Today Damascus is in the defendants dock for its politics,
but this is nothing new: here is the summary of a dramatic report
from thirty years ago.
In the last few weeks Syria has found itself in the news a lot.
Even without being included in George W. Bush’s famous “axis
of evil”, this middle eastern country has always had a bad
reputation for its military occupation of Lebanon, for having
facilitated the transit of many mujaheddin fanatics who wanted
to go and fight in Iraq, for having provided weapons and political
support to the terrorist organisation of the Hezbollah and for
many other things. Bashir al Assad, its young president, who used
to be a London optician, is not doing much better than his father
Hafez, who, after having taken power in a coup, governed for over
thirty years with a hard hand. The old guard who have been doing
as they please for a generation is still in its place. 
All of this does not surprise me much because of all the countries
that I have had the chance to visit in my long life as a correspondent,
Syria is probably the one which has left me with, if not the worst,
then at least the most vivid memory.
Even though it was more than thirty years ago, it is a story that
is worth telling. It was 1974 and the Middle East was still in
turmoil as a result of the Kippur war (October 1973), when the
Arab countries tried to surprise Israel during a festive period
to regain the territories lost six years before and – if
possible – to once and for all eliminate the abhorred “Zionist
entity”. In spite of some short lived early successes, the
attempt was a miserable failure: without the intervention of the
super powers who imposed the end of hostilities, the Israelis,
after having routed the enemy forces, would probably have reached
Cairo and Damascus.
Four months afterwards, the hostilities had ended on the Sinai
front and with the retreat of Sharon’s troops, who had already
passed the Suez canal in the counteroffensive, the previous status
quo had returned. On the Golan front, however, a sort of war of
nerves continued with the two armies, the Syrian and Israeli ones
taking up positions either side of the border and continually
exchanging artillery fire.
The editor in chief of “Epoca” decided that it was
worth making a war report about this latent conflict and asked
the Syrian ambassador for a visa for me and the photographer Mauro
Galligani. While we were waiting for it we found another reason
for going to Damascus: the British Sunday newspaper the “Observer”
revealed that, as retaliation against Israel, the regime had started
up a ferocious campaign against the 4,500 Jews who still lived
in the capital’s ghetto and that some girls who had tried
to escape persecution by fleeing in the direction of Golan had
been intercepted and had had their throats brutally cut. If we
had managed to find out what the situation was really like, it
would have been a world scoop.
The problem was two-fold. On the one hand it was necessary to
find the way of entering a ghetto where no other journalist had
been admitted with or without the consensus of the Syrians; on
the other it was necessary to establish a contact with some exponents
of the Jewish community of Damascus so that they would tell us
the truth.
I thus went to find the Rabbi Toaff, asking him for a letter of
presentation for his Syrian colleague. Knowing that it was my
intention to report repression, it wasn’t difficult to get
one, formulating it so as to leave the addressee without any doubts
but also without compromising them too much if it was discovered.
However, I made an error that, as well shall see, was going to
cost me dear: he wrote it by hand on extra-strong paper that was
difficult to destroy.
Finally, with the message hidden in a shoe, Mauro and I set off
for Damascus, where we stayed at the Hotel Semiramis. Our plan
was to do the first piece on Golan, which required the complete
collaboration of the Syrian authorities, and consider the problem
of the Jewish community as a follow up, maybe by using the contacts
established in the meantime. Therefore, we made our request to
the Ministry of Defence to visit the front, governed at the time,
like today by General Tlass, friend and companion of President
Assad.
This
was the start of a long wait. Every day we went to the offices
of the Ministry to see how our application was proceeding, every
day we got an evasive reply. The Italian Ambassador, Maurizio
Bucci, had intervened immediately on our behalf but not even he
managed to get us the famous pass. One evening, however, he had
a brainwave: “I personally think” he said “that
I have played all my cards, but you still have one in your hand.
It is no secret that Tlass is really infatuated with Gina Lollobrigida
and would give anything to meet her. If we could get her to…”
Your wish is my command: I quickly went to the hotel and phoned
Antonietta Garzia, the really efficient secretary of the Rome
office and friend of the actress: “Antonietta” I said
“don’t ask any questions, but we urgently need your
help: buy a copy of Gina Lollobrigida’s new book of photographs,
take it to her and ask her to write this dedication: [To General
Tlass, hero of the Syrian revolution, with my highest admiration]
and send it to me by express mail to Damascus.”
Three days later I went back to the Ministry and said that I wanted
to personally take the General a gift from Gina Lollobrigida.
It was like an “open sesame” command: an hour later
I was introduced, with my package into the immense and up until
then inaccessible office of Tlass. The General, with a beaming
smile, got up from his desk and came to me to shake my hand. 
From
that moment on, it was all downhill: at dawn the day after, a
Colonel of the Chiefs of Staff came to pick us up from the hotel
in a brand new Russian jeep and took us to the heights of Golan
to show us everything we were interested in seeing. When we got
to the front line Mauro Galligani complained because contrary
to the information in our possession nothing was happening and
so there was nothing to photograph, he immediately ordered a battery
to enter into action, the response being a deluge of Israeli canon
fire. Click, click, click, there was a report that nobody have
ever made before.
Once we were ensured our first special report, we went onto the
second one. In thanking the minister for his courtesy, I added
that the government may have exploited our presence to refute
the news that was circulating in Europe on alleged persecution
of Jews and which was seriously damaging the reputation of Syria.
In order for us to render this service to the Country, he had
to let us visit the ghetto and speak to the inhabitants, even
if we had to be accompanied. Tlass, who was still enthralled over
the gift he had received, did not need much convincing: he called
an aid to organise the inspection the day after in collaboration
with the police.
That evening, ensuring that I was not being followed, I went to
the Rabbi that Toaff told me about, I assured him that I was a
“friend” and had him explain exactly how things really
were and I asked him what was the best way to document it: “The
situation is terrible” he said “but if you are accompanied
by police officers my fellow citizens will say that everything
is fine. But I will make sure that along the route you will probably
follow, you will see something”.
The morning after, escorted by a sort of political commissioner
and four policemen who looked like cutthroats, we entered the
ghetto. Everything seemed peaceful, clean, dare I say aseptic,
but nobody was around. It was as if all the inhabitants had disappeared,
or at least that they were sheltering in their homes.
First stage, the synagogue: the young “collaborating”
Rabbi, who had taken the place of the official one that I had
met the evening before, gave us an idyllic picture of the situation:
The Syrian authorities were, more than collaborative, even protective,
everybody felt at ease, no member of the community had been persecuted,
if anyone had tried to get away, he knew nothing about it. An
assistant nodded seriously at each word he said.
Second stage, a shop keeper: same reassuring words, same old music,
even though I got the impression, from some furtive glances in
my direction when the madmen of the police were distracted, that
he wanted me to understand that he was lying. We recorded everything,
taking photos that - we were fully aware – did not give
an idea of the real atmosphere of the place.
It was during the move from one shop to another that something
unexpected happened. Three women appeared on the roof of a house
along our way, and started screaming in French to attract my attention.
They shouted at the top of their voices “The Syrians are
slaughtering us”, “Help us, here they are going to
kill all of us”, and they accompanied their words with eloquent
gestures like that of the side of the hand on their throats. A
few moments later, other women appeared at the window of a house
opposite gesticulating in turn. Like the great professional he
is, Mauro immediately started recording the scenes. The gorillas,
who were taken by surprise, did not realise immediately and a
few seconds passed before they jumped on him to stop him from
going on. In the meantime, I jumped on them cursing them and threatening
to report their behaviour to General Tlass. Taking advantage of
the confusion, Mauro even managed to take a few more photos, and
above all withstood the attempt to confiscate his Nikon straight
away.
Once the women had gone back in, the political commissioner said
that we had to immediately interrupt the visit, but maybe because
he was frightened by my relation with the minister, he did not
have the courage to arrest us immediately and limited himself
to taking us back to the hotel, asking us to not move from there.
Before taking more drastic initiatives he needed instructions
and fortunately mobile phones didn’t exist yet. However,
there was no doubt that we were in big trouble: we had some really
hot material in our hands and we had to save it at any cost in
the very little time we had at our disposal.
Our first idea was to give it to the Embassy, but we couldn’t
go out and we didn’t think it would be right to ask Bucci
to come and get it: it would be too risky for everyone. We just
informed him that if he didn’t hear from us in the next
few hours, he should try and find out what had happened to us
from the authorities. However, we decided to hide the roll of
film with the photos of the women, but it was difficult to find
a place in two hotel rooms where an efficient police force like
the Syrian one would not find it. Finally Mauro had an idea: put
it in a watertight plastic bag and stick it inside the discharge
piping of the toilet as far down as possible.
We had just finished the operation when four agents, different
from the ones that had taken us to the ghetto, broke into the
room and ordered us to follow them. Outside there was a black
van which looked a lot like a prison- van. A quarter of an hour
later we went into a gloomy building which, we were later informed,
was the headquarters of the security service and we were locked
in a large room awaiting interrogation.
This was when I remembered that I still had the pass of Rabbi
Toaff on me and that if they had found it they might have accused
me of being an Israeli spy. How could I get rid of it? I had to
find a way of swallowing it, without those who were undoubtedly
watching us through a spy hole seeing it. I also had to make a
long mastication in some way believable. Fortunately, Mauro was
an untiring consumer of chewing gum.
“Can you give me a chewing gum please?” I asked him.
“What” he replied “you always tease me for this,
and now you’re starting as well”. “Maybe I’m
a little nervous” I replied. “Anyway, I need two”.
After having put the two chewing gums into my mouth I also managed
to put in the letter by turning my back to the spy hole and I
started chewing it all. The damned extra-strong paper didn’t
want to disintegrate and I was worried that if I had tried to
swallow it too soon I would have chocked myself. Anyway I managed
to swallow it (and eventually spit out the chewing gum) before
they came to get us.
We underwent eleven endless hours of interrogation, with a scribe
who recorded our replies, writing them down by hand on a register
at such a slow speed that it didn’t seen true. The questions
often seemed absurd and not very relevant, but it was probably
their way of trying to break us down. There was no torture but
strong psychological pressure, accentuated by the fact that, even
though we asked several times, they didn’t give us anything
to drink. Obviously they needed time to develop the films that
– as we discovered later – they had immediately gone
to confiscate in our rooms after literally turning them completely
over.
Fortunately they didn’t find the one of the women; and when,
at around eleven o’clock in the evening they put all the
material in front of us – the photos taken on the Golan
and those of the ghetto before the incident – we told them
that in the confusion, Mauro didn’t manage to take any photos.
I do not know if they believed us completely, but partly due to
a lack of material evidence and partly because the ambassador
in the meantime had started doing all he could to free us and
partly because we were still basically under the protective wing
of Gina Lollobrigida, at one o’clock in the morning they
gave us back the material and freed us.
When we got back to the hotel, we happily retrieved the hidden
film, threw our things into the cases and rushed to the airport.
Indeed, the only weekly flight for Rome left Damascus at 5.30
am. There were only seats in first class but money was no object
here. When we left Syrian air space we ordered champagne and in
spite of the hour we had a deserved drink.
When the photos of the ghetto came out on Epoca, they caused a
stir and were immediately bought by Paris-Match, Life and other
important magazines. Syria was in great difficulty to deny that
in the ghetto of Damascus human rights were not entirely respected.
I even received a phone call from the Israeli ambassador in Rome,
who asked for my authorisation to use the material for a propaganda
leaflet, and what I wanted in return. “The first interview
with the new prime minister Rabin” I replied. Two weeks
later I was called to Tel Aviv.
I am sure that today, nobody in Damascus remembers this event,
but I have prudently decided to not go back to Syria, where general
Tlass is still in power and I do not think that the secret services
have changed their ways. However, the story did have an indirect
continuation when in 1994 the European Union made the (in my opinion
improvident) decision to lift the sale of arms embargo to Syria.
At the time I was undersecretary to the Foreign Office and in
the absence of the Minister, I represented Italy in the General
Affairs Council. I could no longer oppose the resolution, but
when the Syrian Foreign minister, Faruq al Sharaa – who
was also still in power – instead of committing himself
to a more collaborative attitude towards the Middle East crisis,
launched a violent and arrogant attack on Israel, I couldn’t
hold myself back and gave him a sharp answer. After the sitting,
the secretary general of the Council whispered to me: “Thank
you, at least you saved Europe’s honour”. I was proud
of this but I fear that my intervention didn’t make any
difference.
Livio Caputo
