بواسطة Samer Abboud | أكتوبر 11, 2017 | غير مصنف
“Syria’s conflict landscape has changed dramatically since the Russian military intervened in 2015, with most major territory controlled by armed groups falling under the control of regime-aligned forces. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has been severely depleted, while the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have assumed control of more territory, increasing the possibility of Kurdish autonomy.
Meanwhile, the Astana process has imposed new realities on Syria’s armed opposition, as the tripartite talks between Russia, Turkey and Iran produced an agreement on de-escalation zones.
Below is a brief profile of the three main conglomerations of armed groups in Syriatoday and how they fit into the ongoing conflict.
Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)
HTS is Jabhat al-Nusra’s successor and comprises some of the more powerful armed groups operating in Idlib province.
After 2015, agreements between regime and opposition forces led to the forced displacement of fighters and many civilians from conflict zones, pushing them into Idlib. The situation has created intense competition and infighting, along with a dizzying number of alliances and counter-alliances among the various armed groups.
HTS emerged out of this competition as one of the stronger groups in Idlib. In early October, a Turkish-led military campaign began against HTS in Idlib in order to establish a de-escalation zone. The campaign involved Turkish aerial bombardment to support Free Syrian Army (FSA) advances against HTS.
This has been a common pattern in recent years in Syria: A ground force relies on external intervention to support its territorial advances. American support allowed the SDF to advance on ISIL; Russian support was provided to regime-aligned forces in recapturing Homs, Hama, Aleppo and other areas; and now Turkish support is being provided to the FSA.
It is unlikely that HTS will survive in its current form in the aftermath of the campaign, but as in previous years, it will likely splinter and reappear in various forms.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA)
The Free Syrian Army is the army that never was one.
Since the outset of the conflict, the FSA has been a conglomeration of armed brigades fighting under a loose umbrella in which central coordination and military planning never existed. FSA brigades have shifted alliances to other armed opposition groups, as well as re-defecting to the Syrian army.
There is thus virtually no ideological, political or military coherence, but the FSA persists as a loose organisational mechanism for armed groups.
In 2016, the FSA was mobilised against SDF forces to prevent the contiguity of Kurdish territory along Turkey’s southern border in Operation Euphrates Shield. Then, as now, the FSA was supported by the Turkish military through logistics, aerial support and intelligence.
Without this military support, the FSA is simply incapable of overtaking groups such as HTS or the SDF.
The Unified National Army (UNA)
The Unified National Army was created in mid-2017 with the aim of bringing together armed groups of various ideological and political backgrounds. Many of these groups are dispersed throughout Syrian territory in areas where there is still active fighting, such as the south, Ghouta and northern areas around Aleppo and Idlib.
The UNA is the latest in a long line of attempts to unify the Syrian armed opposition and it is unlikely that its fate will be any different from the others.
The main group within the UNA is Ahrar al-Sham, one of the few Islamist brigades to have persisted under this banner throughout the long course of the conflict. Brigades associated with the UNA have clashed regularly with the SDF, ISIL and HTS over territory, and have mostly been in military retreat since the Russian intervention.
While some of the southern factions retain control over some territory, their increasing abandonment by Jordanian authorities has limited their capacity and access to resources. Thus, despite having the appearance of a national character with brigades from all over the country pledging support for the project, the UNA has not solved the problems of coordination and material resources that have plagued previous attempts at unifying Syria’s armed groups.
Looking ahead
The Russian-led designs for Syria imagined through the Astana process are slowly being realised, and these new realities are imposing restraints and possibilities on the armed groups that will determine their futures.
As long as de-escalation zones are the military goals of the tripartite powers, there will be a need and a relevance for armed groups. These groups will morph accordingly, but they will remain weak and incapable of autonomous action outside of the designs and umbrella created by the Astana process.”
[This article was originally published by Al Jazeera.]
بواسطة Olivia Alabaster | أكتوبر 11, 2017 | Cost of War, غير مصنف
“Transitional justice is the only way forward for a lasting peace after the inevitable outcome, activists and lawyers say.
It is a narrative that regional and world powers have begun to accept: the Syrian war is over, and Bashar al-Assad has won. After six years of conflict, and half a million dead, what little military will remains – on either side – is focused on defeating the remnants of Islamic State.
But a counter-narrative is being pushed by those opposition members in far flung capitals: regardless of the military outcome, transitional justice must be served, and democracy will eventually prevail.
“It’s not about who wins. It’s about how we release the detainees, and ending torture, and finding out where the missing people are,” said Mazen Darwish, a Syrian civil rights activist who himself was released from prison in 2015.
More than 106,000 people have been arrested or disappeared in Syria since the war broke out, according to Human Rights Watch.
“I’m not happy, whoever wins militarily,” he said, speaking to MEE from Brussels.
But, he added: “The most important thing is about the ordinary individual civilians who have suffered. As civil society, we need to guarantee that sustainable peace is achieved.”
The need for peace
The lawyer and president of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression was in Belgium to stress the urgent need for accountability in the conflict, but before that would be possible, he said, the violence needed to end.
“Firstly, the most important thing is the need for peace,” he said.
“I don’t believe any transitional justice could take place during the conflict, and nor can any political transition take place” while the violence is ongoing.
While a de-escalation deal, brokered by Russia and Turkey in Kazakhstan in July, had seen a reduction in overall violence, September became the deadliest month in the conflict this year, with at least 3,000 dead, including more than 900 civilians.
“The victims have to be given a chance to get accountability and see a process of justice,” Darwish said.
“Only then can a political process follow.”
Last month, for the first time, a Syrian soldier was sentenced in Stockholm for crimes committed in the war, a global first.
A scattering of convictions across Europe have already seen rebel fighters and IS members sentenced for their part in the conflict.
High-ranking officials in hiding?
Nerma Jelacic, a deputy director at Commission for International Justice and Accountability, welcomed the Stockholm development, but said European intelligence agencies should be looking for higher-ranking officials.
“It was quite welcome as it was the first time that someone from the regime has been tried for his crimes,” she told MEE.
“But our hope is that not only the low-level or direct perpetrators be brought to justice, but those who have command responsibility – those of the higher rank, that’s what we need to see.
“We might not see the president standing trial,” she said, “but it might be possible to find some high-ranking officials residing in Europe,” and currently living under the radar.
Darwish said the time is ripe for a renewed focus on the crimes of the war, from every side.
“This is a chance to keep the focus and keep these kinds of crimes under the spotlight… the international community and even Staffan de Mistura want to hide and forget everything that happened. It is not realistic.”
Last month de Mistura, the UN’s Syria envoy, said that the opposition should accept that they had lost the war.
“Will the opposition be able to be unified and realistic enough to realise they did not win the war?” he asked, adding that “For the opposition, the message is very clear: if they were planning to win the war, facts are proving that is not the case. So now it’s time to win the peace.”
Darwish gave a damning indictment of the various peace talks on Syria over the years – parallel but often conflicting tracks, each sponsored by different parties, have run in Geneva, Cairo and Astana.
“Everything that has happened in Geneva and elsewhere up until now has just given the killers time to kill civilians,” he said, adding that UN resolutions condemning the violence also achieved nothing.
“If the international sides are serious in finding a solution to the conflict in Syria, they would start with criminal cases,” Darwish said.
As Syria does not recognise the International Criminal Court, war crimes can only be investigated if Damascus decides voluntarily to accept the court’s jurisdiction, or if the UN Security Council asks the ICC’s prosecutor to open an investigation – a move blocked by Russia and China in 2014.
But such cases in Europe fall under the definition of “universal jurisdiction”, whereby grave international crimes can be prosecuted by any country, even if the crimes were committed elsewhere.
These cases, are, according to HRW, “an increasingly important part of international efforts to hold perpetrators of atrocities accountable, provide justice to victims who have nowhere else to turn, deter future crimes, and help ensure that countries do not become safe havens for human rights abusers.”
Obstacles remain, though, and a case pursued in Spain earlier this year investigating members of the Syrian security services for murder collapsed after a panel within the High Court ruled that it did not have jurisdictionover the case, and that a Spanish connection was necessary. The legal team pursuing the case say they are appealing the decision.
Collecting the evidence
Husam Alkatlaby, in Brussels with Darwish, has spent years preparing for just this moment, and as director of the Violations Documentations Centre (VDC), has been overseeing the collation of such evidence.
And what the evidence shows, he said, must have a direct bearing on what any future government in Syria looks like.
“The government is responsible for the majority of the crimes, so from our point of view, there should be no place for them in the future,” Alkatlaby said, adding that this should also rule out “any other parties who committed crimes.”
Last December, the UN General Assembly established an International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) on international crimes committed in the Syrian Arab Republic, tasked with collecting the necessary evidence for any future trials.
And while this might not take the form of an ICC investigation, Jelacic, from the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, said that alternative courts could receive UN Security Council approval to try cases, such as an international court, in the Rwandan example, or a hybrid court comprising Syrian and international experts – the Cambodian example.
“A lot of IIIM’s work is based on data we have collected from 2012 until now,” Alkatlaby said, alongside evidence gathered from other civil society organisations. “And they are the most important partner here.”
It was time for the EU, and the global community, to stop seeing Syrian civil society groups as merely aid recipients, but as genuine partners, both Darwish and Alkatlaby said.
“We have asked the EU to put pressure on de Mistura to take civil society groups into consideration,” the VDC director said.
Currently, he added, “We think that de Mistura is far away from recognising the need for accountability and justice and looking at the families of those harmed in his policies.”
Despite the current prevailing narrative on Syria, and his own years in government detention, Darwish said he remained positive about what lies ahead for his country, and that there was good news to come soon.
“I’m still optimistic about the future, and moving towards democracy in the Middle East.”
“Even with all this suffering and crisis, in the end we will establish a new democratic country built on principles of dignity and human rights and freedom.”
This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.”
[This article was originally published by Middle East Eye.]
بواسطة Ibrahim Hamidi | أكتوبر 11, 2017 | غير مصنف
موسكو ترى مستقبل سوريا اتحادياً مشابهاً لـ«روسيا الاتحادية»، وهي ليست قلقة من سيطرة «قوات سوريا الديمقراطية» الكردية – العربية على مناطق شرق نهر الفرات ومصادر النفط والغاز هناك، بالتالي فإنها ترى الأكراد «طرفاً رئيسياً» في العملية السياسية لصوغ مستقبل البلاد، وأن قطار التسوية سينطلق بعد تحرير مدينتي الرقة ودير الزور من «داعش» في الأسابيع المقبلة.
أولى لبنات البحث عن التسوية، هي عقد مؤتمر وطني من الأطراف السورية في حميميم، القاعدة العسكرية الروسية قرب اللاذقية في 29 الشهر الجاري للتمهيد لمؤتمر حوار وطني موسع لإطلاق عملية سياسية تظهر ملامحها قبل الانتخابات الرئاسية الروسية في مارس (آذار) المقبل.
كانت هذه خلاصة الأفكار التي طرحها وزير الدفاع الروسي سيرغي شويغو، ورئيس الأركان فاليري غيراسيموف، لدى لقائهما قائد «وحدات حماية الشعب» الكردية سيبان حمو في موسكو الأسبوع الماضي، بحسب مصادر دبلوماسية غربية اطلعت على مضمون المحادثات غير المسبوقة، علماً بأن حمو كان التقى شويغو في حميميم الشهر الماضي في أرفع لقاء بين مسؤول روسي وقيادي عسكري كردي. وقالت المصادر لـ«الشرق الأوسط» إن مروحية روسية حطت قرب المقر الروسي في بلدة عريما بين الباب ومنبج شمال حلب بداية الأسبوع الماضي، ونقلت حمو إلى قاعدة حميميم ثم إلى موسكو لبحث ثلاثة ملفات:
الملف الأول، كان مصير مدينة دير الزور. إذ إن المحادثات بين الجانب الروسي وقائد «الوحدات» الكردية قضت بأن تسيطر «قوات سوريا الديمقراطية» بدعم التحالف الدولي بقيادة أميركا على الضفة الشرقية لنهر الفرات بما فيها من آبار نفط وغاز وسدود مياه وتحرير مدينة الرقة من «داعش» على أن تسيطر القوات النظامية على مدينة دير الزور غرب النهر، ما قلص من طموحات «قوات سوريا الديمقراطية» التي كانت تطمح بالوصول إلى مدينة السخنة التي سيطرت عليها قوات النظام بدعم عسكري روسي وتعرضت لهجمات من «داعش». وقلص هذا من طموحات دمشق التي كانت تريد التقدم شرق نهر الفرات.
وضمن الخطة التي وضعها التحالف الدولي بقيادة أميركا، باتت عملية تحرير الرقة على وشك الانتهاء، وتحصن «داعش» في منطقة بعمق كيلومتر ونصف الكيلومتر في دوار النعيم، حيث يعيش نحو ستة آلاف مدني يستخدمهم «داعش» دروعاً بشرية لتأخير إعلان النصر في معقل «داعش»، ما جعل المعركة تدور في الأبنية والغرف، بدلاً من الشوارع.
ويتعلق الملف الثاني، بمصير مدينة عفرين في ريف حلب غرب نهر الفرات، علما بأنها من الأقاليم التي تشكل «فيدرالية الشمال السوري»، إضافة إلى إقليمي الجزيرة والفرات شرق الفرات. حمو، بحسب المصادر الدبلوماسية الغربية، أبلغ محاوريه الروس شكوكه إزاء نيات تركيا من التدخل في إدلب. ونقلت المصادر عن حمو قوله إن أنقرة «تريد حصار عفرين اقتصاديا وخلق مشاكل»، مشيرا إلى أن هذا «لن يؤدي إلى خفض التصعيد بل إلى تصعيده، وهو بمثابة وضع البارود قرب النار».
من جهته، ركز الجانب الروسي على أن دخول الجيش التركي إلى إدلب جاء ضمن عملية آستانة لـ«خفض التصعيد» وتطبيق الاتفاق، وأن لا علاقة له بعفرين، مشيرا إلى أن طلائع الجيش التركي توغلت شمال سوريا لاستطلاع مناطق نشر المراقبين بين إدلب وحلب، وتطبيق اتفاق وقف النار بين فصائل المعارضة والقوات النظامية، ثم محاربة «جبهة النصرة» والأطراف التي لا تقبل وقف النار والهدنة. لكن القيادي الكردي طلب توفير ضمانات بمنع تدخل الجيش التركي ضد عفرين في ريف حلب.
يتعلق الملف الثالث بمستقبل سوريا السياسي، إذ إن القياديين الروسيين أبديا ارتياحهما لسيطرة «قوات سوريا الديمقراطية» على مناطق واسعة شرق البلاد وشمالها وطرد «داعش». وقالت المصادر: «الجانب الروسي قال بوضوح إنه يرى مستقبل سوريا اتحادياً مشابهاً لروسيا الاتحادية» وأنه يريد استخدام قوة «الوحدات» الكردية على الأرض (تضم أكثر من 70 ألف مقاتل وتسيطر مع فصائل عربية على ثلث مساحة سوريا البالغة 185 ألف كيلومتر مربع مقابل نصفها لقوات النظام) ورقة للضغط على دمشق لقبول التفاوض على حل فيدرالي أو اتحادي.
وأشارت المصادر إلى أن محادثات حمو مع الجانب الروسي كانت وراء نصيحة موسكو إلى دمشق كي تعدل موقفها من الإدارات الكردية، إذ بعد تهديدات المستشارة السياسية والإعلامية في الرئاسية بثينة شعبان بقتال «قوات سوريا الديمقراطية» شرق سوريا، قال وزير الخارجية وليد المعلم لتلفزيون روسي، إن إقامة نظام إدارة ذاتية للأكراد في سوريا «أمر قابل للتفاوض والحوار في حال إنشائها في إطار حدود الدولة». وتوافق دمشق على اللامركزية وفق قانون الإدارة المحلية رقم 107. كما توافق المعارضة على ذلك، لكن الطرفين يرفضان الفيدرالية والتقسيم. وتسعى دول إقليمية إلى التزام تنفيذ القرار 2252 باعتباره نص على ضمان وحدة الأراضي السورية.
ويُعتقد أن التصور الروسي لمستقبل سوريا، الذي لا تختلف معه أميركا ودول أخرى، يقوم على اللامركزية الموسعة. وظهرت ترجمة موقف موسكو في المسودة الروسية للدستور السوري التي وزعت العام الماضي وتضمنت تأسيس «جمعية مناطق» إلى جانب البرلمان واتفاقات «خفض التصعيد»، إضافة إلى تشجيع نظام الإدارات المحلية والمجالس المحلية لمناطق المعارضة العربية التي تشكل 15 في المائة من مساحة سوريا (درعا، غوطة دمشق، ريف حمص، إدلب)، إضافة إلى حديث مسؤولين روس عن عقد مؤتمر للمجالس المحلية لبحث إصلاحات سياسية.
وأوضحت المصادر أن الجيش الروسي قرر عقد مؤتمر سوري في قاعدة حميميم في 29 الشهر الجاري بمشاركة ممثلي «المصالحات» ومناطق «خفض التصعيد» والحكومة السورية والمعارضة بعد تقديم ضمانات روسية بحمايتها. وزادت أن 5 نقاط ستبحث في مؤتمر حميميم، هي: «الوضع السوري العام، خفض التوتر بين الأطراف السورية، نقاش حول الدستور السوري، تشكيل لجان تفاوضية لمشاريع المستقبل، التمهيد لمؤتمر شامل».
ويتخوف معارضون من أن يؤدي هذا إلى تأسيس مسار بديل يؤسس على عملية آستانة، واتفاقات «خفض التصعيد»، بعيداً عن مسار مفاوضات جنيف التي يسعى المبعوث الدولي ستيفان دي ميستورا إلى استئنافها في بداية الشهر المقبل، والبناء على المؤتمر الموسع للمعارضة المقرر عقده في الرياض.
تم نشر هذا المقال في «الشرق الأوسط»
بواسطة Salon Syria Team | أكتوبر 11, 2017 | غير مصنف
“عندما حاولتُ تتبّعَ الأمر، لم يبدُ واضحاً بالنسبة لي أين بدأ استخدام عبارة «فصل الرياضة عن السياسة» في النقاش حول الموقف من منتخب الجمهورية العربية السورية لكرة القدم، لكن العبارة على أي حال قليلة المعنى في السياق السوري، إذ ما هي السياسة التي يمكن أو لا يمكن فصلها عن الرياضة؟ عن أي حدود للسياسة نتحدث؟
الأرجح أن المعنى المقصود من هذه العبارة هو التالي: لا ينبغي أن نأخذ الخلاف السياسي حول كيفية إدارة السلطة والثروة في بلادنا بعين الاعتبار عندما يتعلق الأمر بمنتخبها، بل إن علينا أن نفصل بين الأمرين، فنشجع المنتخب أياً تكن الجهة السياسية الموجودة في سدة السلطة، لأنه يمثل البلاد كلها ولا يمثل تلك الجهة.
قولٌ كهذا هو تضليلٌ مكتمل الأركان في السياق السوري اليوم، ذلك لأنه لا سياسة في سوريا حتى نجادل أصلاً في مسألة فصلها أو عدم فصلها عن الرياضة. السياسة هي إدارة الصراع بين القوى السياسية والاجتماعية بدون عنف، وبالضبط بهدف إبعاد العنف، وفي سوريا لا شيء اليوم إلا العنف. ليس ثمة صراع سياسي بين أطراف متعددة الرؤى في سوريا، بل هناك صراع مسلّح مستمر، وهو ما يعني بالتعريف نفي السياسة.
ومنتخب كرة القدم السوري اليوم هو منتخبٌ شكّلته إحدى القوى المتحاربة، وهو يدين بالولاء الكامل لهذه القوة، يرفع رموزها وصور قائدها، ويتم اختيار لاعبيه وكادره التدريبي من قبلها، ويتم توظيف حضوره في أي محفل رياضي لصالحها. وتلك القوة هي نظام الحكم الذي لا يزال شرعياً من وجهة نظر المؤسسات الدولية، لكن شرعيته تلك محلّ تساؤل وتشكيك، ويساهم حضورُ هذا المنتخب في ترميمها وتعزيزها.
وفي الأصل، قبل قيام الثورة الشعبية ثم تحولها إلى نزاع مسلح، كانت هناك هيمنةٌ سياسيةٌ لفئة حاكمة تجتهد في استخدام أدوات العنف لنفي السياسة وحشرها في الزوايا الميتة، ولم تكن تلك الجهة تسمح بـ «فصل الرياضة عن السياسة»، بل كانت تجتهد في ربط كل إنجاز أو حضور رياضي بها، وبشخص قائدها وزعيمها الأوحد، الذي كانت السياسة التي يمارسها هي توزيع المنافع والامتيازات وشراء الولاءات، مع كم هائل من العنف المادي والرمزي المُنافي لأي سياسة.
هذا في التحليل، لكن للمشاعر حساباً آخر، إذ إلى جانب سؤال فصل الرياضة عن السياسة، كان يدور النقاش نفسه بصورة أخرى: هل يجب أن نفرح، أم أنه لا يجب أن نفرح، إذا فاز منتخب الجمهورية العربية السورية؟ وهذا السؤال بدوره قليل المعنى في السياق السوري، وفي أي سياق غيره، لأن سؤال «هل يجب؟» غير صالح للتعامل مع مسائل تتعلق بالمشاعر.
عن نفسي كانت المسألة مربكة للغاية، لأنني أدرك أن المنتخب هو منتخب نظام الأسد، وأن فوزه هو نقطة لصالح فكرة بقاء الأسد في سدة الحكم، وعلى هذا لم أفرح عندما سمعتُ أنه قد يصل إلى نهائيات كأس العالم، بل كنت أشعر بالأسى لمجرد تخيل الدعاية الداعمة للنظام التي سترافق تأهل المنتخب المحتمل إلى مونديال موسكو. كنتُ أريدهم أن يخسروا من أجل هذا، لكني عندما شاهدتُ الربع الأخير من مباراة المنتخب مع أستراليا، اجتاحتني ثوانٍ من البهجة عندما أحرز عمر السومة هدف التعادل، ولعلها بهجة قادمة من الذاكرة البعيدة، التي كان فيها حلمٌ دائمٌ بمشاهدة المنتخب السوري في كأس العالم.
قبلها بأيام، كنتُ في حي أكسراي في إسطنبول، وكنتُ غير مهتم إلى درجة أنني لم أكن أعرف أن المنتخب كان يلعب وقتها مع إيران. سمعتُ هتافاتٍ بإيقاعاتٍ ارتبطت في ذاكرتي بمظاهرات السوريين ضد نظام الحكم، ثم شاهدتُ عشرات يحتشدون هاتفين باسم عمر السومة، وهاتفين للمنتخب السوري، وهاتفين أيضاً: واحد واحد واحد، الشعب السوري واحد. تمنيتُ أن يكون هذا حقيقياً، أعني أن يكون لنا بلاد كسائر خلق الله، وأن يكون لبلادنا تلك منتخبٌ يمثلها، نفرح لفوزه ونحزن لخسارته. أعني بلاداً فيها سياسة، وفيها رياضة مفصولة عن سياستها تلك.
لكن ماذا عن أولئك الشبان في أكسراي، ماذا عن شبانٍ في الغوطة الشرقية التي حطمتها الآلة الحربية للنظام يرفعون لافتةً تحيي المنتخب وعليها علم الثورة السورية، ماذا عن شبانٍ في فيديو من ريف حلب الغربي يقفزون مبتهجين بهدف عمر السومة إياه؟ لا شك أن هؤلاء يرغبون ببلاد تنفصل رياضتها عن سياستها، لا شك أن هؤلاء لديهم مشاعر عبرّوا عنها كلٌ على طريقته، ولا شك أنه ليس لأحدٍ حق الرقابة على مشاعرهم تلك.
لا يستقيم وصف هؤلاء بأنهم شبيحة للنظام مع أي طموحٍ لبناء بلاد فيها سياسة، فهؤلاء لا يهتفون لمنتخب بشار الأسد، بل يهتفون لما يعتقدونه منتخب سوريا. وحتى إذا كان في سلوكهم هذا تعبيرٌ عن حنينٍ إلى ما كانت عليه الأوضاع قبل 2011، فإنهم آخر من يُلام على حنينٍ كهذا. ينبغي أن تتوزع الملامة على كثيرين قبل أن يصلهم نصيبهم منها، على أنصار نظام الأسد نفسه، وعلى الدول الإقليمية والعظمى، والفصائل المسلحة والمعارضة السياسية، والمجتمع الدولي الذي لا يزال يعتبر أن القوة المسلحة الهمجية التي يتزعمها بشار الأسد هي الحكومة السورية الشرعية.
تلك الشرعية الدولية بالتحديد، هي التي جعلت منتخباً تشرف على تشكيلته أجهزة المخابرات ممثلاً للبلاد كلها في المحافل الرياضية، وهي التي تسمح للنظام بابتزاز السوريين في مسألة جوازات السفر أيضاً، تسمح له بأن يُذلَّ السوريين على أبواب القنصليات، وفوق الإذلال قد يدفع سوريٌ منكودٌ مبلغاً كبيراً هو 800 دولار مقابل جواز سفر يصلح عملياً للاستعمال مدة عام ونصف فقط، في عملية سطو مستمرة على أموال السوريين وأعمارهم حتى خارج البلاد. وعلى ما في المماثلة من شطح، فإن الذهاب رغم كل هذه المهانة إلى قنصلية النظام السوري للحصول على جواز سفر مُعترف به، تلتقي في مكانٍ ما مع تشجيع المنتخب، لأن في كليهما استسلامٌ لفكرة أن هذه حكومتنا «الشرعية» شئنا أم أبينا.
كان بشار الأسد في آخر خطاباته قد قال «إن إنجازات الجيش العربي السوري هي الحرب، وهي السياسة أيضاً»، ومعنى هذا بالضبط أنه لا سياسة في بلاد يحكمها هو. أما فصل الرياضة عن السياسة كما يفهمه النظام، فهو يتجلى في سيرة منتخب كرة القدم الحالي بوضوح، ذلك أن عودة عمر السومة إليه، مع ما رافقها من تحيّات ضرورية لرأس النظام وشقيقه والجيش العربي السوري، سمحت له أن يتوسط لإطلاق سراح أحد المعتقلين، وهو ما عجزت عن تحقيقه كل مراحل المفاوضات السياسية.
تلك هي السياسة كما يعرفها نظام الأسد، بعض الامتيازات التي لا تمرّ عبر أي قانون، مقابل كل الولاء.
سادَ الاضطرابُ والتشكّكُ النقاشَ السوريَ العامَ حول مسألة تشجيع المنتخب، وترافقَ مع اتهامات متبادلة ومشاعر مختلطة ومتناقضة، وهذا شمل قطاعات واسعة من السوريين، ليس من بينها أنصار النظام السوري، الذين لا يزالون واثقين تماماً مما يفعلون ويقولون. هم لا يهتفون أن الشعب السوري واحد، لأن الشعب السوري بالنسبة لهم هو فقط أنصار الأسد والمستكينون لحكمه دون مقاومة من أي نوع. سوريا بالنسبة لهم هي سوريا الأسد، ولا شيء آخر، وهذا المنتخب يمثلها طبعاً دون جدال.
أما معارضو النظام الذين يشجعون المنتخب، فإنهم ربما لا يزالون يحلمون بسوريا، أو ربما يكونون من عشاق كرة القدم، ويشجعون المنتخب الذي يمثّل بلاداً ليس لديهم بلادٌ غيرها، وإذا كان هؤلاء يجهلون أو يتجاهلون أن انتصارات هذا المنتخب هي انتصاراتٌ للطغمة الحاكمة التي حطمت حياتهم، فربما يكون ذلك لأنهم يشعرون أن لا شيء يمكن أن يُلحِقَ مزيداً من الضرر بقضيتهم. وهل يلامون على شعورٍ كهذا بعد أن أصبح العالم كله شريكاً في تحطيم حياتهم؟!”
تم نشر هذا المقال في «الجمهورية»
بواسطة Noura Hourani, Marie Nelson, Kholoud Ahmad | أكتوبر 10, 2017 | Cost of War, غير مصنف
“AMMAN: For more than four years, Umm Malak has held on to the hope that her husband Hussein is still alive, sitting in a darkened cell somewhere in Syria.
Hussein, then 32, was arrested by Syrian regime forces on summer day in 2013 at a checkpoint in southern Damascus. A supermarket employee, he had been providing material support—food and supplies—to opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, his wife says.
The summer day he was arrested, Hussein left his house in the town of Aqraba, southeast of the Syrian capital. He, his wife and their three daughters began living there several weeks prior after fleeing regime bombardment of the rebel-held al-Hajar al-Aswad district just south of Damascus.
Hussein was heading to the family home in al-Hajar al-Aswad. He kept birds on the roof there, and periodically returned to give them food and water. That day, he planned to set them free. As bombings increased and the security situation in and around the capital deteriorated, he was not sure he would always be able to reach and care for them.
What Umm Malak knows about what happened next—as related to her later by a 15-year-old neighbor who witnessed the arrest—is that a masked man pointed out her husband to regime security forces at a checkpoint leading into al-Hajar al-Aswad. The men put Hussein in a car and took him away to an unknown location.
Umm Malak, 36, has received no news of her husband since she learned he was taken.
“My feelings tell me that he is still alive,” she tells Syria Direct from the apartment in Amman that a charity pays for her and her daughters to live in. The family shares the apartment with another Syrian refugee—a widow.
“I’ve searched and searched for him, but come up with nothing,” says Umm Malak. Some people in her situation pay lawyers and regime officials for confirmation of whether detained loved ones are alive or dead, but she hasn’t done so.
“It costs a huge amount of money, and there is no guarantee that the answer I received would be true,” she says.
Umm Malak’s friends and acquaintances talk, whispering that after more than four years with no news, it is unlikely that her husband is still alive. But without proof one way or the other, she holds on to hope.
For friends and families, disappeared detainees exist in a space between life and death. Prolonged absence forces a difficult choice—assume loved ones to be dead and move on with life, or wait, perhaps for years, in the hope that they are still alive.
For many women—the wives of the disappeared and detained—that choice is particularly fraught. To divorce an absent spouse—even one presumed dead—and remarry can bring accusations of betrayal and abandonment from extended family, in-laws and society. To remain alone and wait may demonstrate loyalty, but also brings increased scrutiny and judgment from society as a single woman or female head of household.
An estimated 92,000 detainees are currently held by Syrian government forces as of this year, according to the UK-based violations monitor Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). Among them are more than 76,000 victims of enforced disappearance since March 2011, according to an August 2017 SNHR report.
Enforced disappearance, according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is the “arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or give information on the whereabouts of those persons.”
Since Syria is not a member state of the Rome Statute, the country is not within the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction.
What enforced disappearance means in Syria is that more than 76,000 people with lives and hopes and loved ones who were detained—at protests, at checkpoints, in their homes and on the street—have vanished.
The first news following a disappearance may take the form of a phone call from a prison official telling relatives that their loved one is dead, and asking them to come collect their identification documents.
Others eventually find them online, among the thousands of grim photos of the starved, beaten bodies of detainees smuggled out of Syria in 2014 by a military defector codenamed “Caesar.” Some look through the 28,000 grim images and still come up empty-handed, a bitter relief.
Many times, detainees who knew the person are released and give loved ones the news that their sister, brother, mother, son has died.
But thousands of others still do not know what has happened.
The “ongoing and daily agony” of these family members, according to an August 2016 SNHR report on detainee disappearances, is particularly deep for “wives, mothers and children who bear the greatest burden from an economic and social standpoint.”
Financially, this is because those who disappear may be the sole breadwinner for a family. Socially, the decision made by the wives of the missing to either wait—like Umm Malak—or divorce and remarry, is not just personal, but public, with social consequences.
“I have gone through a lot of suffering and condemnation from society,” says Umm Malak.
The experiences of two women who chose differently—Umm Malak, a single mother of three, and 24-year-old Naela Fayez, who obtained a divorce after hearing news of her husband’s death in prison and remarried—illustrate a few of those consequences.
Together, their stories illustrate some of the challenges faced by the wives of disappeared detainees, whichever path they take: to wait and hope, or divorce and remarry.
‘My right to keep living’
Naela Fayez knows her ex-husband Ali is dead, she says. Neither she nor any member of his family has seen his body—or any trace of him—since he was arrested in 2012 at a regime checkpoint in the south Damascus suburb of Babila.
Ali worked in construction and was on his way to work when he was detained and disappeared one morning, says Naela. He had attended local demonstrations against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
After her husband, the family’s sole breadwinner, went missing, Naela and her two young sons moved in with his relatives in Syria’s southern Daraa province. In 2014, with violence increasing and living conditions deteriorating in Syria, she fled with her sons to Jordan.
In 2015, Ali’s family in Daraa received a phone call from the al-Khateeb Branch of the Syrian regime’s State Security in Damascus. A voice told them to go to the branch and collect Ali’s documents. The family understood from this directive that he was dead, likely killed under torture. No one from the family risked going to collect the papers, fearing a trap.
Naela believes that Ali is dead, but with no body, no proof and no closure, his family refuses to accept that. Stories and rumors of detainees believed to be dead who return years later give them hope.
Even so, one year after that fateful phone call, and four years after her husband went missing, the now 30-year-old mother of two boys went to a sheikh in Jordan who gave her a ruling allowing her to remarry another Syrian—her cousin. She then did.
“In the end, I am a human being,” says Naela. “It is my right to keep living. I will not stay trapped and waiting.”
According to Islamic religious law, which governs the marriages of Sunni Muslims including Naela and Umm Malak, a wife may be granted a divorce if her husband is missing and presumed dead for between two and four years, depending on the school of thought.
The question of how and when a wife may divorce an absent, presumed-dead husband and perhaps remarry is becoming increasingly important as the war continues and the fates of tens of thousands of missing Syrians remain unknown.
In September 2017, the opposition Syrian Islamic Council, based in Turkey, issued a religious ruling defining procedures for separations and divorces for the wives of husbands who have been missing for a prolonged period.
The fatwa clarified that a woman may ask the court to issue a ruling as to the missing spouse’s death or absence and that she may remarry afterwards. However, should the missing husband return, any marriage in his absence would be annulled.
“If the husband is missing and nothing is known of his whereabouts, as in the case of a detainee, and he is thought most likely to be dead, then the wife must wait four years, then another four-month waiting period,” Abu Bakr, a religious judge in opposition-held Syria told Syria Direct earlier this year. “She may then remarry, without needing the permission of the court.”
The pro-regime newspaper Al-Watan reported this past January that some 4,000 requests for separation or divorce had been registered in the state Sharia Court by wives of missing husbands in 2016.
But although Naela’s second marriage was religiously and legally permissible, her ex-husband’s family accused her of disloyalty.
“They attacked me, accused me of betraying him,” she says. “They completely reject my new marriage.”
Prolonged conflict with her former in-laws about her remarriage and what would happen to the children—under Islamic law they were to stay with her, but the family wanted them—sparked problems with Naela’s new husband. Ultimately, he refused to raise her children.
In the end, Naela sent her children to live with their father’s family in Daraa and shortly afterward moved to Egypt with her new husband.
“My heart burns without my children,” she says.
‘No matter how long his absence’
Umm Malak says she will wait as long as it takes for her husband to return. If Hussein is still alive, he is now 36 years old.
“I will wait for my husband no matter how long his absence,” says Umm Malak. “I won’t accept raising my daughters with any man but him. I will not divorce him and become another executioner, while he is suffering terribly under torture.”
But although Umm Malak has not chosen to remarry, she still says she faces intense social pressures and scrutiny.
As a single mother, Umm Malak says she is under a microscope, with community members scrutinizing every choice she makes. As the wife of a disappeared detainee, she is held to a high standard, any change in her life bringing “looks of suspicion and mistrust.”
“I am seen as a broken person, easily taken advantage of,” says Umm Malak, “especially by men.”
Fadel Abdul Ghany, the chairman of SNHR, emphasized the social impact of enforced disappearances on those left behind in the monitor’s August 2017 report.
“The mental, physical and emotional toll [that disappearance cases] have on the victims and their families make this crime a form of collective punishment against the community,” wrote Fadel Abdul Ghany.
As the years drag on, life continues. In Egypt, Naela lives with her new husband. In Jordan, Umm Malak raises her daughters as best she can under the gaze of prying, judging eyes.
Hanging over it all, Hussein’s absence is a deafening silence, an unfinished story about a country on fire and a man who left home to free his birds and disappeared into a void.
“My life is a prison of waiting,” she says.”
[This article was originally published by Syria Direct.]
بواسطة Aron Lund | أكتوبر 10, 2017 | غير مصنف
“After months of speculation, Turkey has launched an intervention – with the help of rebels it supports – in northwestern Syria. But what exactly is Turkey hoping to do, and how will the jihadis who control the province react, not to mention the civilians who have taken shelter there?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to step into Idlib follows a mid-September agreement with Russia and Iran, as part of the Astana peace process, to turn Idlib into a “de-escalation zone”, instituting a renewable six-month ceasefire policed by Turkish, Russian, and Iranian military observers.
According to the deal reached in the latest Astana meeting, Russian and Iranian troops will deploy in regions controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey will be responsible for the interior of the enclave, reportedly by eventually deploying around 500 monitors across the region.
Turkey has barely begun to put its own boots on the ground in its bid to enforce the agreement, which notably did not include the main rebel group in Idlib: the al-Qaeda offshoot Tahrir al-Sham, previously known as the Nusra Front. Instead, it is massing tanks on the border with Syria and throwing its weight behind non-jihadi factions, collectively known as the Free Syrian Army.
Even as the deal comes into force, the Astana nations view Syria very differently – Russia and Iran support al-Assad, while Turkey backs rebels fighting his regime. But they each have something to gain from a long-term ceasefire in Idlib, even if that quiet is first brought about by violence.
What do the Astana nations want?
For Turkey, the Astana process represents a least-bad option. Russia’s September 2015 entrance into the long Syrian war on the side of al-Assad changed the rules of the game. It became clear to Erdogan that the Syrian president would remain in power, at least in some fashion, and Turkey would now have to strike deals with Russia to protect its interests.
Those interests will sound familiar to anyone who has been following events in neighbouring northern Iraq. “Turkey’s priorities in Syria are – as they always have been – to prevent a Kurdish corridor and Kurdish self-rule next to its borders,” the Turkish Middle East expert and journalist Cengiz Çandar told IRIN last month.
The desire to keep Kurdish fighters away from its border, combined with American military support for the same Kurdish groups fighting so-called Islamic State in Syria, made it expedient for Turkey to draw closer to Russia and Iran, Çandar explained.
Astana, with its deal to transform Idlib into a de-escalation zone, marked a major shift in Turkey’s Syria policy. It is, as Çandar puts it, “the last link in the chain in which Turkey placed itself more under the Russian umbrella.”
Erdogan-friendly Turkish media ties the expected Idlib intervention to the Kurdish-controlled Afrin region just north of Idlib, suggesting that Ankara’s long-term plan is to trade services with Moscow and Damascus: We pacify Idlib, you let us deal with the Kurds.
What Russia and Iran are hoping to achieve is less obvious, but by drawing Turkey into talks over issues other than regime change at Astana, they have reduced pressure on the Syrian government and allowed al-Assad to refocus his military attention on eastern Syria, where his troops recently broke a long siege by the so-called Islamic State on Deir Ezzor.
A Turkish intervention could also drive a wedge between Syria’s rebels, some of whom are firmly in Erdogan’s camp while others view Turkey’s emerging pact with Russia with great suspicion. And for Moscow, making a NATO member state like Turkey dependent on Russian goodwill has only upsides.
For its part, al-Assad’s government seems uncomfortable with the de-escalation zones drawn up in Astana, worrying that rebel-ruled territories may eventually gain international legitimacy and permanence. But Damascus doesn’t have a whole lot of options, and the Syrian Foreign Ministry also finds much to like in the latest deal, which it portrays as a way “to restore life to the old Damascus-Hama-Aleppo road.”
Reopening that road, known as the M5 Highway, would greatly assist in restoring normality and stability to government-ruled western Syria, as al-Assad tries to shift the focus to reconstruction. An increased flow of goods along the M5 might also help him tickle Jordan into reopening its own border with Syria.
The Tahrir al-Sham problem
There remains a slight problem, however: Idlib is full of rebels, not to mention civilians who have been displaced, often forcibly, from elsewhere in the country.
To deploy there, Turkey must either negotiate with the dominant local force – namely Tahrir al-Sham – or fight its way in. And that could get bloody.
Turkey has long exerted influence over Idlib by regulating the border traffic and supporting a variety of rebel groups. But, in the months preceding the Astana deal, pro-Turkish factions in Idlib were decimated by Tahrir al-Sham, which opposes the Astana process and accuses rebels who support it of doing Russia’s bidding.
The jihadi power grab ruined any hopes for a negotiated solution to the war in northern Syria, setting Idlib on the path to international ostracism and military re-conquest. Turkey worries that if al-Assad someday tries to retake the area militarily, it will send hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing its way.
Tahrir al-Sham’s growing dominance is also raising concerns among aid organisations and Western donor states, who fear they could be empowering anti-Western extremists. But cutting off aid deliveries to Idlib would trigger an instant humanitarian disaster.
As one of the last accessible refuges for Syrians wanted by al-Assad’s government, Idlib has received more than half a million internally displaced persons (IDPs) from outside the province in the last two years alone, according to UN statistics. Linda Tom, a Damascus-based spokesperson for the UN’s emergency aid coordination body, OCHA, told IRIN Idlib is now thought to hold some two million civilians, of whom “a substantial portion are internally displaced, many more than once.” The humanitarian situation is dire: three in four depend on foreign-funded assistance.
“People here are really afraid of the future,” Rajaai Bourhan told IRIN in August. A journalist and activist forced to leave his hometown of Madaya in April, Bourhan has now spent half a year in Idlib, watching as the situation grows increasingly tense. “Many families can’t afford food in Idlib, and aid is a major part of their income,” he said. “I’ve been hearing people talking about Europe cutting the aid and talking about another Gaza Strip situation… people are worried.”
Turkey’s mismatched allies
Since the Tahrir al-Sham takeover of Idlib, Turkey has supported plans to form a new rebel leadership, hoping to shift the balance back in favour of non-jihadi, Turkey-friendly Free Syrian Army factions.
Since these groups can no longer operate freely in much of Idlib, Turkey will be drawing on allies from the Aleppo region for this latest move.
Aleppo was the site of a previous Turkish-led intervention in summer 2016 known as “Euphrates Shield”. Ankara has for months been prodding the Euphrates Shield rebels to unite, culminating in their 25 September announcement of a new local leadership headed by Turkish clients. That force will now form the tip of Turkey’s spear in Idlib, with some factions already en route from Aleppo to the province, through Turkish territory.
“The FSA [Free Syrian Army] is currently carrying out the operation and our soldiers are not there,” Erdogan said on Saturday, adding that air support for the operation will come from Russia.
The promise of Russian power from above hasn’t gone down well with the Syrian opposition. The Russian Air Force is certainly a very capable ally, but it has spent the past two years bombing Idlib on al-Assad’s behalf, with little concern for civilian life. According to UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator Panos Moumtzis, Russian and Syrian bombing killed 149 civilians in Idlib between 19 and 30 September, most of them women and children.
The Syrian rebels view Moscow and Damascus as birds of a feather and most are shocked at the idea of seeking support from Russia. Tahrir al-Sham warned as recently as last month that rebels involved with the Astana process would end up fighting under Russian air cover – what then seemed like jihadi hyperbole has now become official policy. Erdogan may think he has made a clever deal, but his Syrian allies are mortified.
Preparing for mass displacement
If the Turkish intervention triggers large-scale fighting with Tahrir al-Sham, or some faction of the group, it could have severe consequences for civilians and for the delivery of humanitarian aid into Idlib, says OCHA’s Tom, noting that the border area hosts a large number of vulnerable IDP settlements.
“The UN calls on all parties to the conflict to warrant permanent and unhindered access by all humanitarian actors,” she said.
Preparing for the worst, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) and the Turkish Red Crescent are reportedly planning new tent camps along the border inside Syrian territory, and preparing to transfer civilians to the Aleppo region if the number of IDPs grows too large to handle.
However, there’s still a chance the Turkish intervention will be a relatively quiet one.
How will Tahrir al-Sham react?
The Turkish government has made no secret of the fact it hopes to avoid fighting in this intervention altogether, presenting its entrance as a way to support the Astana ceasefire rather than as an attack on the jihadis.
To that end, although Turkish artillery fired into Idlib on Sunday, Turkish military vehicles were also seen travelling under Tahrir al-Sham guard to negotiate with them.
In trying to persuade Tahrir al-Sham to let military observers through, Turkey will likely downplay the ramifications of its deployment and seek tacit approval for a strictly limited operation. But Tahrir al-Sham will need to consider the long-term threat posed by a Turkish presence that would breathe new life into the rival rebel groups it crushed this summer. Many jihadi hardliners also oppose cooperation with Turkey on religious grounds, accusing Erdogan’s government of being secular and friendly to the United States and Russia.
Tellingly, Tahrir al-Sham has so far phrased its response to Erdogan exclusively in terms of resistance to Russia and al-Assad. A statement issued over the weekend studiously avoided any mention of Turkey, even though the intervention would be run by the Turkish army, and instead launched a furious attack on the Euphrates Shield groups and rebels willing to work under Russian air cover.
“The factions of treachery that have taken a stand with the Russian occupier must know that Idlib will be no picnic for them, and that the lions of jihad and martyrdom lie in wait for them,” Tahrir al-Sham warned. “He who wishes to deprive his mother of a son, his children of a father, and his wife of a husband, let him set foot here.”
With negotiations apparently still under way, it’s hard to read the tea leaves. Tahrir al-Sham could take up arms against Turkey and its rebel allies, or it could merely be sabre-rattling to keep the group united and wring additional concessions from Erdogan. The answer matters greatly to Syria’s rebels, the jihadis, and to Ankara, Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus, but it will matter most to the two million civilians who remain trapped in northwestern Syria. For many of them, it’s a question of life and death.”
[This article was originally published by IRIN.]
