were beaten and bloodied,
burned and had their fingernails pulled out by grown men working for a regime
whose unchecked brutality appears increasingly to be sowing the seeds of its
undoing.
Human Rights Watch recently documented multiple cases of torture, including of
children, among hundreds of cases of protesters arrested over the past month.
The story of Daraa is the story of the Syrian uprising: A single incident of
brutality by a lawless secret police that ignited protests, which in turn
escalated in size and scope fuelled by the ever increasing numbers of people
killed by security forces.
Family blood
The disappearance of Syrian citizens, even children, inside the cells of one
the state's notorious security branches might not have ordinarily been anything
unusual for a people accustomed to living for half a century under emergency
laws.
But the arrested boys were from almost every large family of Daraa: The
Baiazids, the Gawabras, the Masalmas and the Zoubis.
In the largely tribal society of Syria's south, family loyalty and honour run
deep. So, after days of failing to locate the boys through official channels,
the parents and families of the missing, along with local religious leaders,
marched on the house of the Daraa governor Faisal Kalthoum after Friday prayers.
The governor's security guards initially struggled to beat the protesters back
before riot police were called in and used water canons and tear gas. Then
armed members of Political Security turned up and opened fire on the protesters.
"A large number of security arrived and started shooting at people and injured
some of them," said Ibrahim, a relation of one of the arrested boys.
"When the people saw the blood, they went crazy. We all belong to tribes and
big families and for us blood is a very, very serious issue."
The gathering, which had started out with around 200 people, quickly swelled to
several hundred as news spread around Daraa that Political Security had opened
fire.
"We were asking in a peaceful way to release the children but their reply to us
was bullets," said Ibrahim.
"Now we can have no compromise with any security branches."
Another relative of one of the children said he had witnessed the contempt with
which General Najeeb of Political Security had treated the family delegation.
"Security prevented the ambulances from coming to take injured people to the
hospital. We will not forget that," said Mohammed, a 28-year-old who moved back
to Daraa two years ago after working in Dubai.
Since protests erupted in Daraa, Mohammed's brother-in-law has been killed and
his brother injured.
There were also unconfirmed reports that General Najeeb had taunted family
members, telling them to forget about their children and go home and sleep with
their wives to make some more.
Prevented from reaching hospital, the enraged protesters took the injured to
the Omari Mosque in the heart of Old Daraa.
Mosque stormed
On March 18, several hundred protesters in Daraa called for an end to
corruption, the release of the boys and greater political freedom. Security
forces opened fire and killed three. Two days later, furious crowds set fire to
the offices of the Baath Party, calling for the first time for freedom and an
end to emergency law.
Al-Assad attempted to defuse local anger by sending a delegation of
high-ranking officials with family ties to Daraa to reassure tribal leaders
that he was personally committed to bringing to justice those who had opened
fire.
People continue to protest across Syria [REUTERS]
The delegation included Faisal Meqdad, the deputy foreign minister, whose
former boss, Farouk al-Saharaa, now vice-president, is also from the region.
But the delegation's most important figure was General Rustom Ghazali, one of
the highest ranking members of Syria's Military Intelligence, who was head of
Syrian intelligence in Lebanon when prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri was
assassinated, and who faced questions in the subsequent international
investigation into the murder.
As a man from the area and a senior member of al-Assad's inner circle, Ghazali
was there to give assurances to Daraa leaders that the situation could be
calmed down. In a gesture of goodwill the 15 children were released, having
spent two weeks in jail.
But the marks of torture on their sons only fuelled the rage of local tribal
leaders. Now the demonstrators against the regime numbered in their thousands.
In the early hours of the morning of March 23, just 48 hours after Ghazali's
meeting in Daraa, Syrian security forces stormed the Omari mosque, which had
become a focus for the growing protest movement. Troops threw in stun grenades
before opening fire, killing five people, including a doctor who was working to
treat those injured in previous protests.
Footage on YouTube claiming to show the aftermath of that raid shows plain
clothes gun men parading around inside a mosque with blankets lining its walls
and blood stains visible.
Locals said the men who actually stormed the mosque were Syrian special forces,
with unconfirmed reports that they belonged to the army's fourth division,
under the command of Maher al-Assad, the president's brother.
"We want the president to punish all of those who killed and injured the people
of Daraa," said Mohammed's mother, an Arabic-language teacher, visibly shaken
with sorrow and anger.
"We supported his father [Hafez al-Assad] and he appreciated us by nominating a
Zoubi as prime minister, Sharaa as foreign minister and Suleiman Qaddah as the
Baath Party's leader. But instead, President Bashar sent our own sons, the
Syrian army, to kill their brothers and sisters. A traitor is the one who kills
his brothers."
The following day, the much reviled Governor Kalthoum, whose residence was
burned down, was sacked. General Najib was also removed from his position. Over
a fortnight later, al-Assad referred the two men to court to investigate their
role in igniting and handling protests in the city.
But the sackings did little to abate the anger of locals.
"Why didn't President Assad visit Daraa himself and say sorry to the people,"
said Mohammed. "We are 100 per cent Syrian and he should show us real sympathy
and respect."
Funeral protests
The Daraa protests began to grow exponentially, falling into a familiar and
tragic pattern: The funeral for those killed a day earlier would swell into a
mass rally against the regime and security would open fire, killing more and
guaranteeing an even larger turnout at the next funeral.
On March 24, the government issued a decree to cut taxes and raise state
salaries by 1,500 Syrian pounds ($32.60) a month.
A day later tens of thousands turned out for funerals in Daraa shouting: "We do
not want your bread, we want dignity." Security opened fire and killed 15.
A group of enraged protestors tore down the statue of Hafez al-Assad, the
former president, whose name most Syrians hardly dared whisper, such was the
fear he once inspired. Pictures of Hafez's son, Bashar, were ripped and burned.
In one week of protests in and around Daraa at least 55 people had been killed
by security forces. Across the country the pledge to Daraa became a unifying
chant of the protest movement: "With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice to
you Daraa."
In his first public statement on the crisis, al-Assad blamed the uprising on a
"foreign plot" and said those killed in Daraa had died as a sacrifice for
national stability. The speech only fuelled the anger of families like
Mohammed's.
"He didn't ask the MPs to stand for a minute's silence and he said those who
were killed were sacrificial martyrs," said Mohammed. "But here in Daraa, the
army and security deal with us like traitors or agents for Israel. We hoped our
army would fight and liberate the occupied Golan, not send tanks and
helicopters to fight civilians."
By April 8, the fourth consecutive Friday of protests, the chants on the
streets of Daraa were pure fury. "Hey Maher you coward, take your dogs to the
Golan," shouted the protesters, 25 of whom were killed on that one day.
One week later, a delegation from Daraa held their first direct talks with the
president. But for many residents of a city that once prided itself on sending
its sons to top positions in government the surprising transformation of Daraa
into the centre of Syria's uprising is unlikely to be easily reversed.
"They think we want new roads or a new hospital. No! We want to lift the state
of emergency, release all political prisoners and allow our relatives who live
in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other countries to return to Syria. We want to buy
and sell our land without permission from security," said Ayman, an opposition
activist from Daraa.
"My uncle is suspected of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and so was
forced to live in Saudi Arabia. Every day my grandmother prayed to God that she
could see her son, but she died without ever seeing him again. What we want now
is freedom."
Source:
Al Jazeera
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