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May 26, 2016 Special Dispatch No. 6450

Syrian Oppositionist Writer To Assad: You Should Commit Suicide Before Someone Takes Revenge On You

May 26, 2016
Syria | Special Dispatch No. 6450

On April 13, 2016, 'Ali 'Eid, a journalist and columnist for the Syrian oppositionist website Zamanalwsl.net, published an article in the form of a letter to President Assad calling on him to commit suicide before a member of the Syrian people takes revenge on him for the death and destruction he has caused to Syria and its people.

The following are excerpts from the article:[1]

"How many times have you stood before a woman over the past five years? How many times did you tell yourself that you could face the mother of a child you killed? And that you [can] be in the same room with her without guards or rifles? How many times have you been plagued by the suspicion that the victims do not die without [eventually naming] their killer? Do you share your pillow each night with the images of the 300,000 dead? With the wails of 300,000 mothers? The grief of the lovers? Or even the silence of those who died in their sleep without screaming, but merely by [inhaling] poisonous air and emitting a few moans?

"Bashar Al-Assad, did you sleep well after receiving the pictures of the 600 victims in [the city of] Darayya, [the town of] Jdaidet Al-Fadl, [the village of] Al-Qubeir, and [the town of] Taldou? Did you predict the gender of each victim as you listened to the sound of barrel bombs being dropped on Darayya, which is within your earshot?...

"Bashar Al-Assad, are you pleased with yourself when you and your wife promise your crippled fighters talking clocks [aids for the handicapped] and crutches and tell them that [these items] are merely delayed due to the Western embargo [on Syria],[2] while the Panama Papers reveal that you took tens of billions from Syrian food [funds] and deposited them in banks and projects stretching from Venezuela to China?

"Did they tell you that 13 million Syrian [refugees] dream of returning, even to the ruins of the homes you destroyed and sat atop their rubble, and that every one of those millions simply dreams of laying eyes on the olive tree in their yard or the grave of [their] brother, son or mother, [after] you denied them even [the mercy] of  shutting their [loved one's] eyes for the last time?

"Bashar Al-Assad, if you had an olive tree or memories of a small vineyard and a poor neighborhood like Syrians have, you would have known the anguish that is overwhelming the sons of Homs, Deir [Al-Zour], Hauran, and Ghouta in the places they migrated to. Bashar Al-Assad, if you knew how a farmer saved up his income for five years of suffering in order to marry off his son and invite all the villagers to eat and celebrate with him, you would have understood people's yearning for human fellowship...

"Bashar Al-Assad, as you sit at your table tomorrow morning, leave one chair empty and try to imagine that one of your children had been killed. Then you will think as I do, like a Bedouin [wanting to avenge his loved ones]. What will you think then? After that, picture that you, who have killed hundreds of thousands [of Syrians], take back control of all of Syria. But you cannot kill the memory of their sons. Do you know what the next day will bring, or at whose hands, or where, you might die?

"I know you are scared and tired, but you have become like a small mouse that entered a pumpkin through a little hole, ate the insides, and grew so big that he could not leave through the same hole.

"Bashar Al-Assad, I suggest that you shoot yourself in the head, because if you don't, the people around you will eventually sell you out and make you commit suicide with three bullets instead of one, just as you and your family has taught them."

 

Endnotes:

 

[1] Zamanalwsl.net, April 13, 2016.

[2] The writer is a referring to a meeting that President Assad and his wife Asmaa held with wounded Syrian soldiers in honor of Mothers' Day. During it, Asmaa Al-Assad promised the soldiers that she would act to provide them with aids such as crutches and talking watches for the blind, but noted that the economic sanctions on Syria would make it difficult to obtain these items. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), March 23, 2016.

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