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 INTERVIEW WITH THE MEMBER OF THE SYRIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL AND FORMER SYRIAN AMBASSADOR TO SWEDEN DR. MOHAMMED BASSAM IMADI
Interview: Oytun Orhan; Researcher, ORSAM
ORSAM: Can you introduce yourself very briefly?
IMADI: My name is Muhammed Bassam Imadi. I am former Syrian Ambassador, I worked for Foreign Ministry about 30 years. Before that I was a lecturer in University of Damascus in the department of English language and literature. I resigned from my position in 2009 and joined to opposition nearly ten mounts ago. In July I joined to political opposition, to the National Coordination Committee. Then I left and come here to join ascency. Because being in Syria become very dangerous. I was started to known by authorities and one way or another I could be harmed. So I left Syria. Now I work in the Syrian National Council Foreign Relations Committee. My aim is to promote the revolution and sustain more support for opposition in international arena.
There is a lack of reliable information regarding what is going on in Syria. How do you define the situation and what is really going on in Syria? What are the main reasons of the current uprising?
Form the very start, when people started to revolt against regime, regime was very confused and could not produce good explanations on what is happening. Then regime has said everything except the truth. So it was very difficult to explain what is happening. First they used some Palestinians that of doing something, then they accused infiltrators, then accused some al-Qaeda groups, and then Salafi groups and terrorist and finally they accuse armed gangs. Regime’s state is very general so it can involve anybody. In fact the regime is lying from the very beginning on all the things happening in Syria. When you compare between revolutionaries and regime, you find big differences. The revolutionaries are able to provide videos of events on the ground and they have witnesses. They show the real truth about what is happening. The regime has chance to provide real evidence but they choose to hide the evidences. Media, TV, correspondents, and so on nobody is capable of going to Syria and see what is really going on. Nobody can go to Syria and report neutral view on what was happening and what is happening now. You can immediately criticize regime because regime has high interests in hiding evidences of truth. But now after eleven months everything becomes clear. It is a revolution and uprising and every side in Syria is a part of it. Regime murders the people and uses every kind of arms to finish that uprising. And the result is the continuation of the uprising, more people have been killed and we have more causality, we have thousand and thousand of videos of people have been killed. We have thousands and thousands of refugees in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. We have hundreds of defector who confess that they pushed by the regime to attack the revolutionaries. If they did not do that they were threatened to be killed. So this is the picture. Revolution started peacefully but regime from the very beginning had used the very heavy weapons against revolutionaries. It was not gradually. From the very beginning they used heavy weapons and measures. Now after 11 months people have become convinced that they have to defend themselves, people start to get weapons to defend themselves against the brutal regime, military and the Shabbias. The actions of the regime is unacceptable. They are destroying houses, killing children and massacre the people. So it is time that those people start holding arms to defend themselves, because the international community has failed to help these people.
Although the international community criticize the Assad regime in practice no concrete step has been taken. And one of the reasons for this is that the Syrian opposition is to weak and fractured. What do you think of such an argument?
Well this is an excuse of the West and the countries which don’t want to help. In all over the world, the opposition is not composed of one party. There are always several parts and sometimes there are some disagreements among them. Syrian opposition is all united. There might be one hundred parties. But they all having the same object which is getting rid of this regime. This is united stand. There are many groups and parties. But which one is the most important; the parties or the united goal? The goal of course. What can do the opposition more? It is up to the countries who want to help. What do they want from opposition to do?
I think the problem is whether the National Council is capable of establishing order and stability in Syria and whether they have leverage over the protesters inside Syria. Everybody is concerned about more instability in Syria.
Let’s consider that the National Council is not capable. What is the alternative? Let people die? Everybody knows that no group will be able to control Syria out of this opposition groups. So what do we do? We have no alternative. People are afraid of chaos. The longer there is this conflict going on, the more chaos will be in Syria. We are all afraid of what is happening after the regime collapse, because we are waiting too long. If you finish now, there will be some problem. But if you finish after two or three months there will more chaos, more weapons and so on.
Do you think that there is still a chance for peaceful transition in Syria?
It is always possible but it will need a lot of action and many procedures. For example you have to move away all the people who are in the power now, and bring people who would be accepted by people of Syria. There are acceptable people in the National Council, coordination committee, and also independent people who are acceptable. If you bring all these people together and put in the leadership then you will have the possibility to govern Syria peacefully.
Is there a chance that the regime might step back?
If there will be an enough pressure from international community including Russia, there is a possibility. And there is a possibility of creating a buffer zone. Buffer zone would give to the opposition to great help. First of all buffer zone can give them a peaceful ground to control. Another thing would give civilians refuge to run away from massacre. Third thing would enable the army to defect. Thousands will defect from the army. This will make the regular army unable to fight. This would bring the downfall of the regime.
It is claimed that some groups in Syria, especially the minority groups continue to support the regime. Is that true?
No that is not true. There are people from all groups who are against the regime and there are people from all groups who are supporting the regime. So it is not a matter of sectarian or religious loyalty, it is a matter of loyalty to the interest. If people have interest with current regime, they are supporting the regime, but the people who have no interest in the current regime are opposing the regime.
Beside interest relations, are there some groups who are afraid of post-Assad era because of security reasons?
If those people are working as Shabiha they should be afraid. If they are committing all these crime, I warn them to be afraid whether they are Allawite, Christians, Druze or Sunnis. They are killing people. They have to know that there is going to be a trial after the demise of this regime. But we guarantee the safety for those who are innocent, no one will harm them. Now we know that there are so many Allawite groups who are distinguishing themselves from the regime. They believe that this regime hijack their sect. This is true about Christians, Druze and Sunnis as well.
Russia and China vetoed the Arab League plan in UN Security Council. So what will be the next step for Syrian opposition?
Russians did not attend to the Tunisia meeting. After Tunisia Meeting, we want to see real strong stance, real actions against this regime, not only sanctions. We want a buffer zone to be established. We want limited military intervention; we would also support strategic air strike to headquarters of security forces, we want some strikes on the palace of president. In so the regime can be finished without big losses. Of course there would be some losses, but the leverage would not be as high as the regime now have been killed and continued to do.
I think the worst case scenario is the partition of Syria. What do you think about such a possibility?
All these are fears that the regime are implanting to our mind, but they are not true. A civil war requires more than two components of the people which are equal in power or number, and they fight each other. This is a civil war. But what we have today is that the regime has been killing the civilian people. That is not a civil war. Is this regime will go away, who will fight against whom? Allawite are less than %8 and as I said they are not all supporting the regime. On the contrary most of them are against regime because they know that the regime is using them. There would be no revenge because the revenge is going to be those who are killing each other. So this myth of civil war is not true. Who is going to kill who? The majority is Sunni and the rest have been living with minorities for hundreds of years. Nothing has happened to them till now. We did not know the differences between minorities and majority before this regime came into power. Till that time we had been lived together in harmony, everybody had the same rights. For example, the first Prime Minister of Syria was a Christian. This regime started to doing that in order to divide and to rule. This is very well known principle. After the collapse of this regime, we can return to normal. Of course there are some Allawite, Druze and Sunni people who have interests with this regime.
How do you evaluate Turkey’s position regarding the ongoing crisis in Syria and what can Turkey do more for the Syrian opposition?
I think that Turkey is governed by international community. Turkey cannot go alone to do anything. We wish that Turkey could do more but they cannot do more, cannot create a buffer zone without international community. I don’t know whether they want or not, but if they want they cannot do without the support of UN, NATO or Arab League. Of course they have to agree on what Turkey could do. Turkey could not pay the all cost and it could be shared by other countries.
Thank you very much Mr. Imadi.
*This interview was conducted by ORSAM Researcher Oytun Orhan on February 21, 2012 in Istanbul.
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| 26 March 2012 |
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