Hostage Deal

Enab Baladi Issue # 87 – Sun, Oct. 20, 2013 – Editorial 

The latest hostage exchange deal met everyone’s aspirations except the Syrians’: The Lebanese hostages were released safe and sound; the two Turkish pilots were freed unharmed. Meanwhile, women detainees await an unclear fate despite the 100 million Euros that Qatar is rumored to have paid Iran as a show of good faith, and as an attempt to jump-start the “peace” process that started with Assad agreement to destroy his chemical arsenal. Thus the Syrian scene was reduced to a chemical weapon agreement, and to a hostage exchange deal that is very similar to Hezbollah-Israel ones, and always under international mediation.

Is it a progress that Qatar has taken the role of the mediator instead of Germany? That is what Syrian activists are wondering about as they await to hear about their detained friends.

The Syrian regime has been refusing to clarify the status of the detainees in its underground prisons; Tal Al Mallohi and Rowaida Kanaan were one of the few leaked names from the list of the exchange detainees, yet many families are not even sure whether their detainees are still alive, or dead and buried somewhere in regime detentions.

Many of the previous detainees in Assad dungeons reported that several bodies were buried inside prison buildings; a tragedy that reminds us of the victims of Pinochet, Hitler and Idi Amin who faced a still-unknown fate, that is still being investigated.

Syrian families are waiting for one of the regional states to grant them mercy by intervening in the Syrian dispute to release their detainees… but how long will they be waiting?… A question that is addressed to everyone to answer.

As for civilians arrested by opposition parties, it is a totally different matter, yet of no less critical importance.