Ensure justice without being vengeful

The exit of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and collapse of the tyrannical Alawaite regime in Syria is providing the outer world a preview of the horrors the people have undergone during the last six decades. Details emerging from a visit to Saydnaya prison suggest that the Hafez-Bashar regime ran a vast apparatus of terror, torture, killings and cremation of bodies of dissenters and opponents. Horror stories are being unveiled from the catacomb like network of cells spread over a vast area of the underground prison where the regime consigned the ones who dared to even show a hint of posing any resistance to the brutal regime.

The visitors to the horror chambers include the thousands of anguished mothers who are desperately looking into its innards for their loved ones. They were separated from them never to be traced, let alone being released. The dirty, dank and dingy interiors extending endlessly emitting stench of decaying corpses, are proof enough that the regime operated in an environment of total lack of accountability and concern for human rights. That the Arab Spring took nearly 12 years to come to fruition in Syria should be enough to prove that the people were subjected to a reign of terror and persecution unleashed by a regime dominated by the minority Nusairi community. The tribe had established its hegemony over the entire infrastructure of governance leaving no window to access justice and freedom from state oppression. Given this background, it will be no surprise if the entire community becomes the target of popular fury.

The new incumbents to the saddle of power would need to ensure that it does not trigger a cycle of revenge from people who are breathing the air of freedom. It is imperative to set up a commission to inquire into the regime’s crimes against humanity and call for arrest of the chief perpetrator Bashar al-Assad and his return by quarters providing him shelter.