‘Hamza Al-Khateeb’ Face Of Syrian Dawn

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah
This commentary was published in The Arab Times on 06/06/2011

The ‘cosmetic operations’ being carried out by the Damascus regime every Friday to improve its appearance are no longer effective. Decrees issued to pardon political prisoners after they aged or died within the walls of torture and exiles are futile. Promises of establishing committees to draft a new law for parties, allowing freedom of expression, regulating the media, preparing for a national dialogue are all useless. Who will hold a dialogue when the regime uses a gun to speak?

The massacres committed by the security officers have removed the masks worn by the military regime over the last decades to hide their ugly and bloody oppressive methods. Thirty children have been martyred, including Hamza Al-Khateeb. The security officers did not only kill him, but they also mutilated his body in their persistence to go towards the bloody path while responding to popular demands for freedom and reform.

It is not strange that dictators lead themselves to their own death. They know nothing but violence as a means of dialogue with their people. This is why the Syrian regime is unknowingly creating, in every city and village, several clones of Tunisian Mohammad Al-Buazeezi on a daily basis. Thus, it is speeding up its collapse with every bullet fired by its soldiers.

Every day the murderous military men defy their claim of the conspiracy that has filled the Syrian media since the first day of the peaceful popular uprising. Blood has been spilled on the streets, and blood will only bring blood. The regime has also forgotten its bloody legacy whose 30-year-old fire has never been extinguished. Innocent blood was spilled in the Hama massacre in the 1980s, causing the death of more than 20,000 people.

Thousands have disappeared and nobody knows what happened to them until today. We do not know if the recent decision to grant general pardon will reveal their fate.

The regime still thinks the Syrians people will be satisfied with crumbs, like the pardon decree, being thrown to them. Syrians now know the path towards freedom. They no longer fear the scary myth created by the intelligence agents, which have failed to protect even the people close to the president, including his military consultant, Mohammad Sulaiman.

The families of the martyrs of the uprising will not be satisfied with official statements filled with fabricated stories on the killing and mutilation of the children. The truth cannot be covered with a sieve made of lies written with the crocodile tears of those who kill and enjoy torturing their victims. More than any other time, the people now want the regime to repent by stepping down to end the long years of oppression, torture and corruption in Syria.

The cold-blooded killing of innocent people shows the government still lives in the old days, because it understands only the language of killing and repression. This has thwarted efforts to implement reforms and stop massacres. The world is now smaller than a village without a wall. The human rights institutions and the democratic world have consolidated their efforts to mount pressure on blood-thirsty governments, which take pride in killing their citizens just to remain in power. This means the world no longer listens to the official media mouthpieces of these governments. The reality is not hidden, but the killers are oblivious to this fact, because they pretend not to hear the cries of their victims nor see the crimes perpetrated by their own hands.

The Syrian government has put itself in a tight corner. All the ‘players’ now bear the responsibility for the cries of those in agony or the pints of innocent blood spilled on the roads. The government has set fire to rescue ships and willingly drowned itself in the sea of blood. It will only take a few weeks before the announcement of its end.

Ahmed Al-Jarallah is the Editor-In-Chief  of  The Arab Times and the Arab daily Assyassah