Slept well despite the cold. Dreams: riots, automatic weapons, beach, students, episodes combining these elements. When I wake up, around 9:00 AM, a few mortar shells, a little further away. Our host has left but one of his friends makes us breakfast.
We go out to phone, the apartment doesn’t have any reception. In front of Hassan’s command post, ‘Alaa, Fadi, and some other guys are drinking tea, beneath a newly installed awning to keep out the rain. It’s nice out. Ra’id calls Ibn Pedro: he has guests, and no planned time for departure. He’ll call back. Abu Bilal informs him about the situation at the center: there is fighting everywhere, Safsafi is cut off, it’s really war.
‘Alaa explains their plans for the soldiers surrounded in the building: they’re going to mine the supporting pillars, then give them a choice between coming over to their side, or being blown up.
The mortars start up again, one very close, Ra’id hears it whistle. I tell him it’s good if you can hear the whistle: if you can hear the whistle, it’s not for you. He looks rather unconvinced.
11:30 AM. It’s raining now. Still no news from Ibn Pedro. We go to the mosque, where I remain sitting in a corner, alone, as Ra’id goes out to attend to his affairs. Little by little, the men come in to pray.
We go to the school [the headquarters of the Military Council]. Muhannad isn’t there. There’s an Irish woman journalist, with Jeddi and Danny, looking harassed. Jeddi yells at Ra’id: “Danny, translate. I’m fed up with him! He wants war, war, war. Humanitarian questions don’t interest him.” Ra’id: “No need to translate, my friend.” The young woman wants to leave tomorrow, and I ask to leave with her, in case.
I had met Danny Abdul Dayem, a young twenty-three-year-old Syrian-Brit, at Abu Bari’s clinic the same day we arrived in Homs, and I was struck by his perfect English, a very rare thing here. He himself was just returning from vacation in England, and welcomed my suggestion to come work with me. During the following days it was impossible for me to find him or even to speak with him on the phone. We would learn later on that he had immediately been picked up by the Information Bureau, with whom we didn’t have the best relations. After my departure, when the systematic bombing of Baba ‘Amr began, Danny began appearing several times a day on YouTube, denouncing in English the atrocities filmed by the activists and calling for international help. On February 13, as the shelling was intensifying, he left Baba ‘Amr to find refuge in Lebanon. He has since then granted several interviews to English-language television networks about the horrors he witnessed.
1:00 PM. We find Imad in front of Hassan’s command post, looking harassed, I don’t know if it’s because of us or something else. No sign of Ibn Pedro. “The way isn’t free,” Imad states, tired. I return to the apartment, at least it’s warm.
A feeling of imprisonment takes shape. It’s been five days now that I’ve been trying to leave, the guys are furtive, not clear, there’s shelling, Ra’id is annoyed by everything, me, the situation, his computer that keeps crashing, the phone network doesn’t work well and it’s hard to communicate, it’s what is called a shitty situation, I guess. And there is absolutely nothing to be done.
Visit to Imad’s clinic, to look for Abu Salim. He isn’t there. In front of the clinic, stickers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, laughable protection. Work setting up the operating room. Quick visit from ‘Abd ar-Razzaq Tlass, who has come to see how the work is advancing. Several wounded: a person badly burned, after a gas explosion caused by a mortar shell on Monday, a man machine-gunned Sunday at a checkpoint in Insha’at, a young guy with his face burned who caught the backfire of a shell that fell at the foot of his building, through the window of his apartment, five days ago. Now he’s doing better, he explains all this to us with his face covered with cream, and shows us a photo of himself taken a few days ago, his head completely wrapped in bandages. The man wounded by bullets is a taxi driver who was coming from Damascus with a passenger and who was machine-gunned at 4:00 AM by a checkpoint.
Arrival of Dr. ‘Ali, the living martyr. “Yesterday was a slaughter.” Seventeen wounded. Of course, no one told us anything, or showed us anything.
Around 4:00 PM, arrival of Abu Hanin, from the Information Bureau, the Maktab al-I’ilami. He immediately tears into me, in English. “I don’t even know you,” I reply. “Yes, but I spoke with him last week,” he says, pointing to Ra’id. “He said he’d be back in ten minutes, and you guys disappeared.” The Irish woman is leaving in half an hour. Can’t I go with her? “No, you can’t. You guys say you are on your own, fine, you say you can manage, fine, now manage with your people.” Things are getting out of hand. Ra’id intervenes and it starts, half in English, half in Arabic.
Abu Hanin: “You see, we are Arabs. This is how it is with Arabs.” Ra’id: “This has nothing to do with Arabs. I’m Arab too.” The guy is grotesque, aggressive, incoherent. We sense he can’t stand the fact that we bypassed them. Finally, he turns to me: “Why do you say to him you cannot go because we have a problem? I never said that. You have fresh material, of course it is in our interest that you publish it. If we can help you go out, we will. But we can’t. You can’t go with the woman.” I try to smooth things out, finally he gives me a sensible explanation: “She’s leaving in a truck, veiled, disguised as a Syrian woman, with Syrian papers. You think you can leave like that? You think so?” I do my best to calm him down, smooth over the misunderstanding, but he is out of control. Finally, we agree that he’ll help me if he can.
In the apartment. Tea, reading. A few men are sleeping or resting. Around 5:30 PM, a series of mortar shells, not far, near the cemetery. Hassan arrives with his two boys, very cute and shy. The guys have the children play with pistols, safety on but loaded.
6:00 PM. An Mi-24 combat helicopter is whirling around the neighborhood. The guys are unhappy with the performance of Alain Juppé at the Security Council. They start playing a video game, soccer. Ra’id disappeared hours ago, no news.
I ask ‘Alaa to take me on motorbike to find Ra’id. He doesn’t know where to go but we’ll look. We weave through the puddles, go down a long avenue with our lights out, reach the second health center, Imad’s, then from there the clinic, the one where we were this afternoon; there, they direct us to a first activists’ house, but it’s the one where we had met the Communist lawyer, there are just a few guys there, finally we find the apartment of the maktab. Ra’id is indeed here, with Marcel, working on his computer to try to save his files. I thank ‘Alaa who leaves.
There are dozens of activists sprawled everywhere, glued to their laptops, all on YouTube or Facebook or Twitter. Someone offers me a chicken and fries sandwich and lends me a Mac, e-mail finally, terribly slow. The Irish journalist has already left. Abu Hanin probes me: “Why didn’t you come see us? Why did you avoid us?” I answer diplomatically. When I mention the term al-Maktab al-I’ilami, Abu Hanin denies that such a bureau exists: “We’re just a group of friends, that’s all.” On the walls, photos of martyrs. Brief political discussion, but it doesn’t go far.
More discussions later. Abu Hanin tells me that if our guys can get me across the autostrad, his can take care of the rest. Promises me that if there is a way, he’ll get me out tomorrow or Saturday. Friday isn’t good, it’s a dangerous day because of the demonstrations.
Ra’id is completely absorbed in his computer problems and barely pays attention when I talk to him. Finally I leave him there and have a friend of the living martyr take me back to the apartment.