History will judge us

 

History will judge us for our moral error in allowing the slaughter of the Syrian people whose only crime was to rise up against a tyrannical regime which had oppressed them for nearly forty years. History will also judge us for the political mistakes we made from the beginning of Syria’s uprising and in which we persist. What are those mistakes?

The first one is not to have perceived, from the very start, the true nature of Bachar el Assad and his regime. We believed too long in the tale of the gentle reformer prevented in his actions by his father’s old guard or his family. This brazen lie abused all those who preferred to believe in it rather than face the truth.

By reintegrating Assad’s Syria in the international community in 2008 – in return for establishing diplomatic relationships with Lebanon -, we boosted the dictator’s natural self-importance. It was notably from then on that, thinking he was entitled to do anything he pleased, Assad didn’t hesitate to shoot on his people in the 18^th march demonstrations.

Despite these first victims, we refused to understand that the regime was unable to reform itself–for this necessarily entailed its fall- and we insisted far too long on reform rather than on a change of regime .During this time, the number of dead, missing and detained people grew to worrying proportions.

Our second mistake, was to impose hypocritical conditions when we eventually realized that there was no other solution than the Assads’ departure. In a short, to limit our support to the Syrian people.

This came out in our demands to the assembling Syrian opposition. But also in our declarations that the revolution must remain peaceful at any cost. This was tantamount to asking the protesters to let themselves be killed by the regime’s armed faction without reacting, and as long as need be.

It’s been ten months that the Syrian people are being slaughtered. According to OHCHR, more than 5.000 people were killed, including more than 300 children. Disappearances, arbitrary arrests and tortures have been documented by many international reports who don’t hesitate to speak of “crimes against humanity”. (Russia, always prone to hypocrisy, prefers to speak of the “considerable excesses” of the Syrian forces against demonstrators[1].) Moreover, in certain places, the population has no more food, heating or medical care. What gives us the right to require a greater self-sacrifice from the Syrian people?

This situation is the result of our third mistake : to have invested more in statements than in acts. It is now impossible, from a moral point of view, to deny the Syrian people their right to self-defence. Because we put off helping them in a peaceful manner, the use of violence is now unavoidable. If we cannot yet speak of civil war, everything suggests that we are not very far from it. Yet everyone knows that such a conflict would not only lead to more bloodshed in Syria, but would destabilize an already rather troubled region.

Although he denied any responsibility during his ABC interview, Bachar al-Assad is responsible and guilty for having shed his people’s blood. If he escapes Kaddafi’s fate, he will be judged one day for his crimes. We, the Westerners, won’t be brought to trial before the ICC, because there is still no international complicity for crimes against humanity. But History will judge us. Severely.

 

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