Version imprimableBashar al-Assad, the violent gravedigger of the Syrian revolution, son and worthy successor of the 1980s dictator Hafez al-Assad, fled the country without a word.
Head of a regime that used religious divisions to hold on to power, Bashar al-Assad had come close to falling during the Arab Spring of 2011 and the massive revolts in his own country. The deadly repression, arrests and widespread torture, the tens of thousands of disappearances, the use of the army and chemical weapons as a policy of terror against his population militarized this popular revolution. In almost 15 years, Assad has massacred and killed half a million people.
This was followed by a decade of civil war in which various groups and factions intervened, with the interference of outside countries (oil monarchies, Turkey, Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as France and the United States) and the deployment of the Islamic State/Daech, which crushed the Syrian people. Not to mention ongoing Israeli aggression. We condemn Israel’s invasion of the Golan buffer zone this morning.
The offensive carried out in recent days by Syrian rebel groups, taking advantage of the weakening of Hezbollah, has shown the decay of Bashar’s armies and supporters.
We welcome the end of his reign. We are in solidarity with the emancipatory and democratic aspirations of the Syrian people, which the Kurdish forces in particular are carrying forward. Nothing has been settled for the Syrian people, who remain under the constraint of various military and political groups with contradictory and, more often than not, reactionary interests.
The end of the Assad dynasty must ensure the rights of Syria’s peoples and minorities, democracy and social justice.
Montreuil, 8 December 2024
Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.
