00:00Today, marking the first anniversary of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and his rule,
00:05it comes as the fractured nation struggles to find stability and recover after years of war.
00:11Assad then fleeing Syria for Russia a year ago,
00:15as rebels commanded by Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Shara, seized Damascus and ended his rule.
00:21Well, the atmosphere in Damascus, as you can see from these images, was jubilant.
00:25Thousands of people taking to the streets to celebrate in the capital.
00:30That is as well as a number of military parades underway.
00:35President Ahmed al-Shara then urging Syrians a short time ago to work together to rebuild their country,
00:42which is still marred by insecurity.
00:47Well, look, we can bring you some analysis on today in Syria.
00:52We can welcome Haiko Wimen.
00:53He's a project director of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the International Crisis Group.
00:58Haiko, thanks very much for speaking to France 24 this afternoon.
01:02It's good to have you with us.
01:03We were showing images there of both military parades of Syrians celebrating a year on from the fall of Assad this Monday.
01:10It has to be said, though, Haiko, behind those celebrations, real questions remain about the future for Syria.
01:17Would you agree?
01:17Obviously, the new leadership for the past year has tried to initiate a transition, tried to rebuild political institutions in a country that has been wrecked by 14 years of a really, really destructive civil war.
01:39I mean, they have made some stride, but as we say, it's a major challenge and not always been right.
01:47I mean, let's unpack some of the difficulties there and this question of insecurity that Ahmed El-Chara has made reference to himself today.
01:55The ethnicity, religion, I mean, some of the things that we've seen this year, violence against the Alawite community, clashes between Syria's new government forces and Syria's Kurdish and Druze minorities,
02:07a resurgence we're hearing equally of the Islamic State group, an incredibly complex landscape, I should say, rather, religiously speaking, ethnicity speaking.
02:17What do you make of that? There's a steep hill ahead to climb for Syria's new president.
02:24Absolutely.
02:26And you should keep in mind that he actually does not rule over all of Syria at this point, right?
02:33The northeast and the south have degrees of autonomy protected by very real arms.
02:42And in the case of the south, even by the Israeli intervention.
02:45And you have to have a huge rebel force to sort of convert, quite unruly parts of it, to convert into an army, a security force to bring actually some stability to the country.
03:00And that has all, that is a huge challenge.
03:02Now, what I think the main issue is here, that the guys in charge for years have operated in a place, it's my tiny corner of Syria, Idlib, and with a number of armed factions,
03:20where making sure that you had unity, unity of decision, that you had leadership, that you had absolute loyalty, was very essential for survival.
03:33The revolution or resistance was plagued by infighting for years and years.
03:38They ended all of that, they had established strong disciplines and decisive leadership, unquestioned leadership.
03:46And they have, to some extent, tried to apply this pattern that was successful up there to rebuilding the country.
03:56And there are limits to that.
03:57There are limits to that.
03:58And one, and we have seen some of the shortcomings with the violence that we mentioned.
04:05I mean, the shortcomings, indeed.
04:07I mean, we've spoken about violence within, you know, specific sectarian groups in the country.
04:12Let's think about the average Syrian on the ground.
04:15For them, transitional justice is a process which is taking a great deal of time as well.
04:21Old grievances, resurfacing, that's problematic as well, outside of these sectarian groups.
04:28Well, of course.
04:31So, I mean, transitional justice is a big word, a big challenge.
04:36And the main challenge about it is that it's supposed to be justice, not retribution, right?
04:43I mean, a lot of justice is really required to deal with people who committed crimes on behalf of another regime.
04:51But also, groups, individuals, military factions aligned with the current rule that is doing that war have committed war crimes, which is known.
05:03So, what is really needed is a process that works through these grievances, works through these crimes, and delivers to anybody, everybody in Syria, a sense that eventually they will have justice.
05:21Now, obviously, the volume of these crimes and atrocities is so large that it will take years to deliver that.
05:28But moving forward is decisive.
05:30Or else, you get people to take justice to their own hands.
05:36And that was part of the violence that we saw in the world in Syria.
05:40Heiko, I want to come back to something you said at the beginning of our interview.
05:43You said that there had been some positive things, some change in the country.
05:47Is the fact that Syria's new rulers are fully integrated, if you will, to kind of the global international community now we've seen a lot of diplomacy from Ahmed Al-Ashara, at least international conferences.
06:02He's been, you know, quite present.
06:04We've seen him meeting Trump and other key European leaders.
06:07How important is that, in your view, to putting Syria back on the roadmap and perhaps moving forward with some of these immense challenges, as we've been saying?
06:17I mean, it's absolutely crucial.
06:20First of all, you need legitimacy.
06:22Or they needed legitimacy for their rule, which is not a small feat.
06:26If you remember that the moment they took over, they were designated international terrorists, right?
06:33From there to come to a point where Donald Trump receives in the White House and where these people are treated as legitimate rulers of Syria, of Syria that everybody wants to succeed and everyone wants to support.
06:47It's an enormous achievement.
06:50Nobody believed that this would be possible in this short amount of time.
06:55And it's crucial because the country is completely destroyed and has to be rebuilt.
06:59And that needs money before anything else.
07:02It needs massive investment in infrastructure.
07:06It needs aid.
07:08And also investment by companies and by investors who, in the end, want to make money.
07:14And for that, you need stability.
07:16And that brings us back to the problems that you mentioned.
07:19They've been enormously, had enormous success externally, recognition, support.
07:26But this also has to be the same degree of commitment as to be invested in stabilizing the country domestically.
07:37If you can't achieve that, then investors won't come.
07:40If you have violence breaking out here and there on the current pattern, investors will be scared away.
07:50If you can't rebuild the justice system, you mentioned transitional justice, but you need an actual functioning judiciary to educate business conflicts, for instance.
08:01Right?
08:02You know, as long as you need institutions that work.
08:06To have institutions that work, you need to make, give everybody a sense in the country that the state is actually there for everybody.
08:13If you can't achieve this, then the investors will not come, the money will not flow, and you cannot improve services and the living situation, which is really death's going to be needed.
08:26So a real spotlight needed on the country's institutions, I hear you saying, Haiko Women.
08:31Thank you very much for sharing your analysis with France 24 this afternoon.
Comments