Idlib: Syrian Protestors Stop Russian-Turkish Joint Patrol on the M4 Highway
On the 9th anniversary of the Syrian Revolution, people demonstrate their determination to continue the liberation struggle against the Russian-Iranian-Assadist occupiers!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 15 March 2020, www.thecommunists.net
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Note of the Editorial Board: When initially published, the statement mistakenly spoke about the 10th, instead of the 9th, anniversary of
the Syrian Revolution which began on 15 March 2011.
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1. Today, mass protests stopped the first joint patrol of Russian and Turkish military which should have taken place on the M4 highway in Idlib. Such joint patrols on the most important highway in Idlib – the last free territory of the Syrian people – have been a crucial part of the treacherous Moscow ceasefire agreement between Putin and Erdoğan on 5 March. These patrols are essential for the implementation of the reactionary plan to establish a so-called security corridor on either side of the M4. If implemented this corridor would effectively cut the southern part of Idlib, which is still controlled by the liberation fighters, from the rest of the region.
2. The treacherous Moscow deal, and in particularly the so-called security corridor around the M4, has provoked widespread opposition from the Syrian people. It has likewise been rejected by various petty-bourgeois Islamist factions like the Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham and others which play a central role in the ongoing liberation struggle by the Russian-Iranian-Assadist occupiers.
3. Two day ago, hundreds of civilians started to occupy central sectors of the M4 highway and built barricades. They made clear that Russian military will not be allowed to enter the free territory. Today, these protests swelled into mass demonstrations. When Turkish military vehicles came close, the protestors peacefully blocked and climbed on them, ultimately forcing them to withdraw. (For a short video report with interviews with male and female protestors, produced by Bilal Abdul Kareem, a great Black American Muslim journalist reporting from free Syria for years, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7iSb6hQzno&feature=youtu.be)
4. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) strongly welcomes this spontaneous initiative of the popular masses! These heroic protests on the 9th anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian Revolution demonstrate that the liberation struggle – contrary to the slander of the demoralized renegades – is not dead but continuing!
5. The RCIT has warned from the beginning that the Moscow deal between Putin and Erdoğan is a counter-revolutionary conspiracy against the ongoing liberation struggle. It is nothing but a continuation of the treacherous Astana and Sochi deals which have weakened the Syrian Revolution in the last years. We repeat that the popular masses and the liberation fighters must not allow the implementation of the Moscow agreement! We also state once more that any illusions in the Turkish government are misplaced. Erdoğan is far more interested in making deals with imperialist Great Powers (like Russia and the U.S.) and in getting money from the EU than in the fate of the Syrian Revolution. For Ankara, the Syrian people are just a pawn whom it is willing to sacrifice for the right price. We call again for a broad international campaign in solidarity with the Syrian Revolution!
Defend Idlib - Defeat Assad and the Russian-Iranian Occupiers! Don’t Let Idlib Die!
International Bureau of the RCIT
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The RCIT has published a number of booklets, statements, and articles on the Syrian Revolution that can be accessed on a special sub-section of this website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/. Our call “Save the Syrian Revolution!” has been published in six languages and can be read here in English: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/call-save-the-syrian-revolution/.