Daniel Akill's Blog | 332: MIA = MISSING IN ACTION; MIS = MISSING IN SYRIA

332: MIA = MISSING IN ACTION; MIS = MISSING IN SYRIA – Missing Lebanese in Syria’s Prisons

24 July, 2008

MIA = MISSING IN ACTION; MIS = MISSING IN SYRIA – Missing Lebanese in Syria’s Prisons

Families in Beirut demand an accounting

Gleaned from: The International Herald Tribune Tuesday 5^th April 2005

BEIRUT: The last glimpse Violet Nassif had of her son, Johnny, was when he stood in the shadows behind iron bars, just inside the dark corridor of a Syrian prison, with a guard on each arm. Then, a few seconds later, he was pulled back into the darkness. Since that day in April, 1994, Johnny Nasssif – a 15-year-old Lebanese Army recruit when he was taken prisoner four years earlier in 1990, after Michael Aoun’s Fiasco, Folly, and Madness – officially ceased to exist. They told her he wasn't there anymore.

Johnny is the symbol of the hundreds of Lebanese soldiers who were deserted by their leader, Aoun, and who survived the terror-trip to Syria after Aoun’s Mad-War against the Syrian Army and the Lebanese Forces combined – a war that split the Lebanese Army and Lebanese families into factions, tore the whole country asunder, and forced fathers and brothers and sisters to hate and kill each other; and when things got too hot for him – when he felt the hot breath of the Syrian jackals and hyenas on his neck – he fled like a jackal in orange pyjamas. Most of those taken prisoners were members of Aoun’s battalion or one of the several militias during the civil – especially those that resented, denied, protested, or fought against Syria’s presence and influence.

For years, mothers like Violet Nassif were thwarted not just by the Syrians, who denied the existence of the prisoners but also by Lebanon's leaders who responded with mask-like faces, passivity, and silence. The callous apathy of both the Syrian and Lebanese governments toward the families of THE MIS had long stood as a testament to how thoroughly the Syrian government had dominated this tiny country by the Mediterranean Sea. Through doggedness and bribes – and only-God-and-Satan-know what else – a few mothers like Violet found their sons and paid dearly for a few moments together.

Three years after the so-called end of decades of the Syrian Army’s military occupation calls have risen in Beirut for Lebanese leaders to demand an accounting of their citizens held in Syrian jails – their MIS: Missing In Syria.

A member of the Lebanese opposition and of Parliament said that it was very possible that the new government would re-open the issue and ask the Syrians: Where are our people? And demand: Let our people go! This Ass-hole of the Compost Opposition must be a Johnny-come-lately on the Lebanese political scene and doesn’t know much. Aoun won’t have it, or let it, or allow it! He would have to stand before the men he so cowardly deserted – those that are still alive, which I strongly doubt – and explain himself! They might forgive him for deserting them, but not for abandoning his wife and three daughters!

A commission once looked into the Lebanese prisoners in Syria issue and determined that at least 120 Lebanese either were in Syrian jails or had died there, and yet, so intimidating was Syria’s presence that, the report was never published. Actually, the report was rejected by the then Lebanese president, Émile Lahhoud, and the then prime minister, Rafiq Harriri. I am willing to bet a bent buffalo nickel that Emile Le-Hood, the Hermit-Baboon and Jinx, rejected the report willingly and gladly but Rafiq Harriri was forced to reject it.

A Lebanese group, Families of Lebanese Held in Syria, compiled a list of 280 Lebanese who, they say, had been carted off to Syrian prisons and never returned, and that there was good reason to believe that the Syrians were holding more than 280.

Syria's leaders said they had released the last of their Lebanese prisoners in December 2000. But human rights groups, as well as the U.S. government, do not place much credence in that. The director of Families of Lebanese Held in Syria said the Syrian government has quietly released at least a dozen prisoners since 2000. Most of the Lebanese that the Syrians have released so far were not on the organization's list.

Amnesty International said they believed that Syria was still holding an undetermined number of Lebanese prisoners. One of them, Joseph Huways, died under torture in a Syrian jail in June 2003, long after the Syrian leaders said all had been released.

Joseph is the symbol of all the innocent victims of our so-called sister and friend, Syria

The other families were left to wonder whether their sons and husbands were still alive or dead, and, if they were still alive, whether they were among the many being tortured in Syrian prisons. A Syrian official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, did not respond to a request for an interview.

LEBANESE IN SYRIAN PRISONS: A Top Priority Issue

Alternative report by the SOLIDA movement (Support for Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) July 2005

The SOLIDA movement feels sharply concerned about the situation and conditions of Lebanese detained in solitary confinement in Syrian prisons.

Since 1976, Syria had resorted to kidnappings. Even today, it is estimated that at least 280 Lebanese are still in Syria, in solitary confinement, without trial, under inhuman conditions. To give one example of conditions in Syrian prisons, a Lebanese prisoner who had been released from a Syrian prison in 1998 told how he blinded himself in order to escape his torturers.

Their families, represented by the Committee of Families of Lebanese prisoners in Syria, have not received any answers or information regarding the situation and/or conditions of their relatives in Syrian prisons. The Syrian authorities have remained silent on the issue.

On July 22^nd2002, the Syrian Minister of the Interior received a delegation from the Committee of Families of Lebanese prisoners held in Syrian prisons in Damascus, and confirmed the presence and detention of Lebanese in Syria and promised the families to review the prisoner's files submitted to him (a list of 174 names) and to provide answers to the families within a 2-3 months period of time. In 2005, almost three years after that promise, the families still had not received any answers. They were actually repulsed at the Syrian border on November 2nd 2002, even though they had an appointment with the Interior Minister.

Dear readers and fellow-Apes; no comments. Use your brain, (IF) you’ve got one!

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Families in Beirut demand an accounting

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