A Woman in the Crossfire (15 page)

As we emerge from the heart of the neighbourhood, my friend gets nervous and says that she shouldn't be risking her life like this. We see security forces every which way we look. After all the trouble of making the journey from Damascus to Jableh, my visit is a failure. My quest ends in half an hour. The young man who is supposed to come to meet us where we wait for him never shows up. My friend turns the car around and we head right back the way we came in. We stop for a while in front of the entrance to the old covered market when several members of the security forces start moving in our direction. As we hurry out of there, she tells me, “They're asking to see IDs, if they find out who you are they won't show you any mercy.”

I have already postponed returning to Jableh until my daughter is finished with her exams. Two more weeks. Now I wait for news, like the stump of some ancient tree.

There is no internet. My movements must be kept to a minimum. I have to remain calm and wait for the security forces to forget all about me, for me to drop off their radar, but will that ever happen, even while I lie low in silence? My friends want me to leave the country right away, they plead with me in anxious phone calls and express concern about my wellbeing. I can't do it, but I do have to think about how much money I have saved up. The rent on this downtown apartment is expensive. I also have to think about what I am going to do when the three-month lease is up, how I am going to take care of my daughter and myself. I want a morning without any bloodshed, just one morning when I don't feel saltiness churning in my throat, when my fingers stop trembling and I can stand still staring into the void. I try to transcribe the interview with the journalist, M.I., who broke the siege of Dar‘a, writing it down first and then transferring it directly onto the computer.

 

The testimony of M.I.

“A veterinarian got me into Dar‘a. I didn't go there as a journalist. Army personnel were stationed at intersections throughout the city. There were military checkpoints and security forces everywhere. We got stopped and searched a lot. It was a long journey, in spite of the short distance. The army had lists of names they were scanning. It was only after searching us thoroughly that they let us pass.

When I was finished talking with the doctor, we took a tour around the city and then went to the al-Umari Mosque. There was a demonstration, or people beginning to gather for one. I saw Ma'n al-Awdat and I said hello to him. There was a large security presence just waiting to attack the demonstrators, even though there was supposedly a cease-fire that day in order to carry out the demonstrators' demands before Friday. There were about a thousand people demonstrating. We didn't really feel like sticking around so we went to the house of one of the notable figures who told us what happened. It was the story everybody knows about the children of Dar‘a who had their fingernails pulled out and were brutally tortured. The notable figure repeated what Atef Najib had said to them:
Come get your children and let your wives make new ones.
And so, after their honour and reputation had been slandered, the demonstrators, who were tribal
shaykhs
, decided to carry on their opposition and in addition to punishing whoever had tortured their children, their demands included the abrogation of the emergency laws and a crackdown on corruption.”

M. stops talking here, and stares straight ahead. Then, all of a sudden, he says, “By the way, they weren't tear gas canisters. It was nerve gas.”

He stops talking for a second time and I wait for him to continue but he remains silent.

“Then what happened?” I ask.

“The notable figure, who had been part of the nationalist current in the sixties, emphatically said they weren't armed, that they didn't have any armed gangs among them – contrary to what the regime claimed – and while I was talking with them, there was an ‘alarm', and an ‘alarm' is when there is a call to save demonstrators who are being attacked by the security forces. I took my camera and went out with them. Everything I'm telling you is backed up with pictures. When a thirteen-year-old boy threw a big rock from up on the roof onto the ground to break it into smaller stones that could be used against the security forces, the demonstrators shouted at him and scolded him, because what he was doing was violent and they only wanted peaceful demonstrations. I went out with them and started filming. By that stage, France 24 and the BBC had been expelled. They asked me who I was. The notable figure told them, “He's with me.” That was the password and the people protected me themselves. I told them I wanted to be with them. I didn't want any protection. I conducted a lot of interviews during the demonstrations, which I still have. The main point the demonstrators talked about was their pain and frustration at the president of the republic. After all the killing and the bloodshed in Dar‘a, he had paid a visit to nearby Suwayda but never mentioned the blood of the martyrs. One demonstrator told me, “We are the ones who protect Bashar al-Assad, not the security services, just let him try us in the Golan.” When another one said, “The snipers are from Hizballah,” someone nearby shouted back, “Don't say things we don't know for certain, brother, that's inaccurate talk.” A man with a long beard, who looked like a fundamentalist Islamist, came over to talk about the Sunni-Shi‘a issue, but the demonstrators rose up and told him to be quiet, so he was. They only talked about the practices of the security forces and the repression. The women asked to come out into the streets to sit-in and the men agreed, so women and men sat in together in the mosque. That was before the massacre.

“I forgot to mention something, going back to the notable figure, I asked him to listen to a second opinion, and I.S., the previous
shaykh
of the al-Umari Mosque came over. I can't tell you exactly what he said, even though it's on tape, because I promised him that whatever he said would only be made public if he died, or if he gave me express permission to do so. That's why I hesitate to publish what he said, in spite of the fact that he's in prison right now, after they killed his son.

“A relative of one of the arrested children, I think it was his uncle if I remember correctly, came up to me and said, “They took the children to prison for writing on the walls. They gave them the ‘special treatment'.” M. falls silent for a moment, then asks, “Do you know what that is?”

I shake my head.

“That means they raped them. I'm not sure how accurate that information is because he refused to let me quote him directly. By the way, inside the notable figure's house, he had pictures of Hafiz al-Assad and Bashar al-Assad and Gamal Abdel Nasser on the walls. Security forces were breaking into the houses and confiscating people's cameras and mobile phones. At one o'clock in the morning, maybe 12:30, one of the protestors called from inside the al-Umari Mosque and told me, “We assembled here and there was a massacre.” M. stops talking and then says, “Even then there were medical supplies inside the mosque but after the massacre the demonstrators improvised a field hospital inside the mosque in preparation for other massacres. That was on a Thursday or Friday in March, when the famous clip appeared on satellite television saying:
Is there anyone who kills his own people? You are all our brothers
.”

M. continues: “The security forces were at the outskirts of every neighbourhood in Dar‘a at the time. I saw that with my own eyes. They had cars and armed men, which made it impossible for an armed gang to get inside the mosque and kill people or carry out that massacre, because the security presence was large and solid. When I reached the entrance to the mosque I saw security forces. Central Security was in a state of total demobilization. They weren't doing anything. It seemed clear that they had no intention of attacking.”

“So who carried out the attack then?” I ask him.

“Maybe it was the Fourth Division,” he says.

“But they're saying the Fourth Division wasn't there…”

He interrupts me: “I think it was one of those divisions of private forces.”

“In your opinion, who did the killing in Dar‘a?”

“Security, the security forces were killing people.”

“Did the army kill anyone?” I ask him.

“No, I don't think so even though they were at the front. There are confirmed sources saying that anyone in the army who disobeys orders would be killed by the security forces. I have some videotaped testimonies I'll send you.”

“But that means the army was killing people, because even if some wouldn't carry out their orders, others would.”

“Yes, sometimes, but what I mean is that there were orders for the army to kill the armed gangs. That's why they were fighting, and anyone who disobeyed orders when they found out what was really going on got killed.”

M. falls silent. I feel tired as I write down his words that ooze with bitterness. He says, “I heard a story about a mother in Dar‘a whose son was wanted by the security forces even though he was only twelve years old. He was her only child and she kept him hidden him in a strange way, by moving every day from house to house like a ghost. The security forces were not able to capture him. Then all news about her dried up. They told me security would invade the house where she and her son were staying a few minutes after she left. Despite the intensity of the siege and the heavy security presence she managed to protect her only son somehow. That was very unusual, but strange things were happening. I have some of them on tape. After demonstrators torched the military security detention centre during the siege of Douma, security forces attacked a funeral procession, making it all the way to the coffin and even opening fire on the pallbearers, wounding three of them critically. The people ran away, and the coffin was left on the ground by itself. Amidst the heavy gunfire I saw a little boy, who couldn't have been more than ten years old, standing behind his father. We could barely hear each other, but I asked him, ‘Why did you come here, little guy? Go home.' His father looked at me, and after a long stare, said, ‘He isn't any more valuable than his father.' Then he pounded on his chest. ‘You're right,' I told him. ‘I'm going to get my son, too.'

I stop writing in order to light a cigarette. I am a wreck, fumbling for some comment to make after hearing all these stories but once I had lit my cigarette he adds, “Listen to another story from Douma. Everybody knows that the town of Douma is religiously conservative, especially the women. One time I was passing through there, the demonstrators were on one side and the security forces were on the other. A young girl passed by, I had my camera with me so I filmed her. I imagined she was going to walk by the security forces, in order to avoid the hordes of male demonstrators, but she chose to cross through the demonstrators. I said to someone near me, ‘Isn't it strange how that girl passed right through all these men?'

“Maybe this is how we are with our women,” he says. “Did you see anyone leer at her or harass her? Even if things are messed up here without any law and order, we are still men of conscience.”

“Real life is in the little stories,” I tell the journalist. “How could it be any other way under these circumstances?”

“There are strange stories from al-Rastan,” he says, distracted. “I was there, the demonstrators knocked down a statue of Hafiz al-Assad and stamped on it because of the anger and the recrimination and the injustice they had suffered for decades. One of the inhabitants of al-Rastan told me that when the people of Talbisseh came to pay their respects they showed up on motorcycles, which is how they get around, and while they were at the mourning ceremony their motorcycles were stolen. One of the fathers of the martyrs confirmed this to me. One was stolen right in front of me, so I went to the police and made a complaint about the theft and said I had seen it happen. At the police station they told me that that man was locked up. In other words, the theft must have taken place through collusion between the police and the prisoners, with the profits split between the thieves and the police the same day the motorcycles were stolen. There were no security agents, and there was no police in al-Rastan. So the people of al- Rastan went and told the people of Talbisseh, ‘We're going to get you your motorcycles back.' The mourners said, “That's all right, we'll figure something out.” But the people of al-Rastan insisted that the people of Talbisseh wait there, while they disappeared for about half an hour. When they came back they had the bikes with them. The people of al-Rastan had tracked down the thieves and gathered them all in one place, telling them,
Either your lives or our guests' bikes
. They handed the bikes over to them.” M. is silent for a moment after finishing the story and then says, “This means there was no government and that the people were solving problems themselves the right way.” I wait for him to say something more. “I'll give you the rest on tape,” he says. “I'm worn out.”

“That's much better anyway,” I say.

I felt grateful to him because there were moments while he was telling me those stories when I had to fight back tears. Now I am released from that awkwardness.

..............................

I didn't sit down to write on Friday as I had intended to do, nor the next day. What's happening now is bigger than what I can write about. I need some more time in order to be able to focus on what's happening. Since running out of Xanax, which had been very difficult to get here anyway, I have been awake for two days straight, from Thursday night until right now… I do not sleep.

I could fall asleep for two hours, which was enough for me to be able to focus, if only a little. What happened? It happened on Thursday, when my daughter and I were sitting there, a halfconfirmed bit of news; nothing is certain these days other than the curses of death, the torrent of bullets and waiting. The backdrop is our nonstop bickering. I tried every means possible to calm her down but I had failed, until that moment when the man came and told me to leave the country at once, out of fear for my life because he had solid information about the impending liquidation of certain Alawite figures, about accusations of belonging to armed and Salafi gangs, and that my name was on the list.