Talk:Events of March 2011

Starting Thoughts
Always thought looking closer into this could be useful, quite a lot of fog over it, especially over what happened in Dara'a. As mentioned today on the new syrianews.cc site, not even the names of the children are known, just the same story repeated over and over again. Checked the french report The Lebanonization of Syria for details, but only the usual story there as well. The documentary embedded in the linked article seems to be worth watching - on liveleak, trying to embed here (*previews* - nah, doesn't work):



A collection of links to early articles about the events in Dara'a is here - text in German but links to English articles. --CE (talk) 12:14, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I looked into this a little bit once and have always meant to come back to it. It is entirely possible the government would try to repress protests with live fire, but it didn't seem these worked. Rather, the one or two killed at each protest were taken as like a lottery. You're either the martyr or one of the hundreds driven by him, a chance you take. They don't disperse or get repressed, only provoked, and convinced that guns, not protests, will be the way. And that's familiar from Libya. See below, deserves a section. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah, good add. I recently found that blog of the Homsi "freedom fighter" by searching for the "Shabiba" Ba'ath youth organization and actually read his whole story. Some odd things about it and I wonder to which extent it is made-up propaganda (armed groups don't feature at all in the life of that guy who lives with his parents and does basically nothing while the dictator is killing his own people). But the part about how it started is quite interesting. He was involved in laying the foundation of their Arab Spring with guys on twitter and they agreed on the date March 15th to start it. Problem: nobody came. At least not in Homs. And next to nobody in Damascus. So they retried daily at this or the other mosque. The first demonstration with notable attendance was not before a good week later on March 25, and he got severely beaten up by some thugs, he says, for filming the event, while no general oppression took place. And the reason why people were coming that day: "... many were already on the stairs chanting for the martyrs in Dara” بالروح بالدم نفديك يا شهيد” “We would sacrifice our souls and blood for the martyrs”". Lottery win. --CE (talk) 13:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Bosnia 1992
(forthcoming)

Libya 2011
Possible precedent: Libya, Al Baida, Feb. 17, 2011. Two people are shot in a funeral procession, shown on three videos. The crowds scatter for a moment each time as people dive for cover, but then realizing they weren't the one, the rest continue, re-enraged. One shot has a bizarre edit suggesting the rooftop cameraman is next to the rooftop sniper. The edit comes as the body-recovery truck pulls up just shy of the sooting site. As Felix said, a very clinical operation - provocateur work. Incidentally, someone claiming to be one of the cameramen recently gave me his e-mail address (see comments there). I Would not be the slightest surprised if it happened like that in Dara'a and elsewhere as well. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:42, 11 April 2013 (UTC)