Dublin-based Irish solidarity campaigner Dr Declan Hayes led a solidarity delegation of 25 people from a variety of countries including Ireland, Australia, Lebanon, Greece and Britain to Syria for St Patrick’s Day.
He gave the Red Hispanosphere the following first-hand account by phone from Damascus on Friday:
We went up to Aleppo and passed through Homs. Homs is like a bad area of Berlin in 1945.
In Aleppo they’ve started rebuilding. We stayed beside the hotel Baron, where Agatha Christie and Charles de Gaulle stayed, and its only inhabitant was a cat.
Aleppo is quiet. We could hear shelling in the distance. The NATO powers have not given one sausage to Aleppo now that the rebels have gone.
There are Russian anti-mine units combing the place still. Little stalls are set up beside the Citadel [the site of years of fighting as it was surrounded on three sides by the terrorists] selling snacks. People are going up there for walks.
Little children, no more than six or seven, are carrying huge buckets of water nearly as big as themselves back to whatever semi-demolished building their parents are living in.
The people of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus are very friendly. They are of course quite scared by the suicide bombers.
That is why the rebels are using suicide bombings on the sixth anniversary of their fake revolution.
the People of Syria are particularly annoyed at the BBC which, their fake news editorial line apart, seem to be the official spokespeople for the suicide bombers.
The BBC blamed Assad for not protecting Damascus and allowing the suicide bombers through, instead of blaming the perpetrators and those behind them.
On today, St Patrick’s day, they are particularly annoyed that Ireland is sending suicide bombers like Terry Kelly to Iraq and Syria, and that Ireland is a part of the sanctions policy — which affects little girls in Aleppo carrying big buckets of water and other vulnerable people.
Ireland’s leaders along with America’s will never meet [the Syrians] but will always, it seems punish.
Another interesting feature about Aleppo is the hotel we stayed at, where we were the first customers in five years, are geared up to fight sanctions.
The fridge, the oven and almost all the equipment, including the water purifiers — which are very necessary — and reserve generators were all made in Aleppo, Syria. I have not seen one brand-name product here.
I am currently in the old quarter of Damascus in a beautiful Armenian hotel, where the handiwork has to be seen to be believed.
Little, poor Armenia has given more to Syria than the entire European Union.
The old city is full of artisans, spice and perfume sellers, and a large number of other merchants and tradesmen, and female soldiers — all of whom are determined to go on to the end.
On our way to Aleppo, several soldiers at checkpoints told our female guide that they were happy and proud to see a Syrian woman do her job.
The Syrian people are proud of their country and what it stands for, as a bastion of Arab secularism.
Tonight I was with the Grand Mufti of Syria, who along with many other dining companions commented on the Israeli air raid on Palmyra.
He said that the mask is now falling as the rebels lose their enclaves, that the war against Syria has been directed by Israel and the United States, all of whose proxies have failed one after the other.
Dr Hayes and the Grand Mufti of Syria Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun
In the course of our travels we donated some monies ($2,000) to children and various schools — the nicest real children you could imagine, as opposed to Bana the phantom child.
One of our number, Luke Cornish, painted various stencilled murals for them of famous Latin American cartoons like Dora the Explorer, and the kids loved it.
If you tour the schools of Aleppo and the bombed-out and devastated areas of east Aleppo, you will see Dora in the unlikeliest of places where Aleppo’s children are now viewing them.
The message from Syria and Aleppo is therefore quite simple: No matter what the cost, in human or property terms, the Syrian people will prevail.
We for our part will be returning to Syria for Halloween and the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration on November the 2nd.
We will also be returning for Christmas to help Santa, and for the next St Patrick’s Day, and again and again until America stops her proxies destroying this and other countries.