In response to the 1976 decision by Hafez Assad’s Baath
regime to intervene militarily in Lebanon’s civil war on the side of the
pro-imperialist right-wing Lebanese groups, Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood began to
express its opposition to Assad’s Baath regime in more violent ways. As Dilip
Hiro’s Holy Wars recalled:
“…In June 1976 Assad intervened militarily in the year-old
Lebanese civil war on the side of Maronite Christians against the alliance of
Lebanese Muslims and Palestinians. This shocked and alienated large segments of
Syrian society…The Brotherhood, now led by Adnan Saad al Din (a one-time member
of the Egyptian brotherhood) accused Assad of acting as an agent of Maronite,
Israeli and American interests…Soon after Assad’s intervention in the Lebanese
civil war, the Brotherhood decided to wage a jihad against his regime…During
the first half of the jihad the Brotherhood’s military units—called Combat
Vanguard of Fighters—carried out assassinations of Baathist officials, Alawi
leaders, security agents and informers…”
Yet by the late 1970s, many more Syrians were still members
of Syria’s ruling Baath party than were members of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood.
In 1978, for example, 200,000 Syrians were members of Syria’s Baath party but
only 30,000 Syrians were members of the Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, according
to the same book.
But in 1979, during “the second phase of the” Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood’s “jihad the Brotherhood’s military units combined attacks on
police stations, Baath Party offices, army units and government buildings with
large-scale demonstrations and strikes...,” according to Holy Wars; and “they
heralded this phase with a daring assault on the Aleppo Artillery School on June
16, 1979” in which “the Brotherhood fired machine-guns and lobbed hand grenades
at an assembly of some 200 Alawi cadets, killing 83 of them.”
In response, Syrian government authorities then arrested 300
Muslim Brotherhood activists. But on Aug. 31, 1979, “the Damascus Bar passed
a…resolution demanding the lifting of the State of Emergency, the release of
all political prisoners and freedom of association” in Syria, according to Alan
George’s Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom.
Yet according to Nabil Sukkar’s “The Crisis of 1986 and
Syria’s Plan for Reform” essay in Contemporary Syria, “between 1979
and 1982 the situation” in Syria “came close to that of a civil war,” “open
clashes occurred between government forces and armed supporters of the
Islamist-led opposition” and “in February 1982, these confrontations culminated
in an uprising in the city of Hama which was quelled by government troops,
leading to the destruction of most of the city.” As Holy Wars recalled:
“…In early March [1980]…the merchants of Aleppo, protesting
against price controls, declared an immediate general strike…In Hama, the third
largest city, the local residents demonstrated for free elections, a
liberalized economy and a jihad…Soon the national syndicate of lawyers,
engineers, doctors and academics issued statements demanding the lifting of the
state of emergency (which had been in force since 1963), the release of
political prisoners and an end to sectarianism.”
But in response, on Apr. 6, 1980 the Assad regime ordered
“11,000 troops” of Syria’s “Special Units under their commander, Ali Haydar, to
Aleppo;” and these Syrian government troops “cordoned off the city, undertook
house-to-house searches,” “marched off thousands of residents to detention
centers” and “killed or executed several hundred people,” according to the same
book. And similar methods of repression were used by Syrian troops to end the
protests in Hama.
In addition, the executive councils of the Syrian
professional syndicates were dissolved by Hafez Assad on Apr. 9, 1980 and 5,000
more Syrian opponents of the Baath regime were imprisoned. As Syria:
Neither Bread nor Freedom observed:
“Parallel to Islamist terrorism, the regime faced…criticism
from intellectuals, professionals and activists from secular opposition
parties. Protest strikes were organized by…doctors’ and engineers’
associations…While responding to the Islamists’ terrorism with mounting
brutality of its own, the regime also moved to crush its non-violent and
non-Islamist opponents. The lawyers’, engineers’ and doctors’ associations were
disbanded in 1980 and their leaderships imprisoned. Thousands of Islamist
suspects were detained, but so were hundreds of intellectuals and activists
from secular opposition parties…”
But according to Holy Wars, Hafez Assad’s regime
“coupled the clamp-down” of April 1980 “with promises to release all” Syrian
“political prisoners and respect the rule of law;” and, according to Nabil
Sukkar’s essay in the 1994 Contemporary Syria book, in 1980 the
Baath regime “ordered a massive pay-rise for” Syrian “workers and employees in
the public sector.”
(end of part 21)
No comments:
Post a Comment