All Dictatorships Float in Puddles of Blood
What the fall of the dynastic dictatorship of Asad in Syria teaches us about Nicaragua.
Por Silvio Prado (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – The fall of the regime of Bashar al Asad has revealed the brutality on which he based his rule. The levels of cruelty, while suspected, continue surprising us with the extremes a human being is capable of reaching when they’re no longer subject to the law, nor to legal institutions that safeguard human rights.
Proof in point: the Saidnaya detention and torture center, known to Syrians as the human slaughterhouse. Saidnaya – like the Nazi extermination camps, the Gulags, the Chinese reeducation centers, the ESMA in Argentina, and many more – teach us that all dictatorships float on puddles – if not lakes – of blood. When the Ortega dictatorship falls, we’ll see that their El Chipote jail isn’t left behind.
Although it may still be too soon to take any lessons from the fall of the Syrian butcher, even now we can trace some elements common to the fall of all the dictatorships that have maintained themselves in power through blood and fire: the attempts to crush their populations; the frenetic violence against those who oppose them; the arbitrary and massive use of their monopoly of force; the sick (and useless) clinging to power; the persistent resistance of the peoples; and – inevitably – the hurried final flight of the tyrants. None of these factors is foreign to Nicaraguans.
Violence against the protests
Protests against the Syrian regime first exploded nearly 14 years ago in Deraa, one of the cities that was infected by the Arab Spring. Those self-organized uprisings (sound familiar?) swept away the authoritarian regimes in Tunis, Libya, Egypt, and now Syria. None of them ended with the installation of democratic governments, but that’s another story.
They say that in Syria it began with graffiti some fifteen-year-olds painted on a wall in Deraa, saying only: “Your turn has come, doctor.” It was no coincidence. The Asad family maintained a dynastic regime (sound familiar?) that by then had been in power for over forty years. Bashar, a former ophthalmology student, was the son of Hafez, the dictatorship’s patriarch. The repression that was unleashed against 15 kids (another similarity) led to protest demonstrations which then spread to the larger cities, culminating in massive demonstrations in the capital Damascus.
The regime responded with such intense violence as to cause the death of hundreds of protestors, and to fill the jails where there was merciless torture, leading to the disappearance of thousands of Syrians. This was the breeding grounds for an insurrection that was born on March 15 and led to a devastating civil war. That war then went on so long that it was almost forgotten, despite the human drama six million Syrians who fled the country experienced in their flesh.
Arbitrary and massive use of the monopoly of forces
Even before 2011, the Asad’s had implanted a system of repression that included the use of chemical weapons against those they thought opposed them. A praetorian army that had neither discipline nor combat morale, as we’ve seen, nonetheless stood out within that repressive framework. In fact, it’s said that if it hadn’t been for the support of the Russians, the Iranians, and the Hezbollah militias, the regime would have fallen in 2012.
The Army’s lack of morale didn’t stop it from becoming the forefront of the push against the protests in the country’s principal cities. The Syrian Army and the Russian aviation were responsible for the destruction of a good part of humanity’s patrimony that lay within Syria. The Police were the other repressive element, and of course, the Mukhabarat, the regime’s political police, who took orders directly from al Asad, and had a license to capture, torture, kill or disappear anyone suspected of opposing the government.
The final component of this repressive trinity belonged to Baath, the official party that was absorbed by Al Asad and transformed into a source for recruiting members of the paramilitary, and of corruption (any similarities here with Nicaragua are no coincidence). In order to offer legal cover for this arbitrary use of monopoly official force, the regime imposed a permanent State of Emergency that lasted until the tyranny was overthrown.
The sick obsession with power
Over the course of the past 14 years, Bashar al Asad had a number of moments when he could have ceded power and made way for a peaceful transition. First, when he first assumed power in 2000; also, when the 2011 protests broke out in the principal Syrian cities. He had a chance when, buoyed by outside help, he succeeded through blood and fire in stopping the advance of the different insurgent groups; and later, once again, when different international forums offered signs of once again accepting the regime, after nearly all of Syria had been destroyed, thousands had been killed, and over 6 million Syrians had fled into exile. On each of these occasions, he could have arrived at negotiated solutions with the different parties involved in the conflict.
That would have implied his loss of power and exit from the scene, as well as paying the price of his extermination practices. However, as with other dictators, he placed his bets on all or nothing. And on December 8th, his bets collapsed, and he lost them all. All his insistent clinging to power couldn’t save him from the final abyss.
The people’s tenacious resistance
It could be argued that Al Asad fell due to a convergence of geopolitical factors that aided the offensive of the rebel groups. However, none of that would have been possible if the population that remained in Syria hadn’t put up resistance every single day of the fourteen years that the civil war lasted. No insurgent movement can maintain itself without the support of a people who are fed up with oppression, and who – despite clear fears of being detected by the repressive apparatus – continue conspiring against the regime: passing information, engaging in small and large actions to sabotage the oppressor, and feeding hope for a change, despite the most pessimistic predictions generated by the final raids, disappeared persons, and fresh blood of the last group of mutilated bodies. As we chorused in the Nicaragua of the 80s: without a people willing to sacrifice, there’s no Revolution. The Syrians have proven this overwhelmingly.
The tryants’ hurried flight
It’s true that some have died in their beds: Stalin, Franco, Castro, Pinochet… But others ended up fleeing hastily in an airplane, under cover of early morning. In each case, precisely because they feared ending up as prisoners, like Mubarak of Egypt or Hoenecker in East Germany; or executed, like Romania’s Ceausescu or Libya’s Gaddafi. The route Bashar took was the same exit chosen by Somoza, Batista, Ben Ali and Duvalier: he filled the airplane with as much as he could take, but he couldn’t take everything he wanted – reportedly, not even the bones of his father. If there’s a lesson to be learned by all the dictators, it would be this: always have an airplane at hand, waiting with the turbines ready.
Although the initial evidence confirms the brutality the Asad regime employed to keep themselves in power for 54 years, certainly we’ll very shortly be learning that the dimensions of the terror were far worse. That the blood shed by Syrians has been so abundant that it ended up drowning the tormentors themselves. That’s what happens and must happen with all dictatorial regimes – that the blood of their victims ends up reaching them in the tribunals, in prison cells, or at the foot of the gallows.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.