Photo: Ahmed al Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammad al-Golani leader of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) told CNN on December 5: “The( Alwawites, Christians and Druze) sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them.” So far Golani has been politically correct and saying the right things. The question on everyone’s mind is: Are these words just to appease or for for real? If for real will his fighters be following his directive? The last thing the Syrians want to see is another dictator like Bashar al-Assad
The leader of the new Syrian administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, stressed that the revolution may remove a regime, but it does not build a state, emphasizing the need to move from a revolutionary mentality to a state-building mentality to achieve stability.
In a statement carried by the “Syria TV” website, he pointed out the importance of achieving internal political stability and strengthening trust among the people of the country.
He said: “We face major challenges today. We need to build stable political relations, but the most important thing is to focus on human capital inside. People must learn how to live with each other, love each other, and trust each other. This trust is the basis for the renaissance of any society, and thank God the nature of the people of the Levant does not tend toward the language of revenge.”
He added: Everything we did during this great battle was under the slogan: “O God, victory without revenge”. Vengeful mentalities do not build nations. At this moment, we cannot look for every individual injustice to restore rights, but we must focus on clear and blatant issues.
He stressed the importance of resorting to the law in achieving justice, by saying: “The law is the guarantor of everyone’s rights, whether the victim or the perpetrator. Even the perpetrator has rights when he goes to prison, because if the matter is left to individual revenge, we will turn into the law of the jungle. We need a fair judiciary to guarantee everyone’s rights and achieve stability.”
He explained that “the regime turned the people into its enemy, and they always lived in fear of it. It controlled people’s lives through blackmail, and used tools such as security services, torture and killing to terrorize the people, instead of trying to convince them or build positive convictions.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat last December that “the Syrian revolution ended with the regime’s fall, and we will not allow it to spread elsewhere.”
“We are now focused on state-building. The revolution ended with the regime’s fall, and we will not allow it to spread elsewhere. Syria will not be a platform to threaten or unsettle any Arab or Gulf country,” he said.
Concern about HTS and Sharaa’s past
Hayat Tahrir al–Sham, (HTS) which led the charge on Damascus, was once closely linked with both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as were its leaders, and the U.S. and much of Europe still classify it as a terrorist organization.
But the group disavowed its allegiances with the more extreme jihadist groups years before it actually conquered Damascus, taking the capital with little resistance and ending almost 14 years of civil war.
Despite the assurances anxiety around the new leadership remains, and while some rights groups have acknowledged HTS’ positive language, they have also highlighted the group’s poor human rights record in regions it has governed in recent years, particularly in Idlib province in Syria’s northwest.
“Shara’s action will be more important than his words”, analysts say and “so far we have only seen words but no action to end the anxiety”.