2,5 million Syrians have fled the Arab Republic of Syria since the uprising against dictator Bashar Al-Assad began. 100.000 people have been killed in this sectarian conflict between the Alawite tribe ( Shia Muslims ) led Syrian government and rebels who are Sunni Muslims. Since the 70's, the Alawite tribe is ruling Syria, a nation populated with mostly Sunni Muslims. Bashar Al-Assad is the second president under the authoritarian secular Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez Al-Assad ruled the nation from 1971 till his death in the year 2000. Bashar Al-Assad succeeded his father as president!
An Islamic uprising between 1979 and 1982 killed 5.000 people in the cities of Damascus, Hama, Aleppo, Palmyra and Jisr ash-Shugur. The government lost 1.500 soldiers in this three year uprising. In a way the 1979/1982 conflict between the Alawite led Syrian government and Sunni Islamists planted the seeds for today conflict!
Today in the year 2013, the Syrian revolution is not pure Islamic. Although the western media and the Syrian state-media portray the rebels as supporters of Al-Qaeda, most Syrian rebels are not radical Islamic. The Free Syrian Army still has 80.000 troops and most of them are secular in nature. Islamic rebels like the Al-Nusra Front ( Al-Qaeda in Syria ) operate with 10.000 troops and the Syrian Islamic Liberation Army is armed with 30.000 tot 40.000 rebels!
Revolutionary socialists support those Syrians who oppose both the dictatorship of the Ba'ath Party and the Islamic rebels. Syrian workers cannot trust the so called ''National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces'' who operate out of Turkey. Workers must not trust the rebel leadership, who like the former National Transitional Council of Libya, are not able to bring stability. That is why the revolutionary socialists support the local committees established by the people. These people's committees must lead the struggle against Bashar Al-Assad and those Islamists who want to create a theocracy in Syria!
There are elements of the ( Stalinist ) revolutionary left, who support the Syrian government. They do this because they claim that the rebels are all counterrevolutionary in nature. This is only partly true. There are Islamic rebels who fight for a theocracy. But the majority of rebels only want a free Syria. But the ( Stalinist ) revolutionary left, think that Al-Assad is a good secular leader, who will defend Syria against western imperialism. It was Bashar Al-Assad who embraced capitalism after his fathers death. He started massive privatizations after the year 2000. Poverty rose because of the right-wing market reforms. Only the Alawite tribe and the new capitalist class enjoyed the fruits of capitalism!
The US government will claim they want to save the Syrian people, if they choose to intervene in the civil war. But this is another lie. America waited two years and allowed 100.000 people to die because US imperialism never wanted anything from Syria, this is why they did not intervene. We revolutionary socialists don't want them in Syria or anywhere else. US imperialism serves the interests of the ruling class, and not that of the ordinary people of the world. We see in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya what consequences a US invasion has for a nation. The State of Libya is still in chaos, tribal rivalries and milita's are preventing stability. US imperialism favors a capitalist economy to be build. Since they supported the Libyan rebels in removing Gaddafi in 2011, the Libyan politicians now feel they must repay the USA for their ''service'', by building a capitalist state. US imperialists demanded the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq commercial billboards are polluting the street-view, also the Iraqi oil is now exploited by major US and British oil capitalists!
That we oppose western intervention in Syria does not mean we support Bashar Al-Assad. We blame him for the killings and the civil war. He ordered the Syrian Armed Forces to shoot at demonstrators, he and his government are the true criminals. Most people who were killed in these two years, died at the hands of government troops. Many also died during the bombings of the Syrian Air Force on rebel held towns. This angered so many Syrians, that the Islamic fundamentalists were able to recruit many young people. Human rights groups have confirmed that most civilians died at the hands of government soldiers. Syrian soldiers from the SAF raped and tortured all who stand up against Bashar Al-Assad!
But the Syrian rebels are not innocent. They too have killed and murdered many Syrians. Most of their killings are of sectarian nature. Members of the Alawite tribe fear the Islamic fundamentalists so much, they desperate support Bashar Al-Assad. Many Christians and other minorities support the dictator out of fear for the Islamic rebels too. Islamic rebels call themselves the Mujaheddin, this means ''people doing jihad''. The most famous ''people doing jihad''' were the Afghan Mujaheddin, who thanks to American money and weapons destroyed the secular Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992. They forced Islamic theocratic morality on the Afghans, a morality that is still enforced in today's Islamic Republic of Afghanistan!
The Arab Republic of Syria stands on a crossroad. Bashar Al-Assad is using his secular mask and the fear of Islamism as a cloak to hide his crimes. Many ( Stalinist ) revolutionary leftists have fallen for this trap. Because Al-Assad has Islamic friends. People who also want to build an Islamic Caliphate. These people are found in the Shia Islamic circles. Like the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Party of God in Lebanon. The Party of God has ordered its militia's to fight for Bashar Al-Assad. Iran also ordered their Revolutionary Guard to aid the supposed ''enemy of Islamism ' as the Syrian government claims to be. This civil war is pure sectarian and workers must not support it!
Revolutionary socialists say:
- No to imperialist intervention! The withdrawal of all foreign forces from Syria and the region
- Against all oppression, the people must democratically decide their own fate
- For the building of united, non-sectarian defence committees to defend workers, the poor and others against sectarian attacks from all sides
- Prepare a movement to fight for a government of representatives of workers and the poor
- For a revolutionary constituent assembly in Syria
- The implementation of the national and democratic rights of the masses, with the recognition of the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination including, if they so wish, the right to their own state
- Independent trade unions and the building of mass workers’ parties with a programme of land to the masses and the factories to the workers, implemented through a programme for a socialist democratic planned economy
- A democratic socialist confederation of the Middle East and North Africa
This is what US imperialism really wants for Syrian workers!
