Erstellt am: 8. 2. 2016 - 16:24 Uhr

The Death Trip - Part 3

Assad calling the ghosts of war and the tale of the two Colonels

Bode37 ist im Sommer 2014 aus Syrien geflohen, wo er als Lehrer gearbeitet hat. Für uns erzählt er von seiner Flucht und den Gründen des Kriegs. Hier der dritte Teil seiner Erinnerungen. Er heißt natürlich nicht wirklich so; aus Sicherheitsgründen bevorzugt er für seine Geschichte ein Pseudonym.

Memories haunting Bode37 - Part 3

Syria had been in peace for a long time. 2011 will be remembered as the year the horrible events began to unfold, when the transformation of Syria´s history started.
We heard the revolutionary calls for freedom from Tunisia and Egypt but nobody in Syria at this point thought about taking it to the streets.
Evil and corruption were rooted in the government but we learned how to deal with it and we were hoping for a renovation process from within the apparatus.
On the 9th of March 2011 these hopes where shattered. Daraa is a big city in the south of Syria bordering with Jordan. In 2004, when the last census took place, it housed 100 000 people. A man called Atef Najeeb, the cousin of Syria’s president Assad, was the political security chief in Daara, and his cruelty sparked the destruction of Syria. Atef Najeeb arrested 15 children for writing the word “freedom” on the walls of their school. He threw the kids in jail for one month where they suffered the unspeakable horrors of torture. Their faces were burnt and their nails were plucked. After the release the relatives saw the scars and the visible marks of torture and started protesting in front of Atef´s office.

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Atef told the families that what he had done to the children, is nothing compared to what he will do to them.
If the families don´t teach their children respect for the government he will have the mothers raped in front of their eyes.
On the 20th of March 2011 the first demonstration against Atef took place in Daraa. The people demanded justice and were met by police firing at them.
This was the spark that ignited the fire of anger. All over Syria people protested in solidarity with the mothers and fathers of the Daara children.

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I joined a big demonstration in Latakia demanding from the president to punish Atef and the policemen killing the protestors in Daraa. Nobody was calling for a change of regime that day. We were waiting for the president to publicly address the events of Daara and to meet the demands of his citizens.
When Assad finally addressed the public, he made strange statements. He was talking about war and not about his cousin´s crimes. He was saying if the people wanted war, he is ready to go to war. He talked about conspiracy and how we have been set up by Israel and the US. Foreign enemies were instrumentalizing us, the people of Syria.
Wait a moment Assad, Mr. President, which war are you talking about? Which conspiracies are you addressing? We are manipulated because we demand justice and an end of corruption?
Atef is related to the president, so you can imagine why he made a speech like this. A clear sign that power and blood weighs more than law and justice.

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Demonstrations in every city followed and many people were killed on the streets. Armed soldiers and tanks patrolled on the streets of Daara. At this point in history more and more officers left the army, refusing to kill innocents without a just cause. They regrouped as the Free Syrian Army to protect the people at the demonstrations.
After this split weakening the forces of the government the dirty game started. Money, arms and manpower were receiving from outside the country to support either the Free Army or the government groups and the formatting rebel fractions: Al Nossrah, National Defense, Islamic Radical Forces, Hizb Allah, Shia groups from Iraq, soldiers from Iran and finally the IS. The ghost of war Assad called for came to life. A call for justice had turned into a representative war between Turkey, Iran, Russia, USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and Europe. No one was interested in the good of the Syrian people. All the nations efforts were fueled by the desire for territorial control and of course oil.
They call this war an ethnic war between Suni and Shia. Although, people were living peacefully together in Syria before the war started. War has changed the life in and the face of the country. Military checkpoints started to appear everywhere; the sounds of gunfire and bombs became present. Instead of birds, army aircrafts were flying in the sky. Barrels of explosive and chemical weapons were stocked. Hunger, hatred and anger sparked everywhere, killings in the name of homeland, religion, freedom, the war against terror. The names are not important because they are empty shells all contributing to the river of blood flowing in my country.
War is everywhere in Syria. The frontlines are 60 kilometers from my hometown Latakia. We used to live in a disgusting atmosphere, where soldiers were treating the population like slaves. The idea of leaving was present in my mind but I wanted to choose time and date.
I had applied to study for a master’s degree after I had finished my diploma. In case the application was granted, the gouvernment was not able to call me to the military service. My plan was to continue my studies and to assist the children of Syria in these dark days as a teacher.

On the 28th of April 2015, 9 o’clock at night, a friend of mine working for the government told me I have to run that very night. In the morning soldiers wound come and arrest me. I woud be forced to join the Syrian army. I was in a state of shock. I will not become a murderer, not in any name. I had no choices, neither had the time to understand.
My mother was crying and begging me to go, my father couldn’t say anything to me. I packed nothing but my personal documents and my diplomas. Before war they were not able to force you to join the army if you were an academic but now law was under military boots.
I would not fight in government's army, becoming a part of this killing machine. To be a soldier is not acceptable for me and so my decision to become a refugee is not rooted in the fear of death, more in the certainty of my will not under any circumstances to be another piece of wood thrown into the fire of this war.
In times of war the voices of reason were silenced. You have to choose your side, black or white. There is no grey.
There are stories of men who fought in this war, with their consciousness and hearts still alive. Men who searched for solutions to end the killing. Did these voices of reason faced another destiny? This war already created two famous stories about soldiers with a mind and a consciousness. It is the story of the two Colonels.
One of them, Colonel Mostafa Shaddoud, was in the government army fighting the Free Army outside of Damascus. During the battle the demarcation lines were so close to the enemy that only a few meters separated them. The Colonel ordered his soldiers to cease fire and shouted across the enemy lines: "We are all Syrians; it´s a shame that we kill each other, let´s talk brothers!"
He succeeded to talk face to face with the enemy brothers, a personal initiative from Colonel Mostafa Shaddoud, not in line with the regime. The fighting outside of Damascus stopped for over one month until the government ordered the Colonel to another part of the country where he was murdered under mysterious circumstances.

The other Colonel, Yusuf Al Jaber, served in The Free Army outside of Aleppo. He and his men besieged a military school with government soldiers for a long time. He told the men inside the building to give up arms and guaranteed them safe passage to government controlled territory. He told the surrounded government soldiers: "You are our sons and we don´t want to kill you. It is not your mistake that you got involved in this fire. Go back to your government. They won´t send back up for you since we besieged you."
Most of the soldiers came out and as the Colonel had promised that they had safe passage to government controlled areas. That day he succeeded to save souls but soon after that event he was murdered under mysterious circumstances as well.
These stories paint a clear picture that no one wanted to end this war, and the ones trying to stop it, the voices of reason, were silenced by their own people.