Bashar al-Jaafari, the Syrian regime's Deputy Foreign Minister and former ambassador to the United Nations, published a statement protesting what he described as the "confiscation of his real estate properties" in Damascus, lamenting his rights as a citizen and claiming that he had spent fourteen years "defending the state and the homeland."
But this belated protest reflects a dark irony: Jaafari, who for decades defended the machinery of repression, only recognized the sanctity of property when it targeted him personally. He has long politically covered up the confiscation of opposition homes, remained silent about the destruction of entire neighborhoods over the heads of their residents, and verbally participated in demonizing the victims and exonerating the executioner.
Lawyer and political activist Mohammad Sabra, head of the opposition delegation to the Geneva negotiations in 2014, recounts in a post an incident that chronicles Jaafari's behavior and his true stance on the Syrians and their suffering. He says: "During one of the Geneva sessions, I spoke to him directly in front of the delegations and UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and called on him to defect from the regime and join the people. He became furious, shouting at the top of his voice and insulting them, repeating that 'the mere mention of Bashar al-Assad's name is a red line.'"
Sabra adds that Jaafari did not stop at these insults, but continued threatening him outside the hall, telling him in front of the regime's then-Minister of Information, Omran al-Zoubi: "We will return to Damascus and you will see."
Just days later, on February 18, 2014, Sabra's younger brother, Mahmoud Sabra, was arrested in Damascus and transferred to the notorious Sednaya prison. His fate remains unknown to this day, despite the intervention of then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his attempts to secure his release.
This testimony reveals the extent of Bashar al-Jaafari's personal involvement in the regime's policies of revenge, and his role in directly inciting opposition figures and their families.
This makes his lamentation today over his lost property nothing more than an additional scene in a re-enacted play, in which the executioner suddenly becomes the victim.
Al-Jaafari's demand for personal rights, while for years covering up the crimes of confiscating the property of thousands of displaced, detained, and disappeared Syrians, represents nothing but a stark illustration of the regime's disconnect from reality and its use of state tools to legitimize political revenge.
While al-Jaafari raises his voice, denouncing what he considers a "violation of the right to property," the voices of thousands of Syrian families grieving the fate of their children and their looted homes remain silenced... no statement that does them justice, no justice that saves them from the shadow of the perpetrators.
Zaman al-Wasl
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.