From Arwa Damon, CNNupdated 5:45 PM EST, Thu January 5, 2012
Syrian defector says government has lost control of 'human monsters'
Cairo (CNN) -- Syria's embattled government has been holding jailed dissidents underground and paying pro-government gang members $100 a day to crack down on protesters as it tries to quell months of demonstrations against it, a former defense official said.
Mahmoud al-Haj Hamad was a financial inspector in the Ministry of Defense in Damascus until his recent defection to Egypt. In an interview with CNN this week, he provided a firsthand account of the wheels of repression at work, as seen from his former 12th-floor office.
"I used to see them bringing in blindfolded and handcuffed detainees on buses who are kept in underground prisons, even some built under the streets," he said. During protests in the streets of Damascus, city buses filled with armed gangs left the ministry, flanked by four-wheel-drive vehicles "filled with weapons," Hamad said.
"What is more horrific is the intelligence vans marked with the Syrian Red Crescent insignia that would drive through the protests as ambulances and start firing at protestors," he added.
He blames much of the carnage not Syrian regular troops but on President Bashar al-Assad's intelligence service and the armed gangs he says were recruited to battle protesters.
"Bashar al-Assad is no longer able to control these human monsters," Hamad said. "We have reached a phase of genocide, and this can't be tolerated under any circumstances."
He said the gunmen were provided with accommodations "and high salaries of about $100 a day." But the nearly 10-month-old crackdown in Syria has cost the government so much that it has had to cut funding for other government ministries by 30%, Hamad said.
Hamad said he supported the revolution from the start, as did many of his colleagues. He said he would even disguise himself to join the demonstrators sometimes.
For a while, he said, "We were hoping the killing would stop and the regime would understand that the revolution will win, and maybe find a way to appease the people. But there was no hope."
As the opposition continued, the ministry began to put restrictions on its own staff, Hamad said. Vacations and travel had to be approved by the intelligence department. So he lied to get out in late December.
"I traveled to Egypt through the airport with the excuse of registering my son in college in Cairo," he said. "When the rest of my family followed me, I announced my defection in protest of what is happening in Syria."
CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom and journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this report.
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Today is
The Syrian Defector Speaks, If He Is
Speaking The Truth
The Syrian People started their protests similar to the way that all of the previous Arab countries have attempted to demand new leadership and new freedoms.., the marched peacefully.
And just like all previous Arab countries in the past 12 months, their peaceful marches were met with beatings and brutality, inflicted on them by their own leaders, or representatives of their leaders.
Syrian Leader Bashar al-Assad has been particularly lethal in his ways of prolonging the terror that he is welding on his own people.
The Entire World has a percentage of blame for the extended time to which Assad has had to actually brutalize his citizens, due to the history of Syria on the world stage, as well as the fact that Syria has been considered a more modernized country, thus, Assad was given the benefit of the doubt for a long time.
Once the world started taking a position, with respect to the reports coming out of Syria, allegation that people are being murdered and tortured, some how, the Arab League stepped in to insist that Syria isn't brutalizing the citizens, and they requested that the world allow them to monitor and intervene if necessary.
I accused the Arab League of being nothing more that a Arab good old boy network, protecting it's own. The Stall technique employed by the Arab League has cost lives, and harm, to the citizens of Syria.
Now, finally, the Arab League have observers on the ground for the past 5 days, nothing has changed, and if they are not on their way back to report their findings, they will be very shortly. Suffice it to say, the Arab League is still a joke.
If what Mahmoud al-Haj Hamad says is true in the interview, the Arab League will reap the benefits of their huge mistake of not standing behind the people, allowing the brutality to last months longer than it should have.
If what Mahmoud al-Haj Hamad says is true, there will be no doubt that Assad will be tried and convicted in a similar manner that Gaddafi got, or, he will get what Hussein got as punishment, execution by hanging.
If Syria eventually become another Libya, Yemen will be shortly behind Syria, and there then becomes a high probability that Saudi Arabia will suffer some degree of request for more freedom or some type of democratic system allowing the Saudi people the right to vote for their leaders.
What's so eggregious about the Syria people's specific plight, it's still not over, because the Arab League truly believes that they have some type of influence over Syria, and if that's not the case, then the Arab League is instituting a well run stalling technique.
Nonetheless, the fall of Assad is inevitable, it's just a matter of time. Civil War is absolutely necessary at times, when the people are ignored by their leaders, or if the leaders are corrupt and are catering to the rich and powerful.
As tragic as the brutality seems in Syria, it's necessary in order that a people cherish that prize at the end of the tunnel. People who pay a heavy price for freedom, do so, because they are guided by their spirit to be free of dominance by a leadership that doesn't care for their well being.
We are not sure how long it will take to complete the removal of Assad, but, Mahmoud al-Haj Hamad's interview will possibly spread up the process, if what he says is true.
In My Opinion
ASMFMB
1/05/12
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