Finally, the Damascus trials!

There were trials in Nuremberg (1945–46) and in Tokyo (1946–48), and even in Istanbul, gallows were erected in July 1919 to execute Young Turks responsible for the Armenian genocide.

That said, one could legitimately wonder why the authorities of Ahmed al-Chareh had been so slow to set the judicial machinery in motion. Was he hesitant to punish the abuses committed against an entire people by the Al-Assad dynasty of tyrants and their inner circles? The question was all the more pressing given that more than twenty officials—both top figures and lesser ones, if you’ll pardon the expression—had been arrested and were languishing in prison awaiting trial.

Then, on April 26, the first public hearing opened in Damascus with this statement from Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryane: “Today, we begin the first trials under transitional justice in Syria.”

A brief comparison

Who would not wish for our neighbor Syria to hold public trials that, by condemning the criminals of the Baathist regime, would deliver not vengeance but justice? And for that, should it not avoid taking the Iraqi or Lebanese models as examples?

Let us recall that in Iraq, in 2006, what took place was a sham trial—the notorious kangaroo trial of Saddam Hussein. He was executed hastily after his conviction in the Dujail case, before the trial concerning the 1988 Halabja affair—where chemical weapons were used against civilians—had been completed. As a result, the Kurds, like many relatives of the victims, were deprived of a sound administration of justice, which might have eased their profound sense of injustice: a proper trial can help in the process of mourning.

As for Lebanon, an exceptional country that endured fifteen years of simmering civil war and foreign occupations, the approach was even more expeditious and far more terse: the 1991 amnesty law wiped away the horrors committed with a single stroke of the pen*.

Waiting for Bashar, Maher, and the others

Should we believe things will be different in Syria? In any case, Syrian courts do not rest on Sundays, since it was on such a day that the first hearing of a process destined to expose the horrors of the fallen regime was held in Damascus. Two notable figures, however, were absent: the deposed president Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher. They had vanished, like so many other perpetrators who now live comfortably—whether in Russia, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, or even, we are told, in Germany, Sweden, and Belgium.

The criminals of the regime who will escape justice in their own country number in the thousands. “Fall guys” will pay in place of those who planned and ordered massacres and systematic torture—the hallmark of the Syrian prison system.

Transitional justice and the rule of law?

Trials are necessary, if only for their cathartic effect—but not as acts of revenge dictated by the law of retaliation. The “transitional justice” emphasized by Judge al-Aryane must not take the form of settling scores; it must establish the truth, compensate victims, and pave the way for national reconciliation. But is this anything more than wishful thinking?

In our youth, our teachers warned us against illusions and idealism. For, like charity, justice in practice can only ever be “partial and biased.”

*Some crimes, such as those committed against political, religious, or diplomatic figures, were not, however, covered by the amnesty law.