10 Years of War in Syria: The Horrors Still Haunting a Western Journalist Expelled by the Assad Regime

Sam Dagher is still accompanied by the horrible scenes he witnessed in Syria and it will probably always be that way. The American-Lebanese journalist was the only Western correspondent to cover the war from inside the country between 2011 and 2014. He is the author of the book “Assad or we burn the country”, a A phrase that became one of the regime’s mantras since the conflict broke out and that he himself saw painted several times on the walls that were left standing in the middle of the destruction.

The war reporter lived permanently in Damascus, the Syrian capital, until he was briefly detained by forces loyal to Bashar al Asad in a clandestine prison and then expelled from the country for reporting unfavorably to the regime.

Dagher has more than 16 years reporting in the Middle East and has worked for prestigious media such as “The Wall Street Journal”, “The New York Times”, “Christian Science Monitor” and the agency France Presse.

Trade talked with him about the impact of the war on his life and work, and how he sees the future for Syria 10 years after the start of the devastating conflict.

How did the war in Syria change the world?

I think in many ways and not for the better, unfortunately. What happened in Syria undermined international law and the United Nations like no other event in recent history because it created this horrible narrative, and I’m talking about something that dates back to early 2011, that only benefits dictators and autocrats in everything. the world, including Latin America.

-In what sense?

It was seen that a dictator can do anything to stay in power, he can kill and imprison his own people, he can starve his people and even attack them with chemical weapons and he can get away with it, without much punishment. This impunity was created for autocrats around the world, not only in the Middle East, but also in some parts of Europe, where so-called populist leaders came to power filled with hatred and polarization and stirred up the people with the aim of achieving the can. We saw it in the United States with Donald Trump and in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro. The war in Syria opened the door for all kinds of autocrats to feel they have the license to do anything. And we certainly continue in that environment to this day.

“Do you see the situation in Syria improve in the near future?”

I believe that the situation can only improve if, first and foremost, justice is served and accountable for what happened. Although all sides have committed war crimes in Syria, the person responsible for the majority of crimes against humanity is the regime, specifically Bashar al-Assad and his family. So until they are held accountable for what they did, I don’t see any long-term solutions. That is, there may be efforts at this time, but the root of the problem is the tyranny and oppression and the lack of freedom that the Syrian people have lived through for 15 years because it must be remembered that this family has been in power for more. 50 years old, from Hafez al Asad (father of the current president).

-How they did it?

The regime party has been ruling since 1963 because when it came to power it wiped out all political life in Syria. All political parties were dissolved, all those who were against the regime in some way were expelled from the country and everything was naturalized in the name of equality and in the name of redistribution.

We have seen many examples of this in Latin America when the rhetoric focuses on the power of the people, but at the end of the day, in practice, the power is concentrated in a family and a strong person. This family has been in power for five decades and the root cause of this problem in Syria is this tyranny, this oppression. People cannot speak their minds, they have to submit to the regime and live in constant fear. All that is still valid, nothing has changed. As long as those circumstances remain the same, I don’t see any long-term solution.

—He mentioned the efforts that exist to bring about a change. In what state are these actions?

Right now there are efforts on the part of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran, all of them ruled by autocracies, by strong men. These countries say they are trying to find a way to start a new page in Syria, but keeping Bashar al Assad with some reforms. They claim that a way must be found to have a political solution that maintains the regime and that may include some elements of the opposition and add some cosmetic reform, but this is not going to work in the long term.

I also think that the way of thinking that countries in Europe and the United States have that say they are democrats and that they want democracies all over the world, but at the same time they are not very dissatisfied with the status quo in Syria, is dangerous. In their minds it means that there are no more refugees arriving in Europe and they also feel that maybe this regime is better than the Islamic State. But they forget that what the Islamic State created are regimes like the Syrian one. The tyranny that exists in Syria created the Islamic State and other extremist groups.

—How did the war impact your work as a journalist?

Tremendously. I started covering the war from Beirut (Lebanon) in 2011 and then I was able to get to Syria, where I was from October 2011 to August 2014. After the regime kicked me out of the country, in that 2014, I suffered a long period of upheaval. of post-traumatic stress from having to deal with what I went through. I think journalists need to recover from those kinds of stories. I am convinced that they need a lot of mental, psychological and professional support. It is very difficult to ask people to cover this type of conflict without support and I hope that organizations will now give this type of support the priority it deserves, because it really has a great impact on the lives of journalists. He had it in mine.

“Is there a particular episode that comes back to your mind?”

What I saw in the city of Homs still haunts me to this day. There is a systematic cleaning campaign carried out by the regime that began in 2011. This means surrounding the area where civilians who protest against the regime live and bombing it, the objective is to make people abandon their homes, to leave everything behind. When these neighborhoods are empty then the militias that are at the service of the regime, the paramilitaries, steal everything in the houses and then burn them down because they don’t want people to return. To this day there are entire neighborhoods in Homs that are completely deserted, there is no one.

“What was it like to witness that?”

For me it is the scene that haunts me the most. I remember walking through these neighborhoods without hearing anything but the sound of birds and then seeing the lives of people lying in the streets in the form of a blanket, a baby toy, a photo album. I saw children’s school books right on the street, with no one there. Many times the paramilitaries wrote on the walls this slogan “Assad or nobody” or “Assad or we will burn the country.” That’s how I titled the book I wrote about the war. They are not my words, they were the words of forces loyal to the regime.