Vannay’s trip to Hama in LeMonde

This piece was written by Gaëtan Vannay after he returned from Hama, Syria. Thanks for the work of @PrincessLayl, here is it in English. (From Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/archive/1,0-0,50-1557225@45-0,0.html)

(Read more from Vannay here.)

In Hama, the martyr city,”each drop of blood is worth our sacrifice”

HAMA (SYRIA), SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (August 8, 2011) – Chief of the Radio Suisse Romande international service, Gaëtan Vannay is one of the very few journalists to have been inside Hama. He entered Syria clandestinely on July 20th (this country’s authorities don’t give visas to journalists) and relates what he saw in this city, theater of big demonstrations, where he worked until August 1st, the day after the murderous assault launched by the regime.

Ahmed, who looks like a boxer and under a fake name, shrugs. “I was arrested because I was demonstrating.” He doesn’t remember the exact date, but it was 83 days ago. A counter is working in his head ever since the torture he suffered into the hands of security forces, and will keep counting until Bashar Al-Assad steps down. “Each drop of blood from a child, a young man, a woman, a martyr, is worth us sacrificing ourselves.” No need to talk about reforms.

Ahmed was released after he signed and left the fingerprint of his right thumb on a blank paper, after a confession – duly recorded – according to which he had been armed and paid to demonstrate, after guaranteeing that, from now on, he would support the regime.

A city victim of the repression

Ever since his liberation, he is more active than ever in the Syrian opposition. He knows by heart the most improbable roads to get in or out of Hama without being spotted by the army and the regime’s security forces surrounding the city since the beginning of July. Despite this encirclement, except for the daily meeting of demonstrators calling for the leaving of Bashar Al-Assad, Hama inhabitants try to live the most normal life possible, “in the independent Republic of Hama,” jokes an opponent.

“When you’re walking inside a tunnel, you don’t see the light at the end yet, but you know that you’re walking in the right direction. I’m sure I’m walking in the right direction,” he confided. And things can hardly get any darker today for the inhabitants of Hama in Syria, victim of the repression after weeks of demonstrations against the regime.

Saleh Al-Amwi, called a “revolutionary,” is a religious figure very respected in this city of the center of Syria, a member of the organization and coordination of demonstrations committee. Respected in those circumstances, not only for his young age and his wisdom, but also because he was in the streets from day one, points out a militant.
All the opponents met in Hama share this conviction, this determination, even after the entry of army and security forces tanks in the city on the morning of Sunday, July 31st. The majority of opponents were too afraid to demonstrate that night, a few militants gathered Monday night, by neighborhoods, to display their will to not be intimidated. But meeting on the central square, Al-Aassi square, would have been simply deadly.

“Should we continue without weapons?”

Saturday, August 6th, the Syrian state television was showing pictures of the city of Hama deserted by its inhabitants, but littered with after-war debris. The voice-over of a journalist was announcing the army’s success in eliminating “an armed rebellion launched by terrorists.” On August 2nd, this same television channel was already reporting these “armed gangs terrorizing the population,” making opponents scream behind their screens, most of them sheltered at home this night while the Syrian army was shooting with its tanks on the two main hospitals of the city.

For months, regime opponents were applying themselves to maintain a pacific movement despite the repression. Saleh Al-Amwi worked personally on calming the families of “martyrs,” convincing those wanting to arm themselves to take revenge not to do it. When the tanks entered in town, the few men who went out in the streets carrying weapons to defend the city were firmly asked not to use them.

But the temptation is strong. On a derisory barricade made of brick and scrap metal supposed to slow down the march of tanks, Sadi (a fake name) asks, pointing at the armored vehicles: “Should we continue without weapons?” Inner fight between the will to maintain a peaceful revolt and a feeling of powerlessness against the regime’s strike force. Sadi, with his impressive stature, climbs on a mo-ped and rides through the city to inform and get informed. This amateur poet is in the heart of the opposition movement. Some of his poems have been published, but not the lines criticizing the regime. Those never got out of his very narrow circle of trustworthy friends.

Sadi’s final destination : an ordinary house in the center of Hama. They’re only a few militants to know about this place where the few available pictures of the Syrian repression are put online. On the outside, in the city streets, young people are taking the risk to die in order to catch from the closest possible the progress and positions of tanks, the shootings on a population disarmed by security forces. Some lost their life to this. The memory cards are exchanged quickly and discreetly, from hand to hand, ending up in this nerve center for regime opponents. Young people are putting the pictures online, communicating via Skype (telephony via Internet), trying to get in touch with demonstrators from other cities.

“Hama is not alone anymore”

Several networks are crossing, collaborating to gather and transmit information, facing the black-out imposed by Syrian authorities. Some images come from army or security forces members, who film them and sell them, out of greed. They’re very expensive. Demonstrators take the risk of getting in touch with the authors and buying these documents, often the most graphic ones, showing the bad treatments inflicted upon arrested people. Indeed they can only be filmed by involved people.

While Hama was home to some of the greatest gatherings (tens of thousands of demonstrators – and not hundreds of thousands like militants asserted), the incursion of regime forces put an end to those gatherings. “But Hama is not alone anymore, and it’s the biggest difference with 1982” said an inhabitant happily – despite everything – a 54-year-old whose 7 children are militants.
10,000 to 20,000 people were killed that year, in Hama, in the ferocious repression of an uprising against the regime. The extent of the massacre was only known long after the events. “I’m very proud of my kids, they want to earn their freedom and their dignity. After living 1982, I never would have thought people would dare demonstrating”
Today, deprived of telephone and Internet, opponents are reduced to silence in Hama. But Homs, 47 kilometers from there, took the streets again despite the repeated assaults of regime forces during the month of July. And in other cities of the country, slogans in support for Hama are being chanted by demonstrators. “We will demonstrate throughout all Syria until our last drop of blood,” affirmed Ahmed. Somewhere in a repressed Hama, his mental counter was still counting.