[Saad Khan]

There is a theory that points to the perpetrators being Western terrorists deployed by those who want the overturn of Syria.... Allah knows best.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp...716&sec=nation

A Malaysian’s view on Syria:


Activist Mustapa Mansor who studied in Syria 20 years ago went back recently to have a look and shares his views on the situation there.

WHEN Mustapa Mansor was in Jordan for an NGO event for Palestine last month, he couldn't resist hopping across the border to strife-ridden Syria for a few days to get a feel of the situation there.

Syria is not new to the 49-year-old Malaysian businessman who heads the international bureau of the NGO Malaysian Islamic Organisations Consultative Council (Mapim).

Twenty years ago, Mustapa had gone to Damascus with his wife and young children and spent two years in the country studying Arabic and religion. He has been back a number of times over the years.

He even has a “foster” Syrian family there. His foster father is a medical doctor named Dr Khaled who spent 11 years in prison for activism in the 1980s. He was jailed by then president Hafiz Al-Assad, father to the present leader Bashar Al-Assad.

“When I met Dr Khaled in 1992, he told me about how they tortured him in prison and broke practically every bone in his body but he managed to survive. There were thousands of others in prison with him, also jailed for their activism and politics. Some died and some went mad. His wife also spent a few years behind bars, where she saw and heard other female prisoners being raped.

“Now, interestingly, Dr Khaled's son who is also a doctor is one of the young revolutionary leaders of the current uprising trying to oust Bashar from power,” says Mustapa, who has been getting information on the developments in Syria from activists who managed to flee and are operating from outside the country.

While many see the Syrian uprising as being inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, Mustapa says that is just one factor. Many do not realise that with Syria, the roots go back to 1982, where an uprising against the ruling regime was brutally crushed by soldiers in what is known as the “Hama Massacre”. It left 40,000 to 70,000 people dead and another 100,000 expelled from the country.

“Now, it is their children and grandchildren who have risen against the regime. They want to avenge the deaths of their family members and the extraordinary pain they suffered over the last 30 years.

“This is the reason why, despite so many being killed every day in Syria, the revolution which is more than a year old is still going strong. Even if tens of thousands more die, there is no turning back. That is their promise,” says Mustapa.

Since the uprising against Bashar started in March 2011, more than 12,000 people have died, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. (The Egyptian revolution to oust President Hosni Mubarak resulted in 841 deaths; the Tunisian uprising to bring down President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali cost 338 lives while in Libya, between 30,000 and 50,000 people died trying to force out President Muammar Gaddafi.)

Mustapa, who visits the Middle East often because of his NGO work, was on the Asia Caravan to Gaza programme to break the siege on Gaza in January 2011 (two months before the beginning of the Syrian revolution). Their delegation of 120 was welcomed into Syria as “guests of the government” and stayed there for two weeks.

He says he went by his foster father's house but found it all locked up and calls went unanswered.

In Syria, says Mustapa, it is hard to seek information about a person's whereabouts because it is risky as there are government spies everywhere and one never knows whom to trust.

“When I was living in Damascus from 1992 to 1994, students used to come over to my house. In the morning, there would be men sleeping outside my house. They pretended to be mad but we knew they were government spies to monitor who was going in and out of the house. So we always had to be on guard everywhere when speaking to people about their government.

“The Syrians also told me that if they run into a friend whom they have not seen for some time, they would be careful about what they say in case the person has become a spy,” Mustapa relates.

According to Mustapa, the Malaysian embassy in Jordan had advised him against making the trip to Syria last month but because of his affection for the country, he decided to give it a shot.

“I have a business partner in Syria and I was concerned about him. I wanted to see how he was doing,” he says.

At the border crossing which is about a two-hour drive from Amman, the Jordanian capital, the immigration officers tried to ignore his group-of-three at first, he says. But when they wouldn't leave, they were asked to explain why they wanted to enter Syria.

“I told the immigration officer that if Syrians want to visit Malaysia, we would give them the visa and don't ask them why,” he says, adding that they were subsequently issued the visa and their small overnight bags were checked before they were allowed in. They had left their laptops and more expensive mobile phones in Jordan in case these were confiscated and brought cheap mobile phones instead.

Their taxi from the border to Damascus passed through Daraa, one of the places where the uprising first started in March last year. It was where kids who wrote anti-Bashar comments on the walls were caught and tortured. As Mustapa and his group journeyed on, they saw blown-up bridges and army convoys,

“The taxi driver himself is from Daraa but he didn't dare say anything about the revolution. We didn't say anything either,” he says.

When they reached Damascus, Mustapa's Syrian business partner was waiting and quickly whisked them into his car and drove them to his apartment.

“He thought we'd be less conspicuous and safer in his apartment than in a hotel where we might get picked up and questioned. We could feel the tension. We went everywhere in his car and met people who had fled from Homs (one of the worst “battle grounds” of the uprising) but we couldn't speak much to them because there were spies everywhere.

“Shops were still open but the price of food had trebled. There was not enough fuel and electricity was being rationed.”

And for obvious reasons, Mustapa didn't dare go anywhere close to his foster father's house.

Mustapa is not new to dicey situations. In May 2010, he was on board the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship which was part of the freedom flotilla to break the siege on Gaza, when the Israeli forces fired at the ship, boarded it and detained the passengers. Nine activists on board were killed in that incident.

Another time, when Egypt refused permission to let his group enter Gaza to deliver aid, the group crossed over anyway using one of the illegal underground tunnels.

During the visit last month, Mustapa decided to leave Syria after just four days there.

“We wanted to leave before Friday prayers because there are always demonstrations (and shootings) after the prayers. We left early and on our way out, we saw snipers on rooftops,” says Mustapa.

A lot of information on the violence and shooting of protesters have been making their way out via social media sites like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.

Since the uprising started, Syria has tried to keep a lid on the revolution and is not allowing foreign journalists into the country. Those who do get in are allowed for a short period but are denied free access to information as they have to be accompanied by government minders wherever they go.

Others who have managed to find their way in have found themselves targets of attack. This year alone, eight journalists have died covering the uprising in Syria.

Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) says it has been trying for months to get official authorisation to work with Syrian medical personnel in the areas most affected by violence. Its medical teams have managed to reach Homs but found patients and doctors at risk of attack and arrest.

“Being caught with patients is like being caught with a weapon,” says an orthopaedic surgeon whom MSF met in a village in Idlib Governorate.

“The atmosphere in most medical facilities is extremely tense; healthcare workers send wounded patients home and provide only first aid so that facilities can be evacuated quickly in the event of a military operation. A number of Syrian colleagues are reported to be missing,” says Marie-Nolle Rodrigue, MSF's director of operations in Paris in a press release.

While the MSF only has a partial view of the medical situation inside Syria due to the lack of authorisation to work in the country, its director of operations in Brussells Brice de le Vinge says MSF saw “militarised healthcare facilities” where access to medical care depended on which side a person belonged.

An MSF surgeon relates how they worked as hard as they could for three straight days at a public hospital.

“We operated on 15 wounded people and then had to pack everything up in 10 minutes after being notified of an imminent attack. In another place, an operating room was closed because it was simply too dangerous to perform surgery on wounded patients.

“Doctors were threatened and they discouraged us from setting up a medical facility because the situation was so risky. Sometimes, the infrastructure is there and you can see medical equipment and supplies but the fear and risk of capture is so great that doctors hesitate to treat patients,” the MSF surgeon says.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), they and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent have distributed enough food and essential items to cover the needs of about 350,000 people inside the country since July 2011.

It adds that tens of thousands of men, women and children are displaced because of the fighting and many are struggling just to make it through the day.

For Mustapa, to say the uprising in Syria is due to outside interference and a play by the West to cause the downfall of an anti-US and anti West leader (Bashar al-Assad) is wrong.

“That is belittling the people of Syria, their 30-year struggle and their suffering,” he says, adding that he hoped the UN and the Arab League would intervene to put an end to the violence and deaths before the country spirals out of control.