紐時賞析／54年阿塞德政權垮臺 追究罪行成新領導人最大挑戰

圖爲敘利亞首都大馬士革一座體育場，曾被阿塞德軍隊用作攻擊反抗軍的迫擊砲陣地。（紐約時報）

Syria Considers Challenge of Bringing Assad Officials to Justice

敘利亞面臨挑戰：追究阿塞德政權罪行

There seem to be no limits to the dark revelations laid bare by the downfall of Syria’s 54-year Assad regime.

長達54年的敘利亞阿塞德政權垮臺，暴露的黑暗真相似乎沒有極限。

Prisons have emptied, exposing the instruments of torture used on peaceful protesters and others considered opponents of the government. Stacks of official documents record thousands of detainees. Morgues and mass graves hold the gaunt, broken-bodied victims, or at least some of them.

監獄已經清空，揭露了酷刑工具，用在和平抗議者和其他被視爲政府反對者身上。一堆堆官方文件，記錄了數以千計被拘留者。太平間與萬人冢放着骨瘦如材、支離破碎的受害者，或者至少是部分受害者。

Many others have yet to be found.

還有很多人仍未被發現。

For these and many other atrocities, Syrians want justice. The rebel alliance that overthrew President Bashar Assad in December has vowed to hunt down and prosecute senior regime figures for crimes that include murdering, wrongly imprisoning, torturing and gassing their own people.

對於這些及其他許多暴行，敘利亞人要求正義。12月推翻阿塞德總統的反抗軍聯盟，誓言追捕與起訴阿塞德政權高層人員，他們的罪名包括謀殺、錯誤監禁、折磨與用毒氣攻擊自己的人民。

But even assuming that the new authorities can track suspects down, accountability will be hard to achieve in a country as vulnerable, divided and battered as Syria. The experiences of other Arab countries whose despotic regimes collapsed testify to the challenges: None of those countries — not Egypt, not Iraq, not Tunisia — succeeded in securing comprehensive, lasting justice for the crimes of earlier eras.

但是，即便新當局可以追捕到嫌犯，在一個像敘利亞這樣的脆弱、分裂與遭受重創的國度，問責將難以實現。其他阿拉伯國家的專制政權崩潰經驗，證明了挑戰：這些國家無論是埃及、伊拉克還是突尼西亞，都未能成功替先前時代的罪行爭取到全面持久的正義。

Syria faces some distinctive hurdles. The country’s new de facto leaders come from the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, while the senior ranks of the deposed regime were dominated by Alawites, a religious minority. That means prosecutions for Assad-era abuses could risk fueling Syria’s sectarian tensions.

敘利亞面臨一些獨特的障礙。該國事實上的新領導人來自該國多數派遜尼派穆斯林，而被推翻政權的高層由阿拉維派支配，是宗教上少數派。這意味追訴阿塞德時代的暴行，可能的風險是加劇敘利亞宗派緊張局勢。

The justice system was for years little more than a tool for Assad, making it ill equipped to handle sweeping, complex human rights violations. Many thousands of Syrians could be implicated, more than can possibly be prosecuted, raising questions about how to handle lower-level officials.

對阿塞德而言，多年來司法系統不過是個工具，使其沒有足夠資源處理廣泛複雜的侵犯人權行爲。成千上萬的敘利亞人可能被牽連，高於可能被起訴的人數，引發如何處理基層官員的相關問題。

And after years of war, sanctions, corruption and mismanagement, it is an enormous task just to sort through the damage while transitioning to a new government.

而且，經過多年戰爭、制裁、貪腐和管理不善，過渡到新政府的同時釐清損害就是一項艱鉅任務。

But there is enormous pressure on Syria’s new leaders to begin punishing the old, and the transitional authorities in the capital, Damascus, have promised to do so.

不過，敘利亞新領導人有着巨大的壓力，要開始懲罰舊人，首都大馬士革的過渡當局已承諾這麼做。

“We will not relent in holding accountable the criminals, murderers and security and military officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” Ahmad al-Sharaa, Syria’s de facto leader, said in a post on Telegram in December.

敘利亞的實質領導人夏拉12月在Telegram一篇貼文表示，「追究參與折磨敘利亞人民的罪犯、殺人犯以及安全和軍事官員的責任，我們不會手軟」。

Hunting down such figures will be difficult, if not impossible.

追捕這樣的人物將很困難，如果不是不可能。

文／Vivian Yee　譯／周辰陽