Maher Semsmieh, 43, stood in entrance of a pile of surrendered weapons at a Baath celebration workplace on Thursday, marking the symbolic finish of the Assad regime’s decades-long grip on Syria.
Semsmieh, his skinny beard betraying his age, smiled with reduction as he turned in his rifle – an act of defiance towards a regime that had compelled many like him to align with its oppressive ideology.
“We are no longer Baathists,” Semsmieh mentioned, his voice tinged with the load of liberation.
This second got here simply days after the shock downfall of President Bashar al-Assad’s authorities.
Anti-regime forces, spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took management of the capital, Damascus, and with it, the Baath celebration’s lengthy reign of terror.
Semsmieh, a member of the celebration’s “avant-garde,” recalled his position in recruiting civilians and arming them to assist the Syrian military.
He lamented the various martyrs misplaced in a trigger they didn’t totally perceive.
“They didn’t know what they were dying for,” he mentioned, reflecting on the tragic waste of life beneath the regime.
The Baath celebration’s fall was swift.
Just a day earlier, on Wednesday, the celebration introduced the suspension of its actions “until further notice.”
As the anti-regime forces entered the capital, Assad’s army forces deserted their posts, forsaking an influence vacuum and a decimated regime.
At the workplace gate, different former Baath members handed over their rifles, together with Firas Zakaria, a civil servant from the Ministry of Industry.
“We’re cooperating in the interest of the country,” Zakaria mentioned, his smile betraying a mixture of reduction and resignation.
Like many Syrians, Zakaria had been compelled to hitch the celebration to safe employment. “You had to be a member of Baath to get a job,” he defined.
The Baath celebration, based in 1947 by two Syrian nationalists, Michel Aflaq and Salah Bitar, had lengthy been an emblem of Arab unity.
Yet it was its shift to authoritarianism and violence, notably beneath Hafez al-Assad, that set the stage for many years of repression.
Bashar al-Assad, his son, inherited the celebration’s brutal legacy, which crumbled simply 4 days in the past as anti-regime forces stormed Damascus.
Inside the once-imposing Baath celebration headquarters, proof of the regime’s downfall was in every single place.
Cups of espresso and crumbs of bread lay undisturbed on a desk.
Abandoned luxurious automobiles stood amongst scattered paperwork, whereas HTS members guarded the doorway, rifles slung over their shoulders.
One HTS member, in a symbolic act of defiance, smashed the Baath celebration emblem along with his rifle butt.
Outside, the bust of Hafez al-Assad lay toppled, a becoming tribute to the fallen autocrat.
Moqbel Abdel Latif, 76, who had joined the Baath as a schoolboy, mirrored on what might need been. “If Baath had stayed on the right path, the country today would be in a better condition,” he mentioned, his voice heavy with remorse.
Source: www.dailysabah.com