Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria

By Ken Stone

Ken Stone, longtime Canadian anti-war activist, has written a number of eye-witness reports from war-torn Syria, which he visited as part of the Second International Tour of Peace, April 12-18, 2016. This mission of solidarity with the people of Syria undertook to observe the Syrian parliamentary elections of April 13, 2016; the destruction and reconstruction efforts taking place in Homs; the reconciliation process being organized between the Syrian government and opposition forces; the damage wrought by ISIS terrorists to the world heritage site of Palmyra, liberated just a few days before the Tour of Peace arrived; and, generally, to meet with, and to listen to, dignitaries and ordinary Syrians about the western-inspired war of aggression against Syria which began five long years ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Stone
• Release date: Jun 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9780968214428

Ken Stone

Ken Stone is an executive member of the Syria Solidarity Movement (syriasolidaritymovement.org) and a longtime antiwar activist. He writes occasionally for GlobalResearch.ca and appears from time to time as a commentator on Press TV. He is treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War (www.hcsw.ca) and can be reached through [e-mail]. You can follow Ken on Twitter at @ccarKen or at his Facebook page.

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INTRODUCTION

At noon on Tuesday, April 12th, an unmarked, nondescript, mid-sized, Mitsubishi tour bus rolled up in front of the Mayflower Hotel in Beirut's Hamra district and six passengers embarked. The six passengers included Eva Thomassen and Roald Aune of Norway, Michel Othmane and Jeffrey Klein of the USA, Nedal Nedal Chehady of Lebanon, and myself. We were the members of the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria, a solidarity mission with the people of Syria, organized by the Social Justice Network of Australia.

At Beirut International Airport, we picked up Khalid Daoud, fresh off his flight from Amman, Jordan, and we were on our way. A couple of hours later, after exiting Lebanese immigration, we entered no-man's land, a stretch of several kilometres of twisting highway through the mountains between Lebanese and Syrian border posts. There, our driver, Rami, unfurled the official, two-star, Syrian flag that had been rolled up on top of a sun visor and we all cheered. A few minutes later, we entered Syria, where we met Qusay and Antoine, our official and cultural guides, and posed for some group photos.

This was the beginning of an action-packed marathon of a week that involved meetings with high government officials and spiritual leaders of large Syrian faith communities, election observation, tours of world heritage sites, shopping, visits to three cities, appearances on Syrian TV, sampling the night life of Damascus, and staying at a five-star boutique hotel in the heart of Damascus' Old City.

The articles below were written by me about the tour, the first, the day before I left Canada. The rest were written in the course of the tour and upon returning. In preparation for this e-publication, I have made some changes to them. Their purpose is to provide Canadians with a snapshot of Syria, defiant and struggling to re-assert its national sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of a not-so-covert, western-inspired, military intervention in their country, in which the Government of Canada participated and shamefully still participates.

If this pamphlet inspires some Canadians to demand that Canada end its economic sanctions against Syria, bring home Canadian troops and equipment from Syria and Iraq, and restore diplomatic relations with Syria, this writing will have served its purpose.

Ken Stone, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (May 1, 2016)

WHY I WENT TO SYRIA

I was invited to join the Second International Tour Of Peace to Syria, the purpose of which was to show solidarity with the people of Syria.

Members of the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria pose for a group photo at the Syrian border on April 12, 2016.

Despite the fact that western governments and mainstream media portray the Syrian conflict as a humanitarian crisis caused by the Syrian government, the truth is quite the opposite. For more than five long and bloody years, the Syrian people have endured an invasion and occupation by terrorist mercenaries, from over eighty foreign countries. These mainly foreign fighters were recruited, trained, coordinated, and funded by a cabal of mainly western NATO countries with the help of various Arab monarchs, including those despots who rule Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan. The organization formed to accomplish the attempted regime-change operation was called the FSG, the Friends of Syria Group of Countries. The FSG, which the Harper government of Canada was instrumental in forming¹, is responsible then for nearly half a million Syrian deaths, for turning eleven million Syrians into internal and external refugees, for  trafficking in  Syrian  women  and  children  for  the illicit international sex trade, for laying waste to housing and civilian infrastructure, for committing unspeakably barbaric acts on Syrian civilians and soldiers, for levelling churches and mosques and killing their faith leaders, and for destroying world historic sites and looting their artifacts. Yet, the Syrian people and the