Onrust in Syri� #4 - Waar het momentum groeit

quote:

Syrian Revolution News Round-up - Day 39: Good Friday

Bloodshed & Watershed!

Will the tragic bloodshed that took place in Syria on Good Friday usher in a watershed moment in the international communitys handling of the situation? This is what many Syrians hope for in order to prevent further escalation of violence on parts of the authorities.

With death toll of over 100 in the span of few hours, this was by far the bloodiest day in the Syrian Revolution, so far. The story gets more tragic when we take under consideration that we are not talking about a violent conflict here in which both sides are heavily armed, but one that pits unarmed civilians chanting for freedom against thugs armed with electric batons and Kalashnikovs and snipers with orders to shoot to kill. As the world watched, Good Friday in Syria turned into an open season on protesters dreaming of freedom. But if the Assads were hoping that this will serve to intimidate the protesters or help contain their movement, they dont have long to wait before they learn how wrong they are. For the thirst for freedom is no less irrational than that for blood.

While protests broke out in almost every major city, town and suburb in Syria, violence, for the most part, was restricted to certain Damascene suburbs and neighborhoods as well as Deraa and Homs. But while in Deraa the intention seems to have been to punish the people who started it all, in Homs and Damascus, the thinking was to prevent, by any means necessary, an attempt at marching towards and occupying the main squares.

Still, today, and for the first time since the beginning of the Syrian Revolution, Damascus itself witnessed major protests (3,000-4,000 participants) that took place in some of its more traditional neighborhoods, Al-Midan and Al-Qadam, in a development that might have wider repercussions over the next few days.

The main demand of protesters everywhere has become regime change. It will be foolish to believe that after todays bloodbath, protesters would settle for any scenario that will keep Bashar in power. Whether he is losing control of his security apparatuses, as some still claim, or not, ultimately, he is the one responsible, and he is deeply and widely believed by the protesters on the basis of his performance during this crisis to be part of the problem, if not its very embodiment.

Three items in particular deserve to be highlighted today: 1) the use of tanks to besiege the suburbs of Mouaddamiyyah and Darayyah near Damascus, 2) the prevalence of elderly security officers in the streets, which denote that the Assads are relying heavily on the reserves, perhaps as a reflection of their inability to trust all available army units in this crackdown, and 3) the use of explosive bullets to kill as evident in the type of wounds made.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 april 2011 20:40 schreef Hans_van_Baalen het volgende:
De hypocrisie dat westerse staten dit soort praktijken aan de macht hebben geholpen, maakt het met de dag moeilijker voor ze een standpunt hierover in te nemen.

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 11:41 schreef Chooselife het volgende:
Het zal de Iran-koers varen. Ineens horen we er niets meer van.

Isra�l wil ook niet dat dit escaleert, want dan komen zij ook in (enorme) onzekerheid terecht. Assad is een stabiele factor. Dat is van (bijna) levensbelang.

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 11:41 schreef Chooselife het volgende:
Het zal de Iran-koers varen. Ineens horen we er niets meer van.

Isra�l wil ook niet dat dit escaleert, want dan komen zij ook in (enorme) onzekerheid terecht. Assad is een stabiele factor. Dat is van (bijna) levensbelang.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 april 2011 18:34 schreef Monidique het volgende:

[..]

http://twitter.com/#!/CalPerryAJ

Hier gaan we nog meer over horen, heb ik het idee...

quote:

My grumpy attitude, Abdel (the driver) and I were approaching the city of Izraa when something immediately clearly horrible was unfolding down the road directly in front of us. People, mostly truck drivers, were standing on the highway ... yelling at the cars approaching – telling them to pull over. Screaming and waving widely. I saw one making signs with his hands. He was mimicking the motion of a machine gun firing. I got my bearings, noticing right away two road signs: one pointing to the right that read "Izraa: 1km" and the other pointing to the left that read "Daraa".

It dawned on me at that moment that I had been here before. We were just outside the "kill zone" I had seen weeks earlier on the outskirts of Daraa.

About 50 metres from where we pulled over was an overpass that connected Daraa to Izraa. I could see clearly a crowd of people marching from my left to my right over the bridge.

Suddenly gunfire rained into the crowd. The truck drivers dove for cover. And, for what seemed like an eternity, I sat there in the car, stunned and frozen. People were falling on top of each other, being cut down like weeds in a field by what I think must have been a mix of both small arms fire and machine gun fire. I saw at least two children shot. They fell immediately. People were screaming. Gunfire rattled on.

Two cars tried to gun it under the overpass and continue down the highway, even with the gunfire continuing to cut people up. One of the cars got hit immediately before it passed under the bridge and ended up slamming into the embankment on the right side of the road. Someone fell out of the passenger side and scrambled under the bridge and crawled into a ball ... just hoping for survival, I suppose.

I've been playing it through over and over again in my head for the past 16 hours and I still do not know where the gunfire was coming from. It seemed to be coming from a field that lay off to my right – on the Izraa side of the bridge. I could see some muzzle flashes, but I've never in my life seen people walking, and just shot at indiscriminately.

I could not take my eyes off what was quickly becoming carnage. One of the last things I remember seeing clearly were people lying flat on the road, taking cover behind those who had already been wounded or shot dead ... lying in what must have been pools of blood to avoid a hail of flying hot hell.

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 14:46 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Assad mag een stabiele factor zijn maar die instabiliteit hoeft echt niet over te slaan naar Isra�l. Die Golanhoogten hebben ze om een reden gehouden.

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 15:16 schreef Djaser het volgende:

[..]

De haat jegens Isra�l om de Golan zit zo diep bij de Syri�rs dat een eventuele wisseling van macht behoorlijk negatief voor de stabiliteit in de regio uit kan pakken.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 april 2011 18:41 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Was dit filmpje al gepost, waarin CLF's vrienden vele mensen neermaaien, waaronder een kind, van wie vrij duidelijk de hersenen is weggeschoten, zo nee, bij deze: http://azarmehr.blogspot.com/2011/04/killing-fields-of-syria.html, zo ja: wel, het kan nooit te vaak zijn. Behoorlijk bloederig, niet voor de zwakke maag (het gaat dan om dingen als: een man bij wie je het bloed ziet wegstromen en dus ziet sterven, een kind met een opengeschoten hoofd, een man -levend- zonder onderkaak).

Het patroon is zoals bij de andere landen: of er moet brute repressie worden gebruikt, of het regime valt. Ik denk, en hoop, dat laatste.

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 20:31 schreef abdalfawaz het volgende:

Een van de heftigste live-beelden die ik ooit gezien heb, veel te heftig voor mij in ieder geval Helaas is het de harde realiteit

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 20:47 schreef rakotto het volgende:
En de Iraneze zender Al Alam is weer bezig met smerige propoganda alsof er niets aan de hand is.

quote:

Syrian Revolution News Round-up - Day 40: Saturday, 23 April 2011

Backlash to Bloodshed!

Crackdown paves way for more consolidation of the protest movement.

Official death toll for Friday, April 22 is 112: Homs & Suburbs (27), Damascus & Suburbs (47), Deraa & Suburbs (32), Hama City (5), Lattakia (1). Today 12 more were killed, 5 in Deraas Izraa, rest in Damascus & Suburbs. Moreover, two new members in the Peoples Assembly representing Deraa have resigned, so did the Mufti of Deraa.

Assad security forces killed eight more people today, perhaps by way of underscoring the official and intentional character of the Good Friday Massacres that left 112 civilians dead. While international reactions remain subdued and have been restricted to mere condemnations of the escalating violence on part of the Assads with no mention of any potential international repercussions or consequences, and as the Arab World watches on silently, the protesters continue to get more organized.

Yesterday, and before the Assads unleashed their fury on the unarmed protesters a statement was released signed by the various local committees running the protests movements all over the country. The detailed list of demands included comes as an accurate reflection of the online conversations weve been having with in-country activists for the past weeks.

Most activists would now push for the inclusion of a clear call for the immediate resignation of Bashar Al-Assad. The next logical step will be to announce the formation of a committee that can officially speak for the revolution. It is also important to see future protests raising banners and slogans endorsing the demands made by the committees.

Meanwhile, the challenge for Syrian security today was to manage the funerals in a manner that will prevent holding mass funerals. In this, they relied on the usual tactics of hiding corpses and laying siege to known hotspots and flashpoints. While, the strategy seemed to work by minimizing the number of protesters in the streets, the flipside, especially with more protesters getting killed today, is that there will be funerals for everyday of the weeks now paving the way to next Friday.

In Deraa City, security forces looted electronic and jewelry stores, behaving very much like an occupation force, thus cementing the way they are being viewed by the local residents. Tyrants as occupiers is an old theme, but one that is playing out all too visibly throughout the streets of Syria today.

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 21:32 schreef RedFever007 het volgende:
benieuwd of de NAVO/VS/Europa nu ook gaat ingrijpen

quote:

Op zondag 24 april 2011 23:07 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Ik denk niet dat het slim is om nu elk land waar protesten plaatsvinden te gaan bombarderen.

quote:

Syrian security forces storm, gunmen loyal to Assad, Damascus suburb of Douma firing randomly at civilians