As on every night, long, dense dreams, endless, very structured. In front of my house, the Castellaras terrace; the big pot of strawberries is still there, I water them but they’re no good, tasteless, impossible to eat; however, there’s a new branch, raspberries, red and fleshy; I pick them one by one, there are four of them, and I have no intention of sharing. Afterward, it continues, in various spaces.
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Al-Maktab al-I‘ilami, the Information Bureau. Jeddi is one of the people in charge. They control the information in Baba ‘Amr, and have insisted since the beginning on supervising us, on supervising all journalists; in principle, they control journalists’ access to Baba ‘Amr, and within the neighborhood access to strategic places, like demonstrations or the clinic. Thanks to Ra’id’s contacts, we came in with the FSA, avoiding them; since his altercation with Jeddi, then yesterday at the demonstration with Abu Hanin, we have cut loose from them and remain with the FSA. This creates tensions, but it’s much better for us. We’ll go and see them at the end, when we’ve done everything that interests us. With them, we’d see only what they want us to see, and they’d be acting as if the FSA didn’t exist, a rather basic and unsophisticated control of discourse, worthy of the mukhabarat whose methods they have absorbed since childhood. As G. said yesterday at the demonstration, during the altercation with Abu Hanin, in his so pleasant French: “Il faut les comprendre, monsieur. Quarante ans de peur!”31 But before killing the real Bashar, they’ll have to kill the Bashar in their heads.
The Information Bureau seemed to be afraid that images of the FSA might serve the regime’s propaganda, by giving plausibility to the argument that the government is fighting terrorists. At the time of our visit, it was still difficult to make them understand that they couldn’t simply deny the armed dimension of the uprising. The FSA, on its side, let us freely observe and photograph its weapons, its men, and its fighting. It should be added that after the beginning of the massive bombing of Homs, on February 3, these nuances lost all importance.
12:45 PM. Excursion. Visit to the command post of Hassan, who promises me a translator. Then we head off with Imad to a commercial street beyond the central avenue, quite animated, with taxis, shops. It’s the old Baba ‘Amr.
An elderly gentleman on a bike: “It’s gotten much better here.” We discuss the prisoner releases Bashar al-Assad promised to the Arab League. Another gentleman, Abu ‘Adil, explains that his fifty-year-old brother has been detained for three months. Three people arrested with him were returned dead. He wasn’t freed but transferred to Damascus, to a secret prison. “He was arrested at home, for nothing. Here, in Syria, you mustn’t ask why.”
We pick up my young translator, Adam, an FSA guy. His English is limited but it will do. Further on, at an intersection, an FSA checkpoint controls the traffic, sometimes checks the drivers. Discussion. With several soldiers, in a room, we look at maps on Ra’id’s computer, and they explain to me where the Army positions are. A big explosion outside, a mortar, followed by gunfire, the checkpoint further up opening fire.
A young soldier from the checkpoint, Fadi, is an Alawite. Adam translates as well as he can. Fadi is from Jiblaya, a village near Tartus. He joined the FSA in July or August, in Homs. Because he saw the Army killing civilians, he said to himself: “I am not with them, I am with these people. It is not: I am Alawi, so I am with Alawi. No. If they do wrong, I try to do right.”
In the street, the shooting continues.
Fadi was mulazim awwal. One of his friends, a Sunni mulazim awwal named ‘Ali, refused an order to kill civilians, in Kfar ‘Aaya, and they shot him in the back. He survived, but remained paralyzed. Fadi deserted two weeks later. He didn’t announce his desertion, to protect his family. Only his brother knows; in the beginning, he was against it, but ended up accepting it. I ask: “How did the FSA accept you, without taking you for a spy or an agent provocateur?” He already had a friend in the FSA, who vouched for him. “Now I am very happy, not like before. When you are in the Army, if you know a big man, you live well. If you don’t, you are shit.”
Here in Baba ‘Amr, there are five or six Alawites in the FSA. He has no problem. “I never heard: We want to kill Alawis. Only specific people who have committed crimes.” Alawites take women hostage, and this makes him sick. Recently, the FSA captured an Alawite he knew; he hadn’t done anything bad, so they let him go. First they tried to exchange him, but the other side refused, and they let him go all the same: “I was very pleased to see this.”
We leave. The bullets continue to resound. The street where we are is safe, but further on it’s open.
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Visit with Imad to a neighborhood next to the railroad, behind the Hamzi mosque. Many destroyed buildings. We climb to the fourth floor with some inhabitants, in an apartment riddled with bullets and BTR ammunition, 14.5 mm. The kitchen wall is full of holes. The owner, Abu ‘Abdu, built another wall, inside, to make a room, but they shot through that too. Some shots even passed through three walls and ended up in his neighbor’s apartment. Abu ‘Abdu brought his wife and children to her family, but there are too many other women there, no room, he can’t stay there. He’s thinking of rebuilding the wall a second time and reinforcing it with sandbags, to be able to live there.
Through the holes and a window, we see the post, blue sandbags arranged around a passage over the elevated railroad. It’s the checkpoint of the Kfar ‘Aaya intersection. A pickup leaves and moves off. I photograph it discreetly through a shell hole, zooming in. In the photo you also see a tank turret, seemingly covered with blue plastic, its cannon pointed straight at us.
In the street with the inhabitants. Devastated neighborhood, all the houses facing the checkpoint are riddled with impacts by large-caliber weapons and bombs. They show me the remains of a shell, a kind of cluster bomb.
Seven dead in the immediate neighborhood, sixteen people arrested. The soldiers come from the checkpoint, break down the doors, and arrest people. Not many FSA here, they can’t stop them.
This area has been calm for two Fridays, since around January 6, the time when the Arab League observers came to Homs. But twenty days ago there were three very deadly days: the first day, eighteen dead, the second, nine dead, the third, seven dead. Shooting at the funerals caused many wounded. A man shows me the scar from the bullet that passed through his leg.
Two FSA soldiers arrive on motorbike. Recent deserters. They show their Army cards and pose proudly with them, their faces uncovered.
It’s hard for the FSA to take up positions here because of the towers [of the university], which dominate the neighborhood, and of the snipers. They come in force only when there’s a fight. The towers are impregnable, protected by BRDMs and 200 soldiers who defend the snipers on the upper floors.
Hamzi mosque. Brand-new, still incomplete and not yet consecrated. Riddled with bullet holes, a few shells, the windows shattered. View through it to the towers. We enter from the back by going over the wall, under the eyes of possible snipers, a slightly uncomfortable situation. But nothing happens. The inside is vast and bare, almost complete, but not quite. We step on broken glass. We climb to the roof, around the cupola: we don’t go to the side where the towers are, no reason to tempt the devil.
In the car, discussion with Imad about access to the clinic [of Abu Bari]. Imad doesn’t want any problems. We have to have Abu Khattab’s permission to enter.
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Return to the Military Council. A man talks: his niece S. Sh., twenty-two years old, a student of Arabic literature and a hair stylist, was kidnapped by security forces four and a half months ago, in August. She was returning to her hair salon in Insha’at, near the Quba’ mosque. There was no reason to arrest her, she hadn’t done anything; she was taken at eight in the morning, long before the demonstration. People who were set free saw her and told them she was with the Air Force mukhabarat, which the ‘amid,32 when the shaykhs went to see him, as they do for all the kidnapped women, confirmed. The ‘amid of the Air Force mukhabarat is named Jawdad, he’s Druze. As for the general who commands Homs, he’s an Alawite named Yusef Wannus.
As we talk, volleys of gunfire. It’s the checkpoint we saw, the one in Kfar ‘Aaya, which is firing.
Big discussion: the officers know girls who have been abused, raped, but the social rules mean that the families will never let us talk to them. The shame is too great. Ra’id tries to convince them, once again.
We’re summoned to see the funeral of a shahid. During the time it takes us to reach the mosque, the funeral has already left. We are told he was killed by the volleys we heard, but that seems hard to believe.
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Imad takes us to his clinic. The two prisoners are there, lying under blankets. A doctor is tending to the first one’s ankle, pierced by a bullet. The other is wounded in the hand. They are young, thinly bearded, Sunnis from Idlib. The one wounded in the hand is named Ahmad H. and is twenty. He tells us: They had come to Baba ‘Amr in a military ambulance to recover a wounded soldier, on Friday the 13th. Their own comrades, from the tower on Brazil Street, shot at them before they could reach the wounded man. So they turned back and came to Baba ‘Amr. As soon as they’re better, they’ll join the FSA.
The doctors change the bandages. Ahmad has lost the little finger of his right hand. Bears the procedure stoically, barely grimaces.
The art of taking decent pictures without a single face.
After the treatment, we find ourselves in the office with Imad and the doctor. The doctor explains why he doesn’t want to work at the other health center: it’s impossible because of Abu Bari’s monopoly. Doctors have no say, including Abu Khattab. We decide to go back to see the situation, after the promises [of Muhannad al-‘Umar].
Short walk from Imad’s clinic to Abu Bari’s, still with Adam. At one street corner we eat ful with our fingers from little bowls, standing in front of the street peddler’s cart. Ra’id goes to buy some sfihas with meat and cheese, we also drink the ful juice like soup. At the end of the avenue, the sun is setting, tinting the surrounding grays with orange. A few shots still ring out.
5:30 PM. Arrival at the clinic. Another violent shouting match between Ra’id and Abu Bari, who categorically refuses us access. He tells his friends that the Military Council has forbidden our entry. Ra’id calls Muhannad, then passes him to Abu Bari; Abu Bari hangs up without handing the phone back and says that Muhannad confirms. “The Majlis al-‘Askari and Muhannad forbid you.” The tone rises. Ra’id: “You’re fighting against Bashar to replace him with the same authoritarianism. Here you’re the one controlling everything, deciding everything, the doctors shut their traps; you decide everything against the opinion of the Military Council, against the opinion of the doctors.” – “Since we’re worse than the regime, you won’t go in.” A shift to threats. “If you stay here, you’ll see things you don’t want to.” – “Are you threatening me?” – “Yes, I’m threatening you.” So we go a little further away to wait for Imad, who comes to get us in his car.
6:00 PM. Imad takes us to the third clinic, the real one, where they’re setting up an operating room in case of a blockade of Baba ‘Amr.
Al-Muthanna, a pharmacist, knows Ra’id from his last visit. [He insists, like all his colleagues, on the question of danger for the medical staff.] “It’s very dangerous to be a doctor or a pharmacist in Baba ‘Amr. If we leave the neighborhood, they can arrest us and detain us for three to six months, just to prevent us from working.” Three doctors from Baba ‘Amr have been arrested, along with two pharmacists and some nurses. Most of them have recently been freed. One of the pharmacists, Jamal F., was killed during his detention, four months ago.
Gestures: “They look at your papers, they see: Baba ‘Amr, and they arrest you.” Al-Muthanna hasn’t left the neighborhood for six months.
Abu Ibrahim comes in, a nurse who was imprisoned in September. He worked at the National Hospital. Denounced for treating revolutionaries and arrested. Mimes the scene with big gestures, recounting: beaten with clubs, his eyes blindfolded, “You, come here!” Hard slaps. He was whipped with a thick rubber cable and given electric shocks. He shows us the scars from the blows on his legs. The wounds got infected, as there was no hygiene, no shower.
He was arrested by the Army, after that he doesn’t know where he was transferred as his eyes were blindfolded. (Fears he might be identified, doesn’t want to give details.)
But says his treatment was relatively OK. He was entitled to special treatment because he’s a nurse: they didn’t break his bones. Afterwards, he was able to take care of other prisoners.
Detail of the tortures: on the first day, he was mistreated for nine hours. Then after four days, mistreated again. This is due to the rotation of the interrogators. He was interrogated three times in twelve days, mistreated each time. Hung on the wall by one wrist, with a plastic cord, on tiptoe, for four to five hours: ash-Shabah, a specific method. He mimes the position.
He stayed in prison for a month. Released because they didn’t find anything and couldn’t prove anything; he denied everything, and they ended up letting him go.
Two other men in the room. Abu Abdallah, a military doctor who hasn’t returned to work since the end of December, and Abu Salim, a doctor of the military mukhabarat, who hasn’t returned since November. It’s Abu Salim who heads this clinic. He thinks of himself as a deserter, but hasn’t announced it. He was born here, his friends are here. Seeing the treatment inflicted on the neighborhood and the prisoners, he decided to join the people and live with them, or else die with them.
He worked in Damascus, in five different services, then in Latakia. He was with the mukhabarat for the past two years, and saw how the situation evolved before and after the revolution. He can testify to the tortures.
“What is the mission of a mukhabarat doctor? I’ll explain that to you.
“His first mission: keep people subjected to torture alive so they can be tortured for as long as possible.
“The second: in case the person interrogated passes out, give him first aid so the interrogation can continue.
“The third: supervise the use of psychotropic drugs during interrogation. Chlorpromazine [Thorazine or Megaphen], Diazepam/Valium, Ketamine/Ketalar, and 90 degree alcohol, a liter in the nose or the eyes, or injected subcutaneously – alcohol is used to wake people up but also to torture.
“The fourth: if the person tortured has passed his threshold of resistance, the doctor brings him to the military hospital. Before the revolution, the patient was handcuffed behind his back; since the revolution, the patient has his eyes blindfolded and is handcuffed to the doctor. Before, all patients in danger of death were attended to; now, only the important prisoners; the others are left to die. The decision isn’t in the doctor’s hands: if he sees the prisoner is in danger of death, he sends a report to the one in charge, who decides and signs the transfer orders.
“At the hospital, the attending doctor can’t talk to the patient; if he has a question, he must address the mukhabarat doctor, who asks the patient, then answers the doctor.
“Since the beginning of the revolution, if an important prisoner is brought to the military hospital – in some very specific cases – he is tied to the bed and two guards are posted in front of the door. Only the mukhabarat doctor or the head doctor of the hospital can administer treatment. Even the mukhabarat doctor is searched by the guards every time he leaves the room, to go to the bathroom for instance, and then again when he returns.”
Long story of Abu Salim. In Damascus, in the Regional Section, there are Arabs detained since 1985. The two most dangerous ones are Lebanese; among the others, there are eleven Lebanese, two Jordanians, and one Algerian. They are incarcerated in very harsh conditions. At the end of 2010 they went on hunger strike with three demands:
•the right to read newspapers;
•the right to fresh bread;
•food that doesn’t smell bad.
Abu Salim was sent by the man in charge to negotiate with them, supervised by two officers from Security who let him speak. The strike lasted for a month and three days; finally the mukhabarat agreed to the demands.
The two dangerous prisoners are imprisoned in a cell that measures 3 m by 1.6 m, with open toilets. At the door, there is a 20×30 cm hole. On top of the wall, a 50×30 cm opening. To open the window – if the temperature rises in summer for example – the doctor must write a report and obtain permission.
Abu Salim doesn’t know why they are there. But one day he was handcuffed to one of them, returning from the hospital to a mukhabarat building, and when the guards couldn’t find the key he found himself briefly alone with him: “What’s the problem with you?” – “I had a problem with the big boss” (Hafez al-Assad).
The discussion continues at Abu Salim’s place, in a freezing reception room. Abu Ibrahim, the nurse, brings some fuel oil and heats the place. Coffee, cigarettes.
Al-Muthanna, the pharmacist, wants our opinion: “What were the mistakes of the revolution? What should we have done differently?”
Me: “There haven’t been any mistakes till now. You’ve taken the right path, chosen the right strategy. Pressure on the regime is increasing from day to day. The demonstrations are increasing, the desertions are increasing. The regime seems very solid to you, and that’s normal, you’re suffering, but it’s a wooden house gnawed by termites: one day, you tap on the walls, and everything falls into dust. And you are the termites. The path is the right one, but it’s long and there aren’t any shortcuts. On the other hand, you should avoid the temptation to radicalization. The impatience of soldiers, the temptation of jihad. That can turn everything around. But the regime has already lost. It will never go back to the situation of before the revolution. Because the fear has been lifted, people are no longer afraid of the regime as they were before.”
Question about France: what can they do for France to increase pressure on Russia? I explain that we’ll have to wait for the end of the Arab League process. When it has obviously failed, the West can say: fine, the Arabs tried, that didn’t work, now we’ll move on to something else.
Ra’id translates and elaborates. He also explains the role of the UN Human Rights Commission, which is preparing a second report. The doctors, including Abu Salim, understand and suggest preparing a file, with all the names of those responsible for the repression they know, and proven facts.
They ask questions about the international protection of medical structures. Would like to join Doctors Without Borders. I explain it doesn’t work like that. Protection is more the realm of the ICRC.33 In principle, the Red Cross/ Red Crescent symbol protects a hospital. Attacking it is a war crime under international law. But here that would make it a target. One more war crime means nothing to the regime.
They tell us a story: before, wearing a beard was in itself a motive for indictment: “Ah, you’re part of bin Laden’s gang.” Now, they arrest a student: “What are you studying?” – “French literature.” – “Ah, you’re part of the Sarkozy gang, jama‘at Sarkozy!” It’s a true story: “You can meet the student.” He was kept in prison for twenty-one days, three months ago.
Al-Muthanna explains that marbles are forbidden, because they can serve as weapons against the Army, using slingshots. If they enter a house and find marbles, they arrest the father. So parents forbid their children from playing with them. One man from Baba ‘Amr was arrested for that three days ago.
Abu Salim affirms that even children are under surveillance. They asked his son what channels his parents watch; he knew he had to be careful, so he answered well. But the parents of children who replied Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, France 24, BBC, El-Wiral, ‘Adnan al-‘Arur (a Saudi preacher, anti-Syrian regime), etc. were summoned. In some schools, an armed guy from Security even handed out questionnaires to the children in ninth class – twelve-year-olds – about their parents’ habits. The teachers are forced to accept.
Examples of questions: what channels do your parents watch? (They are listed.) Do your parents watch Dunya TV? How do they react during the President’s speeches? Do your relatives take part in the demonstrations? Are there weapons at your house?
They tell us about the kidnappings. H.R., a woman kidnapped in Insha’at a month ago by the shabbiha, released after four days in an exchange, with two other girls, for pro-regime men kidnapped by the FSA. There is also the S. family in Insha’at, whose daughter H.S. was detained for five days. Abu Abdallah, the military doctor, knows her.
A little earlier, Abu Abdallah offered me a beautiful misbaha34 made of little glass beads, in the colors of free Syria, made in prison by his brother.
‘Ali, another doctor, shows us his torso, crisscrossed with scars. He caught several bullets on October 28, including one a centimeter away from his heart, and one 1.5 centimeters away from his spine. Some shabbiha, four men armed with Kalashnikovs and a machine gun, in a black KIA, entered the neighborhood, greeting the FSA people in a friendly way, and then machine-gunned the demonstration. Afterwards, they managed to flee through Kfar ‘Aaya and rejoin the checkpoint. There were six dead, including a woman. Ra’id remembers, he had photographed the bodies of the dead. ‘Ali had already been announced as shahid, and they had begun digging his grave. “I’m the living martyr.”
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Just as we arrive at the house, gunfire breaks out, some nearby (outgoing fire apparently). Heavy exchanges. It resumes a little later, after a mortar detonation, then it’s more and more sustained. It is 10:45 PM. We get dressed and go out, escorted by ‘Alaa who is carrying an AK-74.35 We go to Hassan’s command post where a few guys, in the dark, with just the light of a cellphone, are trying to load an obviously jammed machine gun. We go further on, with another soldier, along the street of semi-destroyed buildings where we were yesterday. When we reach an intersection, with a street that looks out on to the Army positions, ‘Alaa explains to us that we have to cross at a fast run. We run fast. At that moment the post begins firing, single shots then volleys. We continue, we look for Hassan. Then the other soldier calls him on the phone. He has left for Insha’at, where the main attack is taking place. Who attacked first? “We never attack,” ‘Alaa replies. “When the Army attacks, we defend ourselves.” About-face, another crossing of the street at a run, then we calmly return to the house.
Surprising tranquility during the minutes spent waiting to contact Hassan, in the corner of a street in the dark. Gunfire on various sides, and us in the cold and the quiet, calm.
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Imad gives us another version of the story of the two prisoners we saw at the second clinic. The FSA had attacked an Army building, and the two soldiers fled; wounded, they were captured, and it’s only at that point that they said: “We’re with you.” But the FSA considers them prisoners [and not deserters].
Army snipers have two functions: shooting at passersby, and at soldiers who try to desert. That’s what happened with those two.
Fadi, Abu Yazan, and Hassan return from the fight. Fadi had tried to fire an RPG that Abu Yazan dismantles in front of us, but it misfired.
We give them a hard time because they didn’t bring anything to eat.
Abu Yazan tells the story of the fight: there is an FSA checkpoint in Insha’at, in a school. The Army attacked and the guys called for reinforcements. They knew there was a sniper in the upper stories of the tower under construction near the tall blue building, and that’s why they took RPGs, to dislodge him. Fired one. Even if they miss him – they shoot at random, not knowing what floor he’s on – it’s supposed to scare him and force him to come down.
12:45 AM. Dinner finally arrives. Imad yodels for joy, takes out his pistol and shoots a bullet through the window, howling with laughter. I scold him: “It’s not polite to make holes in the walls and the windows, when you’re a guest in someone’s home.”
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31 “You have to understand them, Monsieur. Forty years of fear!”
32 Brigadier general.
33 International Committee of the Red Cross.
34 Prayer beads.
35 A more modern but less common version of the Kalashnikov.