10th anniversary of the Syrian Revolution

From the trenches of the Syrian revolutionary combat, Yezen Al Homsi, correspondent for the Syrian and Middle East newspaper, "The Truth of the Oppressed", speaks:

“The revolution continues
and will go forward to achieve our goal”

In the last days of February, the Congress of the Collective for the Refoundation of the Fourth International was held. A central point of the Congress was "Middle East on fire again", which started from a full report by Abu Muad, who led the fight to set up a revolutionary nucleus in Syria together with Abu al Baraa, both co-authors of the “Syria under fire” volumes I and II.  At this point we have the important participation of Yezen Al Homsi who knew how to stand side by side with Abd el BassetSarout, one of the iconic personalities of the Syrian revolution.
Yezen Al Homsi developed a vision from within the battlefield of Syria, where he serves as a correspondent for the newspaper "The Truth of the Oppressed". FLTI delegates from all over the world had the opportunity to ask questions, raise their doubts and visions, a real discussion about revolution and counter-revolution.Towards the 10th anniversary of the Syrian revolution, we bring to the reader this debate, which is undoubtedly a very valuable and enriching material. The voice of the protagonists of a revolution of the most heroic of the 21st century are a living testimony that deserves to be read by every young and working class comrade that vibrates with the revolution of the workers anywhere on the planet.

Yezen Al Homsi: A greeting to all of you who are gathered in memory of the 10 years of the Syrian revolution. My greetings to all the revolutionaries from every corner of the globe in all the revolutions that are taking place. I cannot begin my presentation without first calling for the release of all political prisoners, all who are in the dungeons of the oppressors on the planet.
I will start by talking about the situation of the people who were left under the harsh regime of Bashar, who did not have the opportunity to escape to the liberated territories, and today they are suffering the worst of miseries, when they have to line up for 24 hours to get a loaf of bread.

The situation I mentioned earlier has led to huge uprisings in Damascus as well as in Daraa. Those who are rising up are doing so against the regime for exactly the same reason they rose up 10 years ago. Food prices are through the roof. They’re paying crazy bills for a small portion of food or a bottle of water. This has led to huge riots in all areas controlled by Bashar, in the vicinity of Damascus, Daraa, and Homs.
While there, in the territories of al-Assad, they continue to kidnap, locking up  and imprison each of the revolutionary rebels who rose up in 2011 and were, unfortunately, under the rule of that dog, here they bomb us all the time, every day, accusing us of terrorists. They did so in the Zawiya Mountains, in Idlib and in all the liberated territories, under the slogan that we are all terrorists. For our brothers who are under the Bashar regime, we stand up and tell them that we are not. They know full well that we are not.
We all have to get up at once. It’s the only way we can win. Today we have to be clear that defeating the dictatorial regime of Bashar is going to be the beginning of the fall of all dictatorships on the planet. History today decides whether or not Bashar falls. By tearing it down, we can go on conquering more territories and helping the revolution.
In the territories of northern Syria, which are the liberated territories, we are not living in a situation as desperate as the one we are living in under the territories of Bashar. At the moment there is not a huge shortage nor do we have to wait in long lines to buy a piece of bread; but nevertheless we are living under the worst oppression and dictatorship that there can be in the territory.
Not only are we oppressed by the bombs of Bashar and Putin, but on the other hand we have Turkey, which has occupied our territory, which has been able to take many of our fighters to other places, such as Libya. Today Turkey represents a huge bloc against the revolution, which is carrying forward a plan for a transition government. They’ve already taken over a city where they control 100% of the market. And in addition to that dictatorship, we have the dictatorship of HTS, who are the shock forces and death commands. Anyone who "dares" to speak out against HTS or even against Turkey, is killed, or locked up, or brutally beaten. Unfortunately, after 10 years, we have not been able to conquer either bread or freedom, but we are still clear that one million martyrs, seven hundred thousand political prisoners are not going to be given in to anyone. The revolution continues, from 2011 to 2021, and it will go on until we achieve our goal.

Delegate of the group "Comuneros" of Colombia opens the round of questions and positions on the current situation in Syria

A: Hi, comrades. The question is, how much control does Turkey have over the northern region?  We would like to know how the situation is with them there; whether it is only Idlib or whether they have already advanced over other territories.

Yezen Al Homsi: Turkey was able to enter with military troops with the excuse and pretext of fighting the Islamic state. The stronghold of Turkey they are three large cities located well to the north, just where the oil road runs to and from: they would be Afrin, Al Bab, and the province or village of Rae. Turkey first entered as occupation troops and then co-opted the military chiefs of the local militias with money or killed them, dismantling the militias and taking them within what was then the Free Syrian Army (FSA) already under common command, under Erdogan’s orders. In this way they fought against anyone who did not want to submit. They have managed to disarticulate most of the young people who were part of the militias. Anyone who did not want to submit was cut off from the aid, which consists of a box that was to be given to them, as well as some dollars that came from organizations such as NGOs, etc., which sometimes some other militiamangrabbed to subsist. That has led to Turkey today having control of half of northern Syria, a tight control because they practically handle all trade, currency and language.

Delegate from POI-CI of Chile takes the floor

F: An enormous greeting to Comrade Yezen. Just like to Abu Muad, here present. The doubt I had was because the comrade put a lot of emphasis on the territories controlled by Bashar, but I wanted to know how the situation is in the refugee camps (...). The comrade argued that he had hoped for a new rebellion, or a new uprising against Assad, since the forces exist, especially in the territories controlled by Assad, through persecution, imprisonment, and murder. I would add to the comrade that also the forces are among those who do not stop fighting, the Syrian revolutionaries, and in the refugee camps there is also a material force for the Syrian working class to rise again. They are the ones who were robbed of their homes. In those three sectors of the Syrian population there are the forces tofight again. The unification of these three sectors would give the revolution the strength to defeat the Assad dictatorship. That a broad solidarity with the Syrian revolutionary people can be expressed on 15 March is the other fight that lies ahead. As the comrade said, do not hand over the million martyrs we have, do not hand over our political prisoners, and remove them from the jails of al-Assad and from the troops that have partitioned Syria.

Yezen Al Homsi: I agree with the contribution. Obviously the forces inside the refugee camps are no less important. I did not separate them because it is understood that the refugee camps are within the liberated areas. Now, there are also many refugee camps outside Syria. Mobilizations are also expected for that day. But not only can we talk about the forces that are outside Syria, about the refugees, but there are also those that have gone to Europe and other organizations that want to join that day, because while inside Syria there are the forces to start a revolution, the forces to overcome the regime and win that revolution are outside Syria... in the refugees, in the refugee camps, in the organizations that want to join, in the comrades who want to fight side by side.

The comrades of the WIL of Zimbabwe, through the voice of the leader of the group and the FLTI, greet the Syrian revolution and wonder about the partition of Syria and the tearing up of the revolution

James: First of all, a greeting to comrade Yezen from afar, from Africa. But still, being far away, we are in the same struggle, together with the masses of the Middle East. We are with you.And I’d like to ask a question. I see that in the Middle East, people are united. In several countries, you see that people are fighting together. Now, as for Syria, the situation that surprises me is that they are not united in that way, and so I wanted to ask what your opinion is of why this is happening in Syria and what this means for us in the struggle.

Yezen Al Homsi: For starters, the situation in other Middle Eastern countries is not the same as in Syria. Syria has borders with Zionism.  A revolution in Iraq is not the same as a revolution in Syria, nor is it the same as a revolution in Libya or any other country. In Syria all the forces of imperialism were concentrated to stop this revolution at the gates of Zionism, which directly threatened the Zionist state.
The reality is that in Syria they were concentrating not only to stop but to also divide the revolution as soon as it started: they took it to a sectarian setting. They sparked the differences between Alawism, Sunnism, and Shiism, and allowed each bourgeoisie to use its own armed arm to break up our revolution from within.

CROJA group in Brazil denounces the UN plan
and its intervention in Syria

H.:A hug comrade, all the vision you are giving from there seems excellent to me. I think the comrade clearly defined what the fight we have towards March 15 is and how Syria is today. I would be interested to see how the strength of the fight that the comrade raises is in the resistance, because we have been seeing that, on the other hand, there is a sector that, due to unbearable living conditions, seems to be tending to carry out a policy of "vindicating", around March 15, the 2012 Geneva resolutions, considering the UN security committee and removing Al Assad, as if in that there was the possibility of reversing the situation, just as there is also another sector, which is supporting the  way out through elections. I wanted to know how these two issues, which we see as the deadly traps to finally divert a sector of the resistance, are influencing and how they are received in the north of the liberated regions where we are fighting this fight.

Yezen Al Homsi: Well, I accept the contribution, which is very clear, and I agree. The vision that what they are trying to impose or bring to the Syrian people is very dangerous in terms of the policy of that sector of the bourgeoisie that wants to make the masses believe that with the Geneva convention of 2012 and the ruling that came out there with  Obama condeming Bashar to give him a court of war and a "fair trial" in the courts of The Hague or in any of the international tribunals, the revolution will be saved and the guarantors of this will be the UN or NATO forces.

Comrade Ivi, founder of the Bolivian group LSTI,
takes the floor on this occasion, to send her greetings to Yezen

I:A revolutionary greeting to comrade Yezen there in Syria, an admirable fighting people, whose example we must follow. We are on the same line and we follow you in that sense; greetings to the comrade. Let Syria go forward! Long live the revolution!My question for the comrade is, what is the vision of the comrades about the rise of Biden, unlike Trump; the damned Trump vs. Biden whom the Left has painted as a friend of the peoples. I would like to know what your vision is so that I can alsounderstand what the Syrian people are saying.

From the Spanish State, Paula Medrano, leader of the FLTI,    is   sending her warm greetings to comrade Yezen

PM:I wanted to salute the comrade and tell him that after 10 years of so much massacre and such a genocide, it is a personal opinion, it seems to me that we have to try to get back on their feet and wake them up from the lethargy in which many Syrians abroad are, who at the beginning supported the Syrian revolution and today they are silent. In my opinion, it would be very important a call from Syria to get all those refugees who are scattered throughout Europe back on their feet and with whom, for example, here in Madrid we all held demonstrations together every 15M. So that together we continue confroting these imperialist regimes like Germany, which sentence Syrian genocidal and torturers to 4 years to wash their faces, when what these torturers, those genocidal mendeserve is to be defeated by us on the battlefield. They deserve to rot in prisons. So it seems to me that, after 10 years, more than ever we are with the Syrian revolution. More than ever we need to set up that movement again, as the Syrian revolutionaries need it.  I couldn't stop greeting you and telling you that you're not alone. We are all here fighting with you and with all the comrades from Syria. After 10 years, we are going to redouble the fight.

Yezen Al Homsi: First of all, the honor is mine to be able to greet you Paula and have contact with a person like you. I understand that you are the daughter of two revolutionaries who gave their lives for the cause, may God have mercy on them and on all those killed by a regime similar to that of Bashar, who ruled Argentina in the 1970s, in a very dark time. Needless to say, I send you a hug from a distance; my solidarity with you for that situation. On the other hand, I agree with what you say about refugees in Europe. It is real that they are in lethargy. Although at first the mobilizations were enormous, those who were in Europe and those who were marching within Syria coordinated, while territory was gained within Syria, in the heat of combat and bullets. It was supported by these actions of huge mobilizations that occurred within all of Europe in general. But the truth is that the result of the lethargy in terms of Syrians abroad is neither more nor less than the result of the counterrevolutionary equation.

The counterrevolution has not only impacted within Syria, but has directly impacted outside. We, in the beginning, had promised to protect the families of those who were outside. The counterrevolution even wiped out our own homes and prevented us from giving them the protection we had promised. Those from outside, little by little had to reconcile with the governments that are the greatest counterrevolutionary oppressors. We understand that they also had to survive day to day.  For this reason, this situation, after 10 years of counterrevolution, has led us to be in so bad situation and many of them who are outside are in lethargy. It's understandable. We are confident that this March 15 they will join us. We have tried to revive them again through the occasional statement, but it has not been successful.  In the mobilizations they continued being 15 people. We have all our hope so that this March 15, seeing that all of Syria revolts and there is an uprising in the surroundings, those abroad can become enthusiastic. I also ask those who are not Syrians and are abroad for their support, because that would help the uprising of the Syrians who are asleep.

Carlos Munzer takes the floor to denounce the siege on the Syrian revolution imposed by the UN, and also by a traitorous left that supported or declared itself neutral in the face of the genocide of Assad and Putin under US imperialist command and supported by the bayonets of Turkey

CM: First of all, a greeting to the revolutionaries who together with Sarout knew how to fight in Homs and today are reorganizing the resistance of the militiamen and the masses of Syria.           
Second, I'd like to send you a couple of concerns. The first of these is that it was not al-Assad and his counterrevolutionary troops who managed, up to now, to crush the revolutionary masses in Syria.They could not have done it if the revolution were not sold out from within by a cowardly bourgeoisie that handed out each key city of the revolution. Without that complicity, Assad would not have been in power today and Syria would not be invaded. If they could commit such crimes and impose fascism and invade with troops, it is because the world working class was convinced that the workers fighting in Syria were the counterrevolution, the agents of imperialism, and covered up the massacre of al-Assad with a shame cloak. In other words, al-Assad had the light turned off to be able to massacre at will because traitors of our international revolutionary movement, who were bought by the transnationals and the imperialist bankers for some small change, went to embrace al-Assad. They decreed that all the resistance was "terrorist", which would have to be fought. Because it was Stalinism which made the Kurdish masses break with the resistance front and the fight against al-Assad. The Syrian revolution is a revolution betrayed. It is not because of the enemy's strength but because of a huge and terrible treason at the international level.
Our battle is not in Idlib today, although we fight together. It is not on the fronts of the resistance. It is not fighting for bread throughout Syria; though this fight we accompany and feel part of. Rather, we have a revolutionary obligation as important and decisive as the one posed by the resistance within Syria.

From our point of view, it is to give the mother of battles, which is to defeat, in the eyes of the American workers, who have risen up, the scoundrels who have said that Biden was an ally of the Syrian people and who pose and argued that al-Assad plays a progressive role in the fight against imperialism when he is nothing more than one of its greatest lackeys to strangle the Syrian revolution. 

Our battle is against all the traitors of our own movement, the Fourth International, who covered up with a guise of "anti-imperialist" the biggest murderer, genocidal and fascist on the planet.
So, we are facing a betrayed, isolated and encircled revolution, and an occupied country. That is the Syria of today, which was imposed through a great betrayal.

Our challenge, our battlefield is to unveil the truth for workers of the world. Each union, each mass organization that we manage to convince that the enemy is not the rebel masses but the murderer al-Assad are rifles and ammunition that liberate the workers of the world to take their solidarity with the Syrian people. The day we achieve that, the revolution will have won.
An al-Assad general said that Homs was a 7-headed Hydra; they took the city and lost it again. We believe that the Middle East revolution is a 7-headed Hydra. If they massacre us in Yemen, they continue to occupy our territories in Palestine, they defeated us in Egypt in our revolution, and Syria is now under siege, the heads of the hydra that they cut off grow back in ... Tunisia, Sudan, Algeria, Iraq returns. The Syrian revolution is not isolated. There, there are the conditions of victory.
We call on the comrades to also intervene in this battle to break the isolation of the Syrian revolution. I remember that comrade Abu Al Baraa was in Turkey for a month waiting to go out to organize this international committee to support the Syrian revolution, to shout his truth, that there the heroes of the masses were fighting against imperialism, al-Assad, Putin and all of them, the bourgeois enemies of the masses. He couldn't get there. They denied him the visa. He returned to fight and died in the battlefield...
We call the comrades of the Syrian resistance, the revolutionaries, to issue a statement with this truth. We call to defeat, from the revolution, all the traitors and those who speak on behalf of the workers. We call to defeat in the workers organizations those who allowed preventing millions of workers from standing in solidarity with the Syrian revolution.
.
If there had been hundreds of thousands of workers on the streets besieging the Syrian embassies all around the world, the Syrian revolution wouldn’t have been defeated as it is.
That is to say, our battle is to defeat those who isolated and asphyxiated the Syrian revolution. It is a tough battle that cost us losses, which cost us remove the traitors from our ranks too and to keep high the banners of those who will fight until the end to defeat the treacherous leaderships, which are, ultimately, the most important missile that the bastard al-Assad has.

Finally, we call the Syrian revolutionaries to make a single action on March 15. We are eagerly waiting for their statement of revolutionary war and fight for March 15 to distribute it in all the countries of the world.

Yezen Al Homsi: I totally agree. Thank you very much for your words. I perfectly understand the point that the battle to open the eyes of the masses is a battle as tough as the one that could be waged in the very battlefield. It is a battle that confronts not only the states but also their institutions and those who claim to be allies of the revolutions. We have a name for these ones who claim to be allies of the revolution, we call them blood traders. They use the blood of the revolutions to trade. Of course, they are all sold out. They use politics and our blood to get money. This way they become traders of blood of the revolted people.

It is known that we defeated Bashar in 2013. We had taken 80% of the territory. The state was falling. He didn’t have any place to run away. It was thanks to these blood traders that Putin, Hezbollah and Iran troops were able to enter in impunity. They could occupy territories with impunity because they fabricated and put the Islamic State inside our territory and made the world believe that in those territories there was only terrorism. Therefore, the battle to open the eyes of the working class is a very important battle and we are pretty much aware of it.
The reality today is that the Syrian state is torn apart. There are only occupation troops. The one ruling Syria is not Bashar. The ones ruling Syria are the transnational companies and the occupation troops. The ones imposing the law inside Damascus are Iran and Russia especially. The ones killing us today are the weapons of those involved bourgeoisies. Therefore, we think it is critical to open the eyes of the working class to reverse this situation.
In this anniversary of the Syrian revolution, we commit ourselves to issue a statement and put the signatures that are needed and the orientation to which we can endorse for making this battle that you are waging there a fruitful one and to be a part of it.

CM: The Fifth Congress of the Collective for the Refoundation of the Fourth International/FLTI has voted that March 15 for us is like the Chicago martyrs massacre that happened a century ago for the working class. The Chicago martyrs today are the martyrs of the Syrian revolution and those of the world working class, particularly the Syrian one. March 15 is a day of struggle, of fight of the international working class, together with the workers and the people of Syria. We commit to fight for the statement you will issue in all the workers organizations, in all the rebel youth organizations, in the First Line of Chile, among the ones fighting in the most advanced of the world working class, and to be the spokespeople of the Syrian resistance and the revolution, if you give us that honor.

From the International Network for the Liberation of the Political Prisoners, we call to launch a revolutionary international campaign for the freedom of the Syrian prisoners, because that campaign and that struggle for the thousands of tortured and massacred in al-Assad’s prisons concentrates the struggle for the freedom of all the political prisoners of the world.

We will make a swift call to the workers organizations of Iran to organize the struggle this March 15 with them, and for the Iranian masses war cry of “Get back from Syria!” to return. The struggle of the Iranian and Syrian working class is the same. Out with the Iranian troops! Death to the Islamic Guard of the Ayatollah clerics! Unity of the Iranian workers with the working class of Syria and Middle East!

This is our commitment towards March 15. We want to do it and fight together. This is the commitment that we voted with comrade Yezen here.

Villacorta, delegate of the LOI-CI or Argentina, was in Paty factory whose workers set up the “Committee in support of Syria” at the beginning of the revolution and organized fundraise and strikes in their support. He saluted the Syrian revolution

V: It is an honor that the comrade from Syria is here and, as every revolutionary, demanding the freedom of all the political prisoners. The world working class is the most important reservoir, our most powerful cannon. The victorious revolutions are our best allies.

Cheo Navarro, from the Internationalist Workers Core (NOI) from Colombia, who was a member of the internationalist group Simon Bolivar, which went to fight to Nicaragua in 1979 against Somoza dictatorship, also spoke on the revolutionary struggle in Syria

C: I would like to say these words. In these ten years of struggle and brave resistance, from Colombia,our organization has been together with you, the vanguard of the Syrian people revolution, against the criminal dictatorship of al-Assad. You must know that you have counted and will continue counting with our support and solidarity. Our blood is willing to be part of yours, together with those of the oppressed in the world. A warm revolutionary hug and remember you are not alone. We are part of the same Syrian revolution. Till the fall of the criminal al-Assad and the victory of the revolution not only there, but in the world! Till socialism!

Claudia Pafundi did the same. She is a member of the Committee of Convicted Workers, Relatives and Friends of Las Heras and founder of the International Network for the Liberation of the world political prisoners and justice to our martyrs

CP: I wanted to salute the comrade and express to him the full solidarity and tell him you are not alone. It is an honor to fight alongside them and we will never stop until the victory of the Syrian revolution. A revolutionary hug, free the world political prisoners, long live the Syrian revolution!

Yezen Al Homsi: I am very proud for receiving the message of a woman with such courage, who learnt to confront everything, the state, a whole corrupt judicial system, which the only thing it did was to judge the workers for demanding a decent wage. She is a woman we can only compare with the ones here in Idlib that are coming out to fight against HTS to demand the freedom of the comrades, gun in hand. We understand the enemy that oppresses us here, the oil companies that steal the oil from Raqa and DeirEzZor, are the same ones that judge those 14-15 comrades in the south of Argentina. We understand that just as Bashar is a dictator here, the president of Argentina subjugated you there in the same way. What we promise this brave woman is that when we take over power and succeed in the Syrian revolution, we will make laws much more powerful than any president and through the actions we take as people in power, we will be able to help your husband and all the convicted workers of Las Heras, as well as all the oppressed of the planet, because having the power in Syria, will be a supporting point to free them all.

The revolutionary group Workers Advanced-Black group of Rio Santiago Shipyard, Argentina, also sent its salutations to comrade Yezen

WA: Greetings from Workers Advanced to all the comrades. Free all the arrested and justice to our martyrs! We are on your side! Revolutionary fighting hug.

Yezen al-Homsi: To finish, I give you a message from my part and I think it’s on behalf of all. I want to thank you so much to be part of this Congress, for leaving me a place and letting me raise the voice of the Syrian oppressed. Thank you for listening carefully to me.We cannot stop fighting for the political prisoners. This message, which was sent to me by Carlos on the campaign the International Network for the Liberation of the World Political Prisoners will launch, will be listened by all the comrades.
Unfortunately, the political prisoners are the ones suffering the worst. They are not in the free areas. They have no way to defend themselves. They are suffering death day by day and we can’t, under any circumstance, stop remembering them and raising the banner for their freedom in each action we carry out.
Honestly, it has been a huge honor to have listened to you. It is very exciting and emotional. To have been in this Congress and with you paying heed to what I said is a fresh air breath to keep on forward in the struggle.
A huge hug and let’s keep on fighting together until the last drop. 10 years passed. We will keep on demanding the fall of the regime, even if 10 more years have to pass. A hug to you all. Greetings to you all.

Members of the chair of the Congress summarized a day of intense debate on the revolutionary focuses in Maghreb and Middle East, particularly Syria.
The FLTI vibrated and fought together with the chains of revolution that started in 2011 in Tunisia, which was expanded as a gunpowder trail throughout Maghreb and Middle East, from Egypt to Libya, Syria, fighting against the oppressive regimes on behalf of imperialism, its banks and oil companies. We fought in the trenches of the revolution; we were flesh and blood of it. We left our martyrs on the battlefield fighting against the dog Bashar and Putin, which do the dirty work of imperialism by drowning the revolution in blood, supported by the bayonets of Turkey.
On the 10 anniversary of the Syrian revolution, after so many years of massacre, silence and treason, we stand up again:

For bread and freedom! Let the workers and peasants revolution return! Let the soviet revolutionary Syria returns! For a workers and peasants Middle East! Out with imperialism! Be strong, comrades!