Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2014

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Paul Dewar]

Colleagues, we are going to get started. This afternoon we are going to follow up on our study pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the situation in Syria.

I'm delighted to be inviting our two witnesses from Washington, who will be providing testimony for the first hour. In the second hour we'll be hearing from some other witnesses. I'm delighted to be welcoming Ameenah Sawan and Heba Sawan who will provide us with their testimony.

We'll be giving you about 10 minutes each for your testimony. Then we're going to have members of our committee pose questions.

I welcome our guests. Please, the floor is yours.

[Heba Sawan, Teacher and Student, National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces]

Hello, everybody. Thank you for listening to our stories.

My name is Heba Sawan. I'm 24 years old. I studied English literature at Damascus University. I come from a small town called Moadamiyeh al-Sham. It's a Damascus suburb, just 15 minutes to the downtown. My town is surrounded by a lot of military forces, the military airport, and there's the 4th division, the famous 4th division.

The town joined the revolution at the very beginning of the revolution. It started with a non-violent resistance movement. It was all peaceful. I came also from a revolutionary family. My dad has all the time encouraged me to join the revolution, to do what I have to do for my country. I have a very good relationship with my dad.

In 2011, I was arrested in Damascus for three days by the security forces after a peaceful demonstration. The regime started killing people and doing atrocities in my town. At that time we weren't able to take the injured people to the hospitals, so we had to learn how to be nurses. We had to take courses at the Red Crescent and from some pro-revolution doctors.

At that time, my dad and I tried to help, and to help those injured people. At the end of 2011 my dad was arrested by the regime forces. He is still detained now, and we don't know anything about him. After he was detained, we continued our way.

Moadamiyeh's sons and other people were forced to carry weapons and to defend themselves. After one year of peaceful demonstrations and peaceful movements, with the atrocities and brutalities that the regime committed in the town, its sons carried weapons to try to defend themselves and their people.

In 2012 the regime entered Moadamiyeh many times and committed many massacres. Every massacre was sadistic. Every religious holiday and festival, every day, they entered the town and committed some atrocities and massacres in Moadamiyeh.

The people in the FSA, the Free Syrian Army, decided they would not allow the regime to enter the town again, so they liberated the town in October 2012. After that, the regime wasn't able to enter the town or break in, so they started a new policy called “kneel or starve” or “surrender or starve”. They blocked all the entrances to the city. No one was allowed to get into Moadamiyeh or to leave it. Also, food and medical supplies were prevented from entering the town.

At the beginning of 2013, I was engaged to my cousin. He was with the FSA, the Free Syrian Army, and I was a nurse at the medical field centre. January 25 was supposed to be our wedding day, but he died from the shelling. The next day I went to visit his grave, and the 4th division were also in the mountains. The graveyard was exposed to the 4th division. They shelled the graveyard and I was also injured.

I couldn't continue my job as a nurse. I stayed at home with my cousin Ameenah until I recovered. At that time, the suffering and the shelling every day were covering the whole face of the city. People were trying to survive. They planted every little area. They tried to find food, but they couldn't find anything. Some people tried to escape from the town, but the snipers were ready and killed everyone who tried to escape.

At that time, we started to work with kids, because for the kids, their childhood was stolen. Their whole environment was full of violence, bloodshed, and killing. In their minds, their dreams—everything—were destroyed. We tried to do some educational activities, some entertaining activities for them, because all the schools were being bombarded. There was no school in Moadamiyeh. There was also no electricity, so there was no TV, and they weren't allowed to play in the streets.

We did a wonderful job with them. We tried to help them survive, to keep them busy, until August 21, when the chemical attack happened. My cousin Ameenah will tell you more about that day. After that day, when 82 people died, we had to continue our lives. We had to survive, but the suffering was stronger than we were.

You would wake up in the morning hearing the sounds and the crying of the kids. They wanted something to eat. At night you couldn't go to sleep early also because of their cries. Pregnant women were giving birth to dead babies. We witnessed a lot of mothers cooking only water with spices and salt and feeding it to their kids as soup.

Also, you might hear a knock on your door, and when you opened the door, you would find a little kid holding a plate and asking for something to eat. At that time, you would have that difficult struggle and that conflict inside yourself. If you had something, some food, and you wanted to give it to that kid, you would deprive yourself and your family of that amount of food, but then you would close the door with your heart broken.

We had a lot of suffering there. People started dying. More than nine people in my town died of hunger. More than 1,500 were killed by the mortar shells, by the shelling.

In the middle of October 2013, and in a filthy game, the regime opened a way to those people who he himself was besieging, who he himself was killing and detaining. He opened a way and allowed only the women and the children to leave the town in order to portray himself as a hero, as a saviour for those people who were kidnapped and held like hostages by the terrorists, which is not true. At that time, the media and the whole world were watching this operation of evacuation so he couldn't arrest any of us, but the regime humiliated us a lot and they forced us to chant to Bashar al-Assad. I can't forget that day.

After that, the regime and his forces tried to capture and to detain all the activists who were in the town. They arrested some of our friends and our family members in order to reach us, so we realized that we had to leave the town. We had to leave the country. We fled to Lebanon illegally and then to Istanbul. Then we had this chance to come to America and tell our stories to these people.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Paul Dewar]

Ameenah, you were going to provide us with testimony. Thank you.

[Ameenah Sawan, Teacher and Student, National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces]

Good afternoon, everybody.

I am Ameenah Sawan, from Moadamiyeh al-Sham, a city in the eastern part of the Damascus suburbs. I am 23 years old. I left college in 2011 at the beginning of the revolution. I was a student at Damascus University, the department of translation.

My city was involved in the revolution from the very beginning. The regime tried to kill and end the revolution. They massacred many in my city, including a few executions. They slaughtered people, burned bodies, and did whatever you could imagine. That was going on with support from the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iran Revolutionary Guards.

In November 2012, the Free Syrian Army liberated my city because we couldn't handle the fact that the regime was going to enter the city again and do another massacre in it. The regime started using the helicopter and the MiG airplane to shell the city with more shells because they couldn't enter it.

Tasneem Juma'a is a kid from Moadamiyeh and she is six years old. On January 2, 2013, she was sitting in her house with her family. They were really afraid but they didn't know that the airplanes they heard in the sky were going to hit their house, which had two floors. The MiG airplanes hit their place and ruined it. She lost her parents, her five sisters, and her brother, Mahmood.

People tried to take them out of the ruins, but the regime also hit the same place with ground-to-ground missiles and 35 people were killed. That included her family and the people who were trying to help. Then we witnessed many massacres because of the shelling.

The 4th division shelled Moadamiyeh and some part of the Damascus suburbs. It's a part of Moadamiyeh on a mountain and Moadamiyeh is on the hillside.

As Heba said, we were trying to do some psychosocial support activities for the kids in 2013 in some basements during the shelling. We were living under siege and we couldn't feed those kids. We thought we could sing with them and let them forget they were living under shelling and that they were hungry and afraid and missing their schools.

Every day whenever the kids in Moadamiyeh went to bed, they had innocent dreams maybe about a small piece of chocolate, maybe chefs, maybe teddy bears, maybe going on a trip peacefully with their family outside the siege.

On August 21, 2013, many kids of Moadamiyeh slept, dreaming as usual, but they didn't wake up because Bashar al-Assad hit my city with a chemical weapon. Eighty-two civilians were killed that day and 400 people were injured. That day I rushed with Heba to the field hospital and the situation was crazy. People were suffocating in the street, having spasms, rushing, and when we reached the field hospital, they were putting the dead bodies and the injured people on the floor on both sides of the street. They hosed their bodies with water. That day we witnessed the most severe shelling on our city.

The MiG airplane made 19 shots on the city. They hit the city with ground-to-ground missiles and hundreds of mortar shells. They were trying to break in at all the entrances. Maybe they thought since they hit us with a chemical weapon and we were now busy with the dead people and injured people and many of the people who were trying to help were dizzy, that they could enter the city and slaughter the others and in the revolution in Moadamiyeh, but with God's mercy, they couldn't.

At 11 a.m. many of the medical staff in the field hospital—it's a 300-metre basement, not a hospital. It's just a place where you are trying to help people. You can't even call it a hospital. One of the doctors was feeling dizzy. I was standing next to him. He was holding a baby. That baby was about 10 months old. He said, “Ameenah, hold this baby.” I took the baby and rushed around the room trying to wake him up and do CPR on him.

We couldn't find anything to help the people injured by sarin gas, except snuggling them in blankets, putting some vinegar on their noses, trying to do CPR, and washing their bodies and faces with water. That's it. I rushed to the room, and tried to do CPR on that kid, but he didn't respond. I tried to put some vinegar on his nose. Then he rushed into the room, and said, “Ameenah, what are your doing? That kid is already dead.” I said, “We have to try. We have to do something.” He said, “All his family was killed. Why do you want to wake him up? He went to a better place where he could find justice. He went with his family”.

That day we lost touch with my brother's family: my brother, his wife, and their three kids. In the middle of the day we found out they were fine. They were hidden in some basement on the next street. I was really afraid when I saw their neighbours coming with dead people and injured people.

Also, the field hospital was full of dead people, so we had to move some of them to the house next door. We moved 43 dead people to that house. They were already dead. That wasn't enough for the regime, so it hit that place with five mortar shells. They were already dead. It thought the Syrian people didn't even deserve a decent death so it killed them twice.

Seven days later, the same brother who survived the chemical attack with his family was planting to defeat the siege, planting some eggplant, lettuce, just some little things. You can't even feed yourself. You are feeling hungry.

My brother and his wife were dreamers. They had dreams. At that moment my brother was standing with his wife while his three kids were playing around, and a mortar shell fell on the building in front of them. The shrapnel killed my brother, his wife, and his son Ahmed, who was seven years old. They had survived the chemical attack day through a miracle.

Assad has all kinds of weapons. If he couldn't kill us with this weapon, he could kill us with the other weapon. The international world was asking us if we felt safe when they told us Assad was handling chemical weapons. I said no, because you see, one example is my brother and his family, but we have hundreds and thousands of examples. Our problem is not totally with the chemical weapons.

I don't know what the problem is. Areas, like Moadamiyeh, have been under siege for a year and a half and then they did the evacuation, but they didn't bring aid to Moadamiyeh.

Assad has hit many areas with chemical weapons. They asked them to hand over the chemical weapons and not to leave. They're not even thinking about solving the source of the problem.

The Syrian people have lost a lot, but they didn't lose hope.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Paul Dewar]

Thank you both.

At this point I'm going to turn this over to my colleagues who are going to ask you some questions. Thank you so much for your testimony and for really being able to voice a very traumatic and horrific experience.

I will turn it over to Madame Laverdière who will be asking you questions for the next seven minutes.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, indeed, for your testimony which was very moving and troubling.

We are different political parties around this table, but I think we all share the fact that we care deeply about what's happening in Syria and to the Syrian people. We hope for peace for the people of Syria.

I was quite impressed, I have to say, by one of your last words which was the word “hope”. I think it's important, and we must continue working and hearing testimony like yours.

I was also struck by all that you said about the work you did with children, both to fulfill their educational and psychological needs, as well as all the basic human needs. I was impressed by the work you've done with them.

I am wondering, because it's a preoccupation here also, what's happening to all the people in Syria, but particularly to the children. How can we help in this respect? How can Canada and the international community best help with respect to the children in Syria?

[Heba Sawan]

Children and all civilians in Syria are suffering a lot. They also lost all their basic needs. I guess what is required is serious pressure on the regime to allow the United Nations and humanitarian aid to get into the besieged city and to continue the educational process for the kids in order to provide all their needs. This is required from the whole world and from Canada.

It's about serious pressure because when the whole world decided that the regime has to hand over his chemical weapons, they couldn't force him to do that. Why couldn't they put the same pressure on him and force him to allow some humanitarian aid and the basic needs, educational needs as well, to be provided to the civilian people, especially kids? It's about serious pressure.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

We also know there are talks in Geneva. There are meetings and what we call head-to-head talks.

[Heba Sawan]

Delegations.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Yes. What do you think of this process? Do you see any hope of this process succeeding?

[Heba Sawan]

Actually, this process is the bloodiest peace talks ever. The international world didn't force the regime and the other parties to a ceasefire, and to allow humanitarian aid to get into a lot of places in Syria that are in a needy situation.

How can the Syrian people believe in these delegations which talk about peace and there is no peace in their land actually?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Also, regarding this tendency to have a siege and basically starve people, we've seen some evacuations taking place from Homs. Do you think what's happening right now in Homs is a model that could be used elsewhere? What's your opinion on the situation there?

[Heba Sawan]

Of course not. We are not asking for those people to be evacuated from their homes. We want the aid, the humanitarian aid that is needed to get into their towns and their cities. That is not going to solve the problem at all. It may be increasing it.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

What is the current situation in your own home place? I understand women and children have been evacuated, but the men were left there. What's the current situation?

[Heba Sawan]

Actually, not all the people, not all the women and children were evacuated at that time. Now the regime is trying to force a kind of surrendering of those people. He's still holding the entrances to the city and he's still holding the food, so he's forcing them to stop the fire and the conflict with the regime, to hand over all their weapons, and to stop even any kind of peaceful revolutionary acts in the town. In return he allowed a small amount of food to get into my town every day, but that's not enough for a meal.

If they moved or if they did anything wrong and he didn't want it, as protest, as uprising, as demonstrations, he just stopped and reblocked the entrances and stopped allowing the food and the medical supplies into the city. It's a kind of force, forcing these places to surrender. He knows that he lost the legitimacy and he would not be able to convince those people that he is the leader of this town legally, but he is trying to force them to surrender and to make like a political victory, that he recontrols those places and those areas. Those places, those cities, when they regain the power and they stand on their feet again, they will return to their revolution, to their uprising.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Paul Dewar]

Thank you.

We're now going to turn our questions over to Mr. Anderson, who is with the government and is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I want to thank you for being with us today. As Ms. Laverdière said, we are of different political parties, but I think we all join together in appreciating your story and trying to determine how we can best work as Canadians and the Canadian government.

I want to thank you for your courage.

I'd like to begin at the present and work a little bit backwards. I'm just wondering, what is your future? What are you doing now, and what do you see in the near future and in the distant future in terms of your work?

[Heba Sawan]

Actually, now we're staying in Istanbul. We are preparing for some activities with the kids.

We are planning to go back to northern Syria. We know that the future is difficult. We know that there are obstacles in front of the Syrian people, the rebuilding of everything. The social environment, the social texture in Syria is all divided and destroyed. We know that it's more difficult for us, but we still have hope. We still have the will to continue. It's as if we're running in a tunnel, in darkness. We know that at the end of the tunnel there is a light, and there is a piece that is trying to catch us and eat us, so we have to continue our running until we get to the end of this tunnel.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

We need encouragement from those people around us, and you had talked about your father and the values that he has given you. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about those values. What are the values that he has given you that have been most important to you?

[Heba Sawan]

Since I was a child, my dad has told me how this regime that holds the power in Syria perpetrated many atrocities and massacres in the eighties in Hama.

I personally have experience with the regime. When I tried to do some volunteer activities in Syria, the regime arrested some of my friends. I realized that I can't do anything to improve the situation in Syria and build the country that all Syrians dream about until the tumbling of this regime occurs.

My dad used to take me to the demonstrations by himself. My mother was afraid for me all the time. She kept talking to him and telling him that his daughter is taking a lot of risks. He always said to let her do what she has to do for her country. Although he was afraid for me also, he didn't stop me.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Ameenah, do you have anything to add to that concerning things that you feel are important or that you got from your family?

[Ameenah Sawan]

My brother, who was killed, as I mentioned, had three kids. Ahmad, who was seven years old, was killed with his parents, but we still have Fatima, who is eight years old, and Hanan, who is going to be two years old next Mother's Day.

You can't imagine how powerful those kids are. Some people were telling us, “It's been three years. You left your college. You guys lost a lot. Don't you feel bored?” We will say, “If you ask Hanan and Fatima how they feel, you'll find the answer and the inspiration in their smiles.”

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

[Heba Sawan]

I want to add that we want the people of Syria and the entire world to take back the rights of all these kids, to give them back their fathers' and mothers' blood. They need justice.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Let me ask you a question that I think is unrelated to what we've just been talking about. I want to talk to you about the communication of your message.

I wonder what avenues you have had to get your message out, including from inside the cities. All electronic communications are cut off, and you talked about the electricity being down and those kinds of things. What avenues do people have to communicate with the rest of the world, and how can we help with that communication?