Syria 1st-Hand: Lifelong Dissident al-Labwani "I am Seeing My Long-Time Dreams Come True"

Dale Gavlak reports for the Associated Press:

One of Syria's most prominent dissidents, who worked for years against the Assad family regime, stepped out of prison two months ago to discover that his country was aflame with the revolution he long hoped for.

Jailed since 2005, Kamal al-Labwani had heard hints about what was happening on the outside the past year from visitors and even from guards. But prison authorities kept him and other prisoners under an information blackout — no newspapers or TV news over the past 10 months when hundreds of thousands of Syrians were taking to the streets nearly daily despite a relentless and bloody crackdown, demanding President Bashar Assad's ouster.

So he was stunned to see the full extent of the revolt when he was freed in November as part of an amnesty Assad's regime ordered as a reform gesture.

"I am seeing my long-time dreams come true, even better. For years, I dreamt of revolution, change. I was astonished to see it all happening," the 54-year-old al-Labwani told The Associated Press this week in the Jordanian capital Amman, his voice welling with emotion.

To a generation of opposition figures like al-Labwani, Syria's popular uprising is a vindication for their years of largely stifled efforts against the authoritarian regime. For four decades, they struggled to find ways to raise a voice of dissent in one of the region's most tightly controlled nations, where people were wary of criticizing their rulers even in personal conversations. Now that regime is facing its strongest challenge ever, lashing back with a crackdown that the United Nations estimates has left more than 5,000 dead.

The older generation of dissidents is trying to help the movement. Weeks after his release, al-Labwani slipped into neighboring Jordan, smuggled across the border in a nighttime escape, to join exiles helping organize activists inside Syria and garner them international support.

"Time is blood now, not money. It means more victims, torture and destruction of our country. We have to move very fast," he told a cheering anti-Assad rally in Amman last weekWith his salt-and-pepper hair and dignified grey suit, al-Labwani — a trained doctor — stood out in the crowd of mostly young protesters, many in hooded sweat shirts or the robes of religious conservatives.

He has been using his international prominence to lobby governments to act. He said his ideal would be for a no-fly zone to be imposed to create a "safe zone" inside Syria where people can flee to, but he doesn't think that's likely, given the West's deep reluctance over any military action over Syria.

The alternative would be international backing for the Free Syrian Army, a group of army defectors who sided with the protesters and have carried out attacks on regime forces.

"So far, the international community hasn't done its job to help protect civilians in Syria," he said. "So we will need to try to do this ourselves by supporting the Free Army and revolutionaries. We may have to resort to arms to protect our civilians."

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