Baladi News – Yasser al-Atrash
“Neutral”, “double-faced”, “hypocritical”…etc. are attributes that can be given to those who chose to have the characteristics of water, except for its purity; they are colorless, odorless, tasteless, unseizable, and able to creep into any place.
Quite a few Syrians chose to be nowhere, siding with no party, either driven by fear or to avoid “sedition”, but most those who completely abandoned their morals. Yet, the most dangerous are the ones who isolated themselves, as a malice policy waiting for their role to come.
Indeed, these people paid a part of the price of war, but this part was much less than others. Many of them were killed by chance with stray bullets, missiles, or bombs, or targeted by the regime faked bombings to accuse the rebels of being terrorists killing civilians. Many neutral people, and regime supporters as well, live in the liberated areas. However, except for very few individual cases, they have never been chased by the rebels, and no legal action was taken against them.
Most of the neutral people live in the regime controlled areas under difficult, but relatively better, circumstances than those living in the rebel-held areas. They try to make sure that their children will acquire good education because learning process did not stop or stumble in their areas, which means they are more likely to take high positions in different institutions in the future than the rebels, detainees, and children of victims , who had to stop learning because they had to support their families. It is time that rebels learned that education is their best guarantee to participate in decision making in the future.
Neutral politicians, particularly those engaged in public affairs, are worse and more dangerous than Assad’s regime. Sooner or later, Assad will leave under any political settlement, because it is no longer accepted to continue ruling, at lease from ethical point of view, but the regime-“fostered” opposition will have the upper hand in the future depending on the amount of international support for each party, whereas an important share of authority will be guaranteed for the neutral politicians in any future government.
The American-Russian settlement, sponsored nominally by Mr. de Mistura, is underway regardless of the reality on the ground, and the neutrals, “whose hands were not bloody”, guaranteed a prominent place in the plan which has become ready on paper.
The “unbloody hands” seems a pretty good feature for those neutrals, but in fact, they are the most involved party in the massacres against Syrian people, because they have been the silent devil that has not differentiated between the killer and the victim.
Certainly, Russia and de Mistura adopted and introduced such people to take part in Geneva negotiations. In addition, Mr. de Mistura’s women’s “delegation” gives a terrifying image that must be taken seriously if we want a better future for Syria that made sacrifices beyond any description or bargains.