Normalizing Assad Is Dangerous Not Just for Syrians

 

 Marwan Safar Jalani:

 'Less than 10 years ago, the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister, Abdullah Bin Zayed, spoke up against the régime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for massacring civilians.


 In November, he hugged him.

 The embrace — on the first visit of an Emirati official to Damascus since the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution — felt like a blessing of the al-Assad régime’s atrocities and a stab in the back for those of us who suffered war and displacement.

 Though many of us Syrians watched the hug with a sense of betrayal, we were not surprised: It’s just the latest in a wave of international moves to rehabilitate relations with the al-Assad régime.

 In June, the World Health Organization appointed Syria to its executive board. Interpol readmitted Syria to its network in October. Algeria and Egypt have pushed to reinvite Syria to Arab League membership, and other Arab nations have gestured toward a rapprochement with Mr. al-Assad. And throughout, Mr. al-Assad’s relationships with Iran and Russia appear to have deepened.



 These international bodies and nations appear to have either forgiven, forgotten or chosen to ignore the reasons Syria was cast out from their community. But in doing so, they normalize the atrocities committed by or on behalf of Mr. al-Assad’s régime and risk emboldening other leaders to act without fear of major censure or retribution — as we are seeing with the case of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

 By dangerously conferring legitimacy back to a régime that the United Nations in 2013 linked to war crimes and crimes against humanity against its own people, the international community is shattering the norms and customs that hold our world together. Western and Arab powers must keep the al-Assad régime in isolation and pressure any nations and organizations wavering on that commitment to do the same.

 We are a long way from where this started. For at least a short period, the world had seemed to be on our side.

 I was 13 when protests erupted in our eastern Damascus neighborhood of Al-Qaboun, back in 2011. I remember feeling hopeful watching Syrians call for a country free of the al-Assad family, which had ruled us for 40 years. When the régime violently cracked down on protesters, countries severed ties with Mr. al-Assad and froze his régime’s assets abroad. The Arab League suspended Syria from its membership.

 But it soon became clear that Mr. al-Assad was willing to do anything to stay in power. Little was done to stop him beyond imposing sanctions and selectively arming rebels.



 My neighborhood, Al-Qaboun, experienced heavy fighting between rebel forces and government troops in mid-2012. Government helicopters dropped bombs nearby, reducing buildings and our reality to rubble. We feared our house would be next.

 After surviving a two-month-long siege, my family and I left the country. We packed our memories in suitcases, dragging them on the broken asphalt past the fresh bullet holes on the walls of our neighborhood. A year later, the government was reportedly dropping rockets containing chemical warheads on suburbs of Damascus, including Jobar — just a few miles from our home.

 Back then, I felt betrayed by the al-Assad family, who we’d long been told was Syria’s protector. Now, nine years after fleeing my home, I feel betrayed by an international community that is inviting Mr. al-Assad back into its fold.

 Normalization, though, has implications far beyond the borders of Syria. It reshapes and rewrites international standards of how state actors may treat their citizens.

 Accountability mechanisms like special courts and norms around punishing crimes against humanity were ushered in after World War II through the 1945 signing of the London Charter, the Nuremberg Trials and the special tribunals of Rwanda and Yugoslavia. They were put in place to prevent another mass murder of civilians, to show dictators and war criminals that they cannot get away with atrocities or use state armies to lethally and systematically suppress dissent.

 Yet what has happened in Syria exposed the deep contradictions and flaws within the international human rights system.

 There is ample evidence that the al-Assad régime committed egregious crimes, most notably the use of chemical weapons. That act alone requires the international community to intervene, following the United Nations’ principle of the responsibility to protect. But Russia’s and China’s veto powers on the United Nations Security Council have prevented the U.N. from intervening to save Syrians under bombardment or end the bloodshed in Syria.



 The recent moves by the U.A.E. and others to normalize relations with Syria go even further. They show that with the passage of time, dictators will be embraced again if it suits countries’ national interests.

 Arab nations might be embracing Mr. al-Assad for a number of reasons. It could be an attempt to counter Iran’s economic and political influence in the region. Or they see him as a lesser evil when faced with Islamist militant groups like ISIS. Or U.S. hesitance to unequivocally support its authoritarian allies is pushing Gulf countries to seek common ground with other powers like pro-Assad Russia. Or they’ve decided the potential economic opportunities — like investing in Syria’s reconstruction projects — are too great to forgo.

 But the costs of legitimizing an accused war criminal are much higher than any far-fetched economic or political benefits.

 A régime that has been known to bomb hospitals cannot be a member of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization. A régime that tortures and tracks its dissidents at home and abroad through intelligence services must not regain access to Interpol’s databases.

 Mr. al-Assad’s régime has not shown a willingness to change. This month, in the world’s first trial prosecuting state-sponsored torture in Syria, a German court convicted a former Syrian intelligence officer of crimes against humanity. The régime continues to be accused of human rights violations — including against Syrians returning to the country.

 International bodies must not give Mr. al-Assad something for nothing. They must pressure him to stop human rights abuses. They must develop and apply mechanisms, like the principle of “universal jurisdiction” — as Germany recently did in the landmark case — to seek some measure of justice.

 The United States, France and Britain stress that they are against normalizing Mr. al-Assad, but shy away from urging allies and international organizations not to do so. This issue should be high on — if not at the top — of their foreign policy agenda, because the rehabilitation of Mr. al-Assad poses a direct threat to the post-World War II order — which already faces challenges on other fronts, like with recent Russia-Ukraine tensions. This issue is an easy one to take a stand on. Syria is not a nuclear power or the regional power it once was. Nor is it a major energy supplier. Standing firm against his rehabilitation does not cost much.



 If governments and international organizations normalize relations with the al-Assad régime, Syria’s story risks replicating elsewhere and the ruins of Al-Qaboun risk becoming our new norm.'

Assad at the head of captagon trafficking in the Middle East

 

 Jean-Pierre Filiu:

 'Crimes against humanity, war crimes, organized massacres, systematic rapes, campaigns of enforced disappearances, expulsion of entire populations, the list is long of the crimes already attributed to Bashar al-Assad. Convinced of his impunity, the Syrian dictator has now added the offence of massive production and aggressive marketing of narcotics. The Syrian territory under the control of the Assad régime has indeed become the main production area for captagon, an amphetamine for which Saudi Arabia is the world's largest market. It is then the networks affiliated with the Assad régime which, especially from Lebanon, are responsible for transporting shipments of this drug to the Arabian Peninsula.

 When Hafez al-Assad sent his army to occupy a good part of Lebanon in 1976, he wasted no time in taking his tithe on the already flourishing hashish in the Lebanese plain of Bekaa, then he encouraged the development of poppy cultivation there. Laboratories for transforming locally produced opium into heroin are set up under the control of the occupying Syrian army. The barons of the Assad régime who manage this traffic with great profit recruit for this purpose in Syria bands of gangsters, nicknamed shabbiha, the "ghosts". General Ali Douba, head of military intelligence, is at the head of this de facto cartel, before being marginalized by Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez, in 2000, as absolute master of Syria. The withdrawal of the Syrian contingent from Lebanon in 2005, under popular pressure, completed the closure of this first mafia cycle of the Syrian dictatorship.

 A second cycle began a few years ago, this time in Syrian territory under the control of the Assad régime. The supply has in this case adjusted to the very strong demand for captagon in Saudi Arabia, where the popularity of this amphetamine is undeniable. This synthetic dopant, initially based on fenetylline, is referred to as the “Father of the Two Crescents” ( Abou al-hilâlayn ), because of the two crossed Cs which constitute its trademark. The descent into Syria's militia hell was accompanied by the flowering of local captagon manufacturing workshops, first to supply the fighters with artificial stimulants, then to ensure a source of foreign currency for the local forces. It is in this context that Daesh jihadists have developed their own manufacture of captagon, smuggled either to Turkey or to pro-Assad areas. But the territorial reconquest of the Assad régime, with the major help of the Russian air force and, on the ground, of the pro-Iranian militias, poses it today as the undisputed leader of the captagon on a regional scale.



 The international sanctions affecting the Assad régime have pushed it to a proactive policy of production and marketing of captagon. Operational responsibility lies with the president's younger brother, General Maher al-Assad, head of the Fourth Division, the régime's praetorian guard, already involved in numerous killings and abuses. The captagon production workshops are protected by Syrian soldiers in uniform, even installed in a military zone with restricted access. The tight network of Fourth Division roadblocks throughout the territory under the control of the Assad régime allows the smooth circulation of cargoes of amphetamine. An investigation published last month by the “New York Times”designates two notorious war profiteers as the main “civilian” relays of such trafficking: one, Amer Khiti, was rewarded for his loyal services with a seat as a deputy during the legislative “elections” of July 2020; the other, Khodr Taher, has, in the same spirit, been decorated by President Assad with the Order of Merit.

 This mafia reconversion has enabled Bashar al-Assad, firmly supported by his brother Maher, to manage the tensions which have recently shaken the ruling circle, with the ambitions displayed by the "first lady", Asma al-Assad, and the unprecedented revolt of Ibrahim Makhlouf , cousin of the Head of State. The already close ties between the Syrian dictatorship and the Lebanese Hezbollah have been further strengthened by the need to export captagon from Lebanon to Saudi Arabia. The latter, exasperated by the growing number of seizures of amphetamine, camouflaged in fruits and vegetables from Lebanon, decided, last April, an embargo on agricultural imports from this country. The Syrian régime then fell back on the Jordanian border which, as soon as it reopened in August 2021, was the scene of attempts to infiltrate major captagon shipments. A drone loaded with amphetamines was even shot down as it left Syrian territory. And, last Sunday, a Jordanian officer was killed in a clash with Syrian traffickers. Jordanian authorities estimate that a fifth of the drugs destined for Saudi Arabia could be consumed in Jordan during transit, a catastrophic prospect for a country hitherto spared from narcotics.

 It would obviously take more to dissuade the Assad régime from pursuing, or even intensifying, such a lucrative traffic. The Syrian despot can in any case boast of having transformed his country into the first narco-state worthy of the name in the Middle East.'

The exiled sculptor of 'all that is no longer there' in Syria

 

 'A Syrian neighbourhood targeted by régime bombing lies in ruins, with bodies and broken toys poking out of the rubble; tall, grey buildings are reduced to crumbling, empty shells, their walls blown away or pockmarked by the blast.

 The scene, captured in devastating detail, has been created by artist Khaled Dawwa, a Syrian exile and prison survivor who now works in France.

 In his colossal work entitled "Here is my heart!", Dawwa is still battling oppression, urging viewers "not to forget the revolution by the Syrian people and all their sacrifices".

 "When I'm working on this piece in my studio, I'm in Damascus. I do everything I can here, while not being there...," the 36-year-old says.

Deeply scarred by the years of repressive rule and violent crackdowns and the loss of friends killed, missing or imprisoned, Dawwa's work is both an act of revolt and memory, targeting "the international community's inaction against dictatorial régimes" in Syria and elsewhere.

 "In the face of the disaster that is happening in Syria, I feel a responsibility because I have the tools to express myself," he says.

 Among several of his massive installations -- including one in bronze -- being exhibited for the first time this year in France, "Here is my heart!" has been on display in Paris and soon transfers to a big national museum.

 Dawwa began the piece in 2018, as régime forces retook the rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta, on Damascus' outskirts.

 At nearly six metres (nearly 20 feet) long and more than two metres high, it is imposing.

 Using polystyrene, earth, glue and wood, covered in clay, he details the destruction inside and out -- the shattered doors, blown-away balconies, right down to the overturned chairs.

 In the debris, crunched-up bicycles and the wreckage of a bus can be seen -- but also the bodies of a child lying next to his ball and of an old woman.

 "My battle was to not abandon the project, otherwise it was as if we were giving up hope," he says.

 It was during that period he came to understand the impact his sculptures could have.

 Posting a photo of his work on Facebook, he was surprised to see it shared hundreds of times.

 Although risky, he continued to create and post pictures, but then destroyed the sculptures "in order to leave no trace", he says.

 Then, in May 2013, he was seriously wounded in his studio by shrapnel and, on leaving hospital, jailed, spending two months in various prisons.

 "There were thousands of people. Every day, at least 10 would die," he says. "Their bodies would stay for two days next to us, no one removed them from the cell... on purpose."

 Of the horror of the experience which still gives him nightmares, he says: "They broke the memories in my head."

 After his release, he was forced into the army but escaped beforehand, fleeing to Lebanon, then to France in 2014 where he was granted refugee status.

 His street-scene artwork, he says, is an attempt to convey "all that is no longer there; families, memories".

 The Syria conflict, which broke out in 2011, has killed close to half a million people and spurred the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II.

 Veronique Pieyre de Mandiargues, a founding member of France's Portes Ouvertes Sur l'Art association, which supports artists in exile, said Dawwa "wanted to create a fixed image of what was happening in Syria so that it remains in our memories".

 Lifting her hand to her heart, Syrian psychoanalyst Rana Alssayah, 54, also a France-based refugee, expresses her emotions on first seeing the piece.

 "The magnitude of the destruction that Khaled has recreated, it's so real... I couldn't look at all the details inside the buildings, it was too hard."

 Through this work, "he is saying the sorrow and pain that we can't talk about, he has rebuilt our history." '