Syria: It never had to be this way
March 15, 2012
The Syrian uprising is one year old today. It shouldn’t be. What began as peaceful, legitimate protests in search of dignity and a better future need never have become the violent conflict that has seen Baba Amr become the latest symbol of the regime’s shameful disregard for human rights and human life.
When the relatives of 40 political detainees gathered outside the Interior Ministry in Damascus on March 15th 2011, exactly a year ago, the regime had an opportunity to listen. It had a chance to consider their requests – even look at long promised reforms. But the actions of the security forces – the plain clothed mukhabarat – who bundled old men and women into buses and savagely beat them began to say otherwise.
By the time a crowd gathered in the clock square in Homs last April a pattern of repression had already emerged. To clear the square of a peaceful sit-in, regime forces machine-gunned the crowd, killing seventy people.
Even in mid July when some opposition members tried to participate in the regime’s hastily organised national dialogue – despite the ongoing suppression of weekly protests – Assad had a chance to choose a different path. Instead the state murdered twelve people who had gathered on the eve of talks to meet in a quiet Damascus suburb. For me that is the moment when the regime shut the door on participation by peaceful activists even in its own national dialogue except on terms that preserved its absolute control.
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/simoncollis/2012/03/15/it-never-had-to-be-this-way/
