9. Weekly visits from family members.
10. Medical treatment of the sick by doctors whom the prisoners trust.
Garasi grinned. “Where do they think we are, Switzerland?” But his voice sounded uncertain.
At midday all the officers met in his office. Even the three Germans looked paler than they were anyway. Such an oppressive silence had never lain over the camp before. Over one and a half thousand prisoners had united to make demands in language that sounded as determined as if they hadn’t had enough of a taste of hell yet. For the first time in their lives, the officers felt curiously afraid. One false step, and they knew there would be no stopping a catastrophe.
Garasi sought a solution similar to the one the Interior Minister had once explained to him. “Our policy is to kill the Muslim Brothers, the Satlanists, and the communists, while at the same time staying friends with Saudi Arabia, Satlan of Egypt, and the Soviet Union.”
After some thought, he announced a three-point plan. “First we keep quiet and cut off all information going out of the camp. Second, we arrest the leaders of the strike and put them in solitary confinement until they die. Third, we tempt the prisoners with better food and at the same time show them, quite calmly, that we’re not impressed by their strike, they’re only risking their own lives, and they can’t overcome the state with such silly tricks anyway.”
The officers nodded. Even the Germans suddenly seemed to respect the old commandant.
263. The End of the Tunnel
Garasi had declined to enter into any kind of negotiation with the prisoners, but when the hunger strike had gone on for two weeks he was baffled. The officers advised him to make concessions, and he gave way.
That step put the prisoners’ committee in a very dangerous situation. Up to this point, only Farid was known to the informers as a member of it. If the members of a whole delegation now revealed their identities, it could mean death for them all. So they decided to send only three men. The seven others would stay under cover so that they could continue the struggle if all three delegates were killed. Salman the Muslim Brother and the journalist Ali Abusaid volunteered to accompany Farid.
The camp commandant, gracious as a pasha, offered them tea. The prisoners politely declined. Farid could not say for certain whether hunger had sharpened his senses, but he suddenly smelled the captain’s fear. Garasi had his mind on just one thing, getting his major’s pension. And that in itself made him vulnerable.
“Listen, Captain,” Farid opened the conversation, turning on the camp commandant the eyes of a hungry panther sure of its prey. “You and the Germans between you killed Hamid Tabet, and you will have to answer for it. The Germans can disappear again without trace, but you’re in a trap.”
In the following five seconds it became clear to him that he had won the battle. He didn’t yet know whether he would survive the victory himself, but he saw that Hamid Tabet’s murderer was paralysed by fear. Garasi knew that if he didn’t nip that accusation in the bud here in the camp, by going along with the prisoners’ demands, he could expect assassination by one of the Muslim Brotherhood any time after the first day of his retirement. The captain’s face fell. Panic seized hold of him. He did not reply coherently, just stuttered, “What? Tabet? What Tabet?” only to fall prey to even worse panic next minute. He didn’t hit out, but he shouted, like a man demented, that the state would rather see dead men than renegades. Suddenly he fell silent. He was obviously trying to smile. Then he spoke quietly, adopting a paternal manner. He would go to meet them and reward them for keeping quiet. He was not a monster. They could talk to him.
Work in the quarry, interrogations, freedom to exercise, those were all matters in which he had some influence. The food would be better in future too, and a doctor whom they trusted would treat the sick prisoners every day. However, he would have to discuss all the other demands with the Ministry. The presence of the Germans was a delicate strategic matter, and only the Ministry could permit family visits. But he, Commandant Garasi, swore by his military honour to do what he could for the prisoners’ demands. But first they must restore order and end the hunger strike.
“The Germans must go at once, don’t you understand yet?” cried Salman the Muslim Brother, standing up. The others followed suit.
“It’s now or never!” said Ali Abusaid the journalist. For it was clear to them all that even the criminal fraternity among them — and so far it had been difficult to persuade those men to do anything — would react if they discovered that they had been sent to a special camp designed for studies in interrogation. So the committee let it be known that the secret service HQ was holding on to the Germans because they were carrying out long-term experiments. All the detainees at Tad would die, because the authorities were interested only in experimenting with their lives in every imaginable way. In other words: the prisoners were raw material for the testing of new torture methods, and President Amran was the first in Arabia to be introducing such methods and recording their effects.
The prisoners’ committee exaggerated, but there was no other way of convincing the criminals. Now they too joined the political prisoners in insisting that the Germans must go unconditionally, and at once. They wouldn’t go along with the other demands, but agreement on this one point was a breakthrough, and meant the end of total isolation. It was the criminals who sent the first secret message through to Damascus with news from Tad. How they did it they weren’t saying.
“We have our own pigeon post,” said one of the big gangland bosses when Farid tried questioning him.
264. Last Attempt
Garasi was no longer in control of the camp, and that evening the officers knew it. An anxious first lieutenant broke his word and phoned Colonel Badran. Low-voiced, he told him about the mood among the soldiers. The colonel listened quietly, so quietly that the young officer asked from time to time, “Are you still there?”
Unlike the European and American newspapers, it took the Arab press a long time to react to the hunger strike at Tad. The Lebanese were first to report it, then the Jordanians and Iraqis, who traditionally did not have good relations with Damascus.
On 1 March the Syrian government newspaper also published a short report of certain differences of opinion at Tad. Half-heartedly, it called for explanations and the punishment of those responsible. However, the place was still described as a prison for serious criminal offenders and terrorists.
Garasi was cracking up. He set his guards on the prisoners, and ordered raid after raid. But neither the “Tad Printing Press”, with its logo of a pencil and three pieces of barbed wire, nor the camera which had taken the pictures of all parts of the camp could be found.
Colonel Badran was extremely displeased. What annoyed him most was the steady trickle of news and photographs getting out of the country. He summoned Garasi.
On his return, the commandant told his officers that it had felt like an interrogation. The cold demeanour of young Colonel Badran, who hadn’t even returned his military salute, had been alarming. He had wordlessly slammed a French newspaper down on his desk in front of Garasi. “How did Le Monde get to know these criminals were in your camp? I’ve checked the list. It’s correct in every particular, and it must have been smuggled out only a few days ago. Don’t you see what’s going on? The Jews will finish us off. First they occupy the Golan Heights, now they’re spreading lies about human rights in Syria. What are cameras doing in a camp? Captain Garasi, you are treating those prisoners as if they were on vacation at Tad. When are you going to wake up?”