Half a century of massacres... Syrian families search for justice for their victims

The Syrian city of Hama witnessed a great massacre and widespread destruction in 1982 (social networking sites)

Until this moment, Ahmed K. does not know whether his two brothers are alive after all the years that have passed, or whether they were executed like the rest of their neighbors in the neighborhood, when the Defense Brigades took them and detained them inside a nearby school, then transferred them to an unknown location.

The Defense Brigades are an unofficial military formation to protect the Syrian regime, founded and led by Rifaat al-Assad, brother of the late President Hafez al-Assad.

On February 2, 1982, the Syrian government army launched a large-scale military operation, with various weapons, on the city of Hama, in the center of the country, at the end of a bloody conflict that extended for years between the regime of Hafez al-Assad and the Fighting Vanguard organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to human rights sources, the operation resulted in the killing of 30-40 thousand civilians, and the forced disappearance of thousands, and their families are still living the pain of their disappearance, despite the passage of more than 4 decades.

"Ahmed-K" last met his two brothers, Mahmoud (13 years old) and Samir (15 years old), in late January 1982, that is, about a week before the start of the operation, before he left for Damascus on a mission related to his commercial work.

He was constantly checking on the family via landline to check on their conditions, due to the terrifying pressures the city was being exposed to, at the hands of joint forces from “regular army units, special units, and defense companies,” occupying various areas in the center and periphery with their weapons.

Ahmed's anxiety increased even more when he was unable to communicate with the family throughout February 1982, "the period of the operation's implementation," after the "only" landline telephone network was cut off from the first day of the attack, and the electricity was cut off, in addition to what was reported to him by some travelers who had arduously crossed the international road. Aleppo-Damascus, passing through the eastern edge of the city, is subject to a comprehensive siege from all sides, completely isolating it from the outside world and cutting off food supplies and the basic needs of the population.

Scene of desolation

By the end of last February, the army announced the cessation of its operations and opened some crossings to traffic. Ahmed took advantage of the opportunity and entered the city on the first of last March. Contrary to his expectations, he was surprised by a scene of devastation covering wide areas. He said, “I did not expect to see my city destroyed like this.” "The painful way."

Ahmed's family, consisting of his father, mother, and four brothers, lived in a neighborhood in the middle of an old area. Its construction dates back to the era of the Ayyubid dynasty that ruled the Levant and Egypt from 1178-1284. Its construction witnessed horizontal expansion and development, to which Ottoman architecture at a later stage added a breathtaking touch.

He says, "I saw the neighborhood as a mass of destruction. There was nothing indicating the existence of life. Bodies were scattered among the piles of stones, and their smell was filling the nostrils. Nothing remained of the pride of the historic palaces to indicate their existence."

Ahmed began to ask about his family, saying, “I climbed over piles of rubble, searching for the location of our house. I tried a lot, but I did not recognize it, as huge masses of stones and dust obscured what was underneath it. I coincidentally met a member of the neighborhood searching among the rubble, which also indicated the location of his house.” He whispered in my ear the news he had, and then I learned from him the truth about what happened.”

 Since that time, Ahmed has not received any official information about his two brothers.

But they visit him, he says, from time to time in dreams that worry him.

The story of the Ahmed family matches, in its details, hundreds of other stories that reveal the extent of the horrific tragedy that Syria experienced under a regime described as oppressive tyranny (1970-2000).

The massacres continue

Human rights activists say that these practices continued during the period of Assad Jr.’s rule, which has continued since 2000, as his country witnessed in early 2011 a widespread popular protest movement against his regime, “the effects of which are still ongoing,” and he dealt with it in the same manner.

Yesterday's and today's questions are very similar about missing and forcibly disappeared civilians in Syria, and the scene of afflicted families is repeated as they search for unavailable convincing answers to their questions: Are their loved ones still alive inside prisons?

If they were killed, where are their bodies, where were they buried, and where are the official lists of their names?

The Syrian authorities have always refused to disclose any information related to the fate of thousands who were taken by army forces in Hama to specially established mass detention camps, and no trace of them has been found.

And the fate of others who were arrested in the last decade of Assad Jr.’s rule.

During that period - as Ahmed says - no sector of society was spared from the effects of the massacre that the city was subjected to, and no family escaped the death or arrest of at least one of its members, as mass arrest campaigns targeted all young men and men between the ages of 14- 60 years without exception.

In 1970, Al-Assad Sr. seized power in Syria with a military coup that overthrew his opponents in the Baath Party, which had been ruling since 1963.

In the early seventies, the star of his younger brother Rifaat began to rise, on the eve of his founding and heading the Defense Brigades forces, consisting of 40,000 fighters, entrusted with the task of protecting the regime and suppressing its opponents, becoming the most powerful and influential figure within the authority and its institutions.

With the participation of the government army and the General Intelligence Service with its various branches, these forces will carry out the ugliest operations to crush the opposition of all political stripes, the culmination of which was the Tadmur prison massacre in 1980 and the Hama city massacre in 1982 after the conflict between the ruling regime and the Muslim Brotherhood turned into armed clashes and open military confrontations that it witnessed. Most major cities.

Escaping from the Punishment

Syria was then ravaged by political unrest, systematic hostilities, forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and mass killings, and it emerged as one of the countries with the most impunity.

According to available indicators for that period, none of the leaders and members of the army, the General Intelligence Service, or the Defense Brigades were ever subjected to local or international accountability or trial for the crimes committed.

“Ahmed-K” says that in the Hama massacre he lost his two brothers and more than 150 of his cousins, “all from one family,” and he is surprised at how the international community failed to confront Hafez al-Assad, and later to confront his heir.

He adds that those involved in the conflict believe that they can get rid of the consequences of the crimes committed by their forces, independent of any rules or standards, as long as they are immune from accountability.

Their conviction of impunity was reinforced by the presence of Decree No. 14 dated January 15, 1969, which protects members of the General Intelligence Department from prosecution for actions they commit while carrying out specific tasks assigned to them, and links prosecution exclusively to an order from the director of the department.

Today, Ahmed resides outside his homeland, where he is one of the millions of Syrian refugees who left the country in search of safety and security.

He left Hama in a hurry at the beginning of the revolution that broke out against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, for fear of being arrested for participating in demonstrations with his relatives and friends, and raising the slogan “We will not forget our martyrs,” in reference to the victims of the massacre of the 1980s.

He says they will not rest until the killers are brought to justice.

Higher orders

Testimonies of dozens of defectors from the government army and the General Intelligence Department to Human Rights Watch indicate that the violations taking place are committed based on a policy adopted by the state, and that orders reach officers and soldiers directly from the highest levels of the military and civilian leadership, or with their permission, or with their connivance. about what's happening.

The officers' testimonies confirmed that their military unit commanders or other officers gave them direct orders to open fire on demonstrators and bystanders, and reassured them that they would not be held accountable.

They also provided detailed information about their units’ participation in the violations that occurred in 7 Syrian governorates, including Hama, Damascus, and Homs.

The organization quoted one of the soldiers as saying, “The brigadier general asked us to use heavy fire. He promised us that no one would ask us to explain its use, and when one of them asked him who we were shooting at, he said: At anything in front of you.”

According to the findings of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry, state terrorism is evident in all documented killing incidents since April 2012, and premeditated mass killing has been confirmed and the identity of the perpetrator known according to evidentiary standards.

There is a large amount of evidence collected by the committee since its formation in 2011. The analyzed evidence points to the responsibility of people at the highest levels of the Syrian government, including President Bashar al-Assad himself.

Between the years 1975-2000, human rights organizations concerned with issues of justice and human rights documented more than 40 mass massacres, committed by regime forces, accompanied by deliberate waves of displacement, the most prominent of which was the wave that Hama witnessed before and after the massacre in 1982, and the wave of displacement that followed the 2011 revolution. .

 International reports indicate that government forces committed war crimes through direct attacks on civilians, hospitals, medical centers, clinics, and aid convoys, and used toxic gases that killed and injured thousands of civilians, including medical workers and dozens of children.

It considered that the death penalty, which was applied in isolation from the foundations of justice, remained unknown, and the authorities did not reveal any information about it, and that it amounted to unlawful killings.

Over the past decades, Syria has ranked first on the global index of impunity, as the country with the worst record in this field in the world.

Investigations and convictions

The crimes for which the killers escaped punishment fall within the framework of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which defines a crime against humanity as a widespread or systematic attack directed against any group of civilians, and includes: premeditated killing, extermination, population deportation, and detention. , torture, rape, persecution of a specific group of the population for political, religious, cultural, racial, or national reasons.

In a remarkable step about 10 years ago, the Swiss Attorney General's Office opened a criminal investigation into war crimes committed by Syrian army units and the Defense Brigades forces led by Rifaat al-Assad in the city of Hama in 1982.

The investigation was opened based on a complaint filed by the Swiss organization Trial International, based in Geneva, in an effort to achieve justice for thousands of civilian victims.

The criminal investigation was based on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows States to investigate and prosecute suspects in this regard, regardless of where the crimes were committed, the nationality of the suspect, and the nationality of the victims.

In July 2022, the Federal Criminal Court asked the Federal Office of Justice to issue an international arrest warrant against him to bring him to justice.

The organization says that the “anticipated trial of Rifaat al-Assad” will be pioneering, as high-ranking officials are rarely tried for international crimes according to this principle.

This would send a strong message to the Syrian authorities that suspects from the ruling Assad family will not be beyond the reach of justice.

The application of universal jurisdiction has proven its effectiveness, as is the case in Germany, where in June 2018 its public prosecutor issued an international arrest warrant against the director of Syrian Air Force Intelligence, General Jamil al-Hassan, on charges of committing crimes against humanity between 2011-2013. It also tried Anwar Raslan, an intelligence officer. The Syrian government convicted him and sentenced him to life imprisonment in January 2022 on the same charge.

Such investigations and convictions would push the international community to combat impunity and prevent normalization of the atrocities committed in Syria.

Source: Al Jazeera