Jumblat: Syrian Army that Achieved Victories in October War is Receiving Orders from Schizophrenic Person
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Monday slammed Syrian President Bashar Assad as a “schizophrenic person” and noted that “terrorist groups” infiltrated Syria due to the “collusion and inaction” of the international community.
“Forty years since the October War, which was an important juncture in the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict, one ponders over the unprecedented developments that the Arab world is witnessing and the distressing tragedies that it is going through during this political moment, as the cases of chaos and armed conflicts exacerbate and people alone pay hefty prices only because they have demanded the minimum of their humanitarian and political rights,” Jumblat said in his weekly editorial in the PSP's al-Anbaa.
“The Syrian Arab Army that achieved heroic victories in the October War … is now receiving orders from a schizophrenic person who had insisted from the very first moment that he was fighting terrorists, instead of fulfilling the legitimate demands of the Syrian people,” he added, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“Some mouthpieces of the regime have started to tell us that he will run in the presidential election next year over the human remains of the Syrian people and the ruins of cities and destroyed villages, and at the expense of millions of displaced people inside and outside Syria and hundreds of thousands of detainees and missing persons,” Jumblat said.
He noted that “terrorist groups” have added to the plight of Syrian people after they infiltrated the country due to “the collusion and inaction of some of the international and Arab community.”
On Sunday, Assad acknowledged that mistakes had been made in responding to the uprising that began in March 2011.
The uprising initially took the form of peaceful protests against the Assad family's 40-year reign but escalated into a civil war after government forces fired on demonstrators.
"Whenever political decisions are made, mistakes happen," Assad said. "Personal mistakes by individuals happened. We all make mistakes. Even a president makes mistakes," he added. He insisted, however, that "our fundamental decisions were right."
Asked if the opposition has sole responsibility for massacres, and if his forces were all innocent, Assad said "reality is not black and white."
"But basically it's correct that we are defending ourselves," he added.
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