Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
Hundreds of people have slept outside in freezing weather in the Damascus region, hoping to find a loved one who might still be alive in one of the many prison complexes run by former president Assad, who fled Syria on December 8. Recently, the unguarded prisons began to be broken into as thousands of prisoners found freedom, some after decades of torture and horrific conditions.
Every country has prisons, but Syria’s were notorious for being filled with hundreds of thousands of political prisoners. Sednaya prison has been dubbed the “human slaughterhouse”. It is just one of the dozens of horrific prisons. Still, it has become the focus of news reports after Syrian and international journalists have gone inside recently to inspect the bone saw, vats of acid, and the body-crushing machines utilized in the vast complex housing tens of thousands.
The dreaded, and deadly secret police, Mohabarat, hunted down citizens who said anything, no matter how slight, against Assad or his regime. A careless comment on Facebook, or a slip of the tongue on the phone, could send a person to prison, and sometimes it meant death.
There were no charges, lawyers, trials, sentencing, or family visits. A person just disappeared, and if loved ones asked questions, they were told to shut up or face the same fate. Occasionally, a judge could be bribed with huge sums of money, and a prisoner could be freed. But since poverty is rampant in Syria, even the door of bribery was locked shut.
Before the 2011 uprising against Assad, Syria had enough gas and oil wells to fulfill domestic needs for gasoline, heating oil and oil to be converted into electricity for the national grid. Once the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish militia in the northeast, occupied the wells the Assad regime had to buy petroleum products from Iran, and the price of gasoline went up, heating oil became scarce and electricity dropped to 30 minutes in three intervals per day.
The economic situation in Syria is dire. According to the World Bank, as of 2022, poverty affects 69% of the population, while extreme poverty reached 27% up from a negligible level in 2009.
The Syrian people seek peace, security, and stability. This can only be achieved through the unity of all regions in Syria, and the creation of a new government that puts the hopes and needs of the people first. The present caretaker government of Mohammed al Bashir, appointed Prime Minister by Abu Mohammed al Jolani, will be in place until March 2025. Mr. Bashir has told Sky News that the interim period of his guardianship is needed to resolve constitutional issues.
He referred to the UN resolution 2254, which calls for a new constitution. That constitution exists in draft form, but there may be a dispute between Bashir and Hadi Al Bahra, president of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces in Istanbul.
Bashir will be keen on the new constitution establishing an Islamic State in Syria, with the government run by Islamic Law (Shariah).
Bahra and most of the Syrian opposition seek a secular, democratic Syria. Bahra might end up being the newest opposition to the opposition if an agreement is not found between the current caretaker PM and the Istanbul group.
The armed opposition, comprised of numerous small and large fighting forces, has won the war, and the prize is setting up a new administration in Damascus. It is questionable whether the fighting force, commanded by Jolani, will accept a political outcome for the future of Syria which is not an Islamic State.
When US President Barack Obama created and funded the Free Syrian Syria (FSA) after the uprising began in 2011, the fighters admitted they were not fighting for freedom or democracy, but fighting to establish an Islamic State. Obama and his administration, utilizing the US media, sought to portray the fight as a secular one; however, the Syrian people always saw the FSA in the cold, harsh light of reality. This was a major factor in the FSA becoming extinct once Jolani’s forces burst onto the scene in 2014. Had the FSA enjoyed support from a majority of the Syrian population in the period of 2011 to 2015, the Assad regime could have fallen. In the end, we see the Syrian Army under Assad was not loyal and crumbled in the week running up to the fall of Syria.
Syria’s demographics on an ethnic basis are 80–90% Arabs, 9–10% Kurds, and 1–10% Assyrians. Concerning the religious communities, Syria’s population is comprised of 87% Islam, with 74% identified as Sunni, 13% Alawi, including Shiite, 10% Christian and 3% Druze.
The Assad regime was mainly, but not exclusively, made up of members of the Alawi sect. The new government should reflect all the various communities. Certainly, the previously marginalized Sunni community will be heavily represented and the interim government displays that.
The Syrian people are flooding social media with their joy and shock at the end of the Assad dynasty and dictatorship. They are publically voicing their complaints hopes and dreams on the various social media platforms. They say they want jobs and foreign investments to rebuild lost homes and businesses from years of fighting, as well as properties lost in the earthquake. They want relatives who traveled as refugees abroad to come home but know that the US-EU sanctions must be lifted before the Syrians return, as foreign investments are incumbent on it. They want a future of peace and prosperity.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist.
This aarticle is original published at the Times of India
