KASAB VS. #KESSAB, AND PROPAGANDA ON SYRIA’S COAST
The Daily Star, lebanon
April 5 2014
April 05, 2014 12:06 AMBy Marlin Dick
BEIRUT: A social media campaign to prevent a “genocide of Armenians!”
in the scenic Syrian mountain resort town of Kasab exploded recently,
in the latest example of how 21st century communications technology
can spread as much disinformation as it does information.
The Armenian diaspora community was shaken late last month when the
town of Kasab and surrounding areas fell quickly out of the regime’s
control, as part of the “Al-Anfal” coastal campaign launched by rebels
and jihadists.
The cast of characters in the campaign is a long one – on one side
are Syrian regular army troops and several paramilitary groups
and militias, believed to include the National Defense Forces,
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and the Liberation of Iskanderon group, headed
by a Turkish-born Alawite from the neighboring province across the
border, called Hatay by Turkey.
On the other side is a loose coalition of groups: the Al-Qaeda
affiliate the Nusra Front, several conservative Islamist militias,
and in a supporting role, the mainstream Free Syrian Army.
For the Armenians of Kasab and Armenians elsewhere, all these
distinctions are largely insignificant. The regime and its supporters,
besides labeling every insurgent a “terrorist,” have emphasized that
Turkey is actively aiding the rebels’ military efforts, in order to
stir up old fears and endemic hostility to Syria’s neighbor, whose
Ottoman Empire predecessor massacred 1.5 millions beginning in 1915.
American-Armenian organizations and activists raised the alarm about
a new genocide being imminent in Kasab as the town quickly fell to
the rebels.
Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian joined in, guaranteeing
the #SaveKessab campaign instant global reach, thanks to the
Armenian-American from southern California who commands 20 million
Twitter followers.
The message of “Kasab being targeted” was also relayed by the U.S.
government and Congress, people with Armenian-American constituents,
although the mayor of Kasab, along with an MP from the Republic of
Armenia who visited Syria, have both said that no Armenians were
killed when the town fell.
Much of the wider social media campaign’s visual content – and
particularly a selection of still photographs – highlight how tenuous
Internet-driven claims can be.
Horrific to look at, the photos suffer from the fact that not a single
one is connected to events in Kasab in late March 2014.
Ironically, most of the victims pictured in the gruesome beheadings,
executions and atrocities are Muslims, being killed by ultraextremist
Muslims, in Syria and elsewhere.
But the public, facing the wave of such photos and other accusations
being circulated, might come away with various impressions –
“Kasab residents butchered,” “destruction of churches,” and “ethnic
cleansing.”
The #saveKessab and other propaganda campaigns generated a quick
pushback, on various fronts.
A fighter from Ansar al-Sham, the most moderate of the Islamist
militias in the coast offensive, released a video statement denying
that any harm had come to the Armenians of Kasab.
He cited the behavior of the seventh century Caliph Omar, who did
not harm the Christians of Jerusalem when he seized the city.
Multiple items of video footage from Kasab also emerged, produced both
by media activists and pro-opposition television stations, at churches
where the fighters had posted guards, to make sure nothing was looted.
Two of the four large groups leading the campaign are Ansar al-Sham
and Ahrar al-Sham, both members in the Islamic Front, an alliance of
seven large, conservative Islamist militias.
The Front put out its own statement on the coast offensive, criticizing
the disinformation campaign swirling around the insurgents’ behavior
toward civilians.
Much of this Arabic-language material, however, doesn’t reach the
audience that is hearing about a “new genocide.”
But a string of counterclaims in English-language websites, thoroughly
debunking the claims of atrocities, has also emerged.
An anti-regime media activist who covered some of the battles raging
in northern Latakia, including Kasab, told The Daily Star he knew
of only one “violation,” when an overzealous rebel fighter removed
a cross from one of the churches in Kasab.
He described the fighter as part of a minority of non-Syrians from
the Nusra Front who took advantage of the chaos in Kasab during the
first few days of the takeover. Since then, the rebel groups have
sought to enforce order, by organizing patrols and issuing directives
that the town’s shops and other establishments should not be touched.
“The fighting groups have made it clear that the person who took down
the cross should be punished for his act,” he said.
Meanwhile, a small number of mainly elderly Armenians remain in Kasab,
the activist said.
“They are basically people who didn’t want to leave, or felt they had
nowhere safe to go, so they stayed,” the activist said. “They were
afraid at first, but the fighters told them that they would be safe.
But they don’t want to be photographed, and are remaining out of
the spotlight.”
The activist said they and other civilians in the Kasab region ran
the risk of injury or death by remaining in the area.
He said there were individual cases of local families, among them
Alawites, asking the rebels to transport them to safe areas.
The activist said that while the overwhelming majority of Kasab
residents took refuge in Latakia, a small number who delayed their
exit were finally escorted by the rebels to Turkey, with their consent.
The biggest irony is perhaps that as the commotion over Kasab and
Armenians has raged, another community – the Turkmen – are the ones
actually experiencing violence because of their identity, amid palpable
anti- Turkey and anti-Turkish hysteria.
Residents of a string of villages near Kasab have also experienced
displacement, and many of their residents are Turkmens, and the
community has already been experienced two gruesome murders. Shortly
after Kasab fell to the rebels, the bodies of a teenager and a
young man were found dumped in a public park in the Turkmen-majority
neighborhood of Ali Jamal in Latakia.
And no global Internet campaign has arisen to cry out against ethnic
violence against Turkmen in northwestern Syria.
Kasab is a victim of geography, not ethnicity – it’s the closest town
to a border crossing, it’s the central town in an area with dozens
of surrounding small villages, it’s near a militarily important
observation post, and it’s close to the village of Samra, where the
dramatic end to Syrian territory comes – a steep drop onto a cove,
hemmed in to the south by a jutting cliff, while on the right to the
north is Turkish territory. Before the war, if one walked or swam
a few hundred meters in that direction, Turkish border guards would
politely fire warning shots to encourage a retreat.
Kasab’s Armenians have recently been subjected to media interviews
more than oppression, but the effect of the old-fashioned rumor mill
is being multiplied by sensationalist Internet campaigns, stoking the
tension. How many people also hear and believe the debunking efforts
is another matter, and difficult to measure.
One of the worst photos in the “save Kasab” bunch was of the bloody
corpse of a young woman stretched out on a bed, with a cross shoved
down her throat.
It was also used last year in a misinformation blip about a Christian
girl supposedly murdered in Aleppo, and quickly debunked back then,
by people who gleefully pointed out it that it was actually a publicity
still from a 2005 Canadian horror flick.
About the only certainty is that the Armenians of Kasab are now
experiencing the war directly, just like their fellow community members
in various cities – Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hassakeh, Qamishli and
elsewhere – and like millions of other displaced Syrians.
From: A. Papazian