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The Armenian Rebel Rebuilding Raqqa

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  • The Armenian Rebel Rebuilding Raqqa

    THE ARMENIAN REBEL REBUILDING RAQQA

    Syria Deeply
    April 24, 2013
    By Alison Tahmizian Meuse (@alitahmizian)

    "When Jimmy speaks with tribal leaders in Raqqa, they gather around
    him in a circle; this is very significant where he comes from. If he
    survives, he is going to be an important figure in the new Syria."

    So says Aleppo-based activist and writer Abu Leila about Jimmy
    Shahinian, a young Syrian-Armenian activist who, at the time of our
    interview, was on a brief sojourn in Beirut from his hometown of
    Raqqa. The northern city and province had suffered heavy bombardments
    in recent days, but Jimmy was not in Lebanon to stay. He had "too
    much work" to do back in Raqqa, the first of Syria's 14 provincial
    capitals to fall to rebel control in early March.

    "How will you return to Syria?" I asked him.

    "Al-tareeq al-nizami," (the legal, regime route) he replied. "Al-nizam
    al-jadeed" (the new governing regime.)

    Christian by religion and Armenian by ethnicity - groups that largely
    shunned or remained silent on the revolt - Jimmy would seem an unlikely
    figure to work alongside Syria's rebels and opposition activists in
    the northern city of Raqqa.

    The 25-year-old IT engineer has been arrested four times since the
    first anti-regime protests broke out in March 2011, the last time at
    the Palestine security branch in Damascus where both of his shoulders
    were dislocated. "They don't like me because I break their narrative
    that all the minorities are with the regime," he said. "I'm not just
    Christian. I'm Armenian."

    Despite the constant threat of bombardment - regime forces control
    the airspace above Raqqa and other major cities - Jimmy is concerned
    with the governing of his city, which will prove a long-term issue.

    Throughout Syria, civil infrastructure is in a state of disarray.

    "For the past year, the regime had stopped operating trash collection
    in Raqqa because there was no money for the workers and gas was
    expensive," he said. "The bus system was only picking up employees in
    the morning before work and the rest of the day they didn't operate."

    Only weeks after rebels took control, the first task of the local
    civilian council was to get the most critical municipal services up
    and running again.

    "Civilians are running government and they have re-launched most of
    the services in the city. They fixed the garbage trucks, provided
    fuel, paid the workers. Now the bus system is running all day, and
    it's free. There are two hospitals that were private and now they are
    public. Not all of the employees are back to work, but we're trying
    to re-launch the most important services," he told me when we first
    spoke in mid-March.

    These basic functions have returned thanks to funding from Raqqa's
    rich resources; the province is one of the top producers of cotton
    and sugar in Syria, not to mention its vast oil fields.

    But the resources have also proven a source of contention between
    the people and the new sheriffs in town: mostly Islamist groups,
    with Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra at the forefront.

    When al-Sham entered Raqqa during the rebel takeover, it took control
    of the governmental institutions, including the provincial capital's
    central bank. In March, Jimmy said the rebels were only there to
    provide security; now he has a different view.

    "We found out that Ahrar al-Sham took money from the Raqqa central
    bank and are using it in Homs and Damascus. Some say they will use
    it to buy weapons there," he said.

    A post to the Facebook page "Raqqa Eyewitness" on April 22 reads:

    "By chance today we met Abu Hamza, the Emir of Ahrar al-Sham. He said
    part of the Raqqa money was sent to Damascus and Homs, and the rest
    will be distributed to the families of Raqqa in the next few days."

    Whether the group uses the funds for arms or aid, it will undoubtedly
    increase their influence and patronage network. "This money was meant
    for Raqqa," Jimmy said, admitting that all activists can do is remain
    vigilant and spread the word.

    'We have to provide an alternative'

    Jabhat al-Nusra has also secured a foothold in the northern city,
    and is intent on making further inroads. It could prove a major
    setback to any progress Raqqa has made in its rebuilding efforts.

    Jimmy compared the group to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party,
    or PKK, a group that was able to gain a foothold in northern Syria
    and fight Turkey for three decades. He said the reason for their
    success was that people on the ground became emotionally connected
    to the fighters - which could repeat, in Raqqa, with al-Nusra.

    Al-Nusra's members "are sons of the country. They give food, medicine,
    provide security. And they [appear to be] honest people, so people
    started to trust them and ask them to come to their areas."

    As al-Nusra's popularity rises, the Free Syrian Army has taken a hit.

    "It always suffers from a lack of weapons, ammunition and sometimes
    even food," Jimmy said, which could lead residents to seek what they
    perceive to be a more stable leader. "They kidnap rich people for
    money or steal the government cars or factories to sell off. They
    would even steal the communications antennae of the city and sell it
    for scrap metal. Say it's worth $1 million - they sell it for $10,000
    just because they have no money.

    "Maybe half the FSA guys are good, 25 percent are thieves, and
    another quarter are influenced by the bad ones. As a result, the
    whole battalion gets a bad reputation and the good half end up joining
    Jabhat al-Nusra because they don't want to be associated."

    The young activist points out that while many battalions are affiliated
    with Nusra, few are part of the elite fighting force.

    "There are so many conditions to be in Jabhat al-Nusra. In Raqqa there
    are about 135 of them who memorized the whole Koran by heart; other
    battalions in Raqqa give their word that they will fight with them,
    but they are not Jabhat al-Nusra. Jabhat al-Nusra has very advanced
    and new weapons - they even have tanks, so many battalions want to
    fight with them for supplies."

    Nusra, the state, and oil politics While Jabhat al-Nusra and its
    affiliates are ideological on the religious front, the business end
    of the operation is unorthodox.

    "They negotiated with the regime over oil," according to Jimmy.

    "The regime paid Jabhat al-Nusra so that workers would be allowed to
    repair the pipeline in Deir Ezzor and Raqqa," he said.

    Such negotiations between the Islamist group and the regime, conducted
    through a middleman, are not unusual, and have included other supplies
    like electricity, according to Jimmy.

    "They don't have any problem negotiating with the regime for money.

    Their program is for the long term - their immediate goals are to
    be accepted by the people, to attract more supporters and fighters,
    and to be more powerful. It is not their main purpose to destroy the
    regime... they can wait," he said.

    This is tough competition for moderate fighters and activists, but
    in Raqqa the ground is being laid to provide citizens with a viable
    substitute.

    "Either you can fight Jabhat al-Nusra head on and put yourself in
    a fight with them, or you create alternatives," Jimmy said. "Raqqa
    has a vacuum now, so you need to fill the necessary roles but with
    moderate approach."

    The Raqqa Local Coordination Committee and the civilian council are
    working to offer the same services that the jihadist group does. They
    are also building a new military brigade limited to Raqqa men.

    "Syrians in Jabhat al-Nusra will never kill a Christian, Assyrian,
    or Kurd, but the people who come from the outside do not know how to
    deal with the local minorities," he said.

    Armenians, the largest number of defectors

    Jimmy's name automatically sets him apart as an Armenian - now a
    potentially dangerous distinction - but he was set to return to Syria
    with the help of the Raqqa rebels a week after our interview.

    He has helped a number of his fellow Armenians defect from the
    Syrian Army.

    "Just last week, 17 Armenian soldiers escaped from the army to Raqqa,"
    he said.

    According to Jimmy, there are 360 Armenian soldiers in the Syrian
    army. Of those, 62, or 17 percent, have defected, the minority with
    the largest number of defectors.

    On Jimmy's Facebook page, he writes in the religion slot that "My
    sect is Syrian" - a statement against the rising sectarianism in his
    country. He acknowledges that most minorities will be wary of the "new
    regime" being created in Raqqa and elsewhere. Indeed, most Armenian
    families have fled the Islamist-held provincial capital. The local
    Armenian Church of the Martyrs sits untouched, but empty.

    Jimmy may be a revolutionary, but he is not immune to the traditions
    of his community - one of which is to marry a fellow Armenian. So it
    follows that his fiance is a Syrian-Armenian woman from the northern
    city of Qamishli, in neighboring Hasakeh province. She is, no surprise,
    pro-revolution.

    Photo Caption: Civilians on cleanup duty in front of the Armenian
    Martyrs' Church.

    Syria Deeply is an independent digital media project led by journalists
    and technologists, exploring a new model of storytelling around a
    global crisis.

    http://beta.syriadeeply.org/2013/04/christian-syrian-armenian-activist-rebuilding-raqqa

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