A People's History of Syria--Part 23: 1982 to 1999 Period

Between 1982 and 1994 anti-imperialist secular left parties apparently provided the main political opposition to Hafez Assad’s Baath regime. As an essay titled “The Syrian Opposition at the End of the Assad Era,” which appeared in the 1994 book Contemporary Syria, that Eberhard Kienie edited, observed:

“In the post-Hama era some secular parties…constituted the only political opposition of importance inside the country. One of the most active among them is the Party (formerly Association) of Communist Action (PCA) which, like many other leftist opposition parties, recruits many of its activists from among the Alawis and other minorities. The PCA, however, did not join the National Democratic Gathering, a leftist alliance…The Gathering’s leading parties are the CP-Politbureau and the oppositional wing of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) led by Jamal al-Atassi, who at the same time figures as the chairman of the Gathering at large. Apart from these two parties the Gathering also comprised the Revolutionary Workers’ Party, the pro-Jadid (and anti-Assad, anti-capitalist left faction of the] Baath Party and the pro-Jadid [anti-Assad]…oppositional wing of the Movement of Arab Socialists [MAS]…The Marxist-oriented…PCA…has for some years…been closely cooperating with the Gathering, which is dominated by its rival, the more reformist CP-Politbureau…In 1991 the CP-Politbureau ceased publication of its underground paper nidal al-Sha’b (“People’s Struggle”) in favor of a common publication of the Gathering, al-mauqif al-aimu grati (“Democratic Point of View”) which has since been regularly distributed inside Syria, an operation which continues to be dangerous.”

Yet between the early 1980s and the early 1990s the number of Syrians who were members of Hafez Assad’s Baath Party had increased from 374,352 to 1,008,243, according to Allan George’s Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom; and during the same period, the number of Syrians who worked in the public sector of Syria’s economy had increased from 757,000 to 1.2 million, including the 530,000 Syrians who were members of the Baath regime’s military or state security agencies in the early 1990s, according to the same book.

In May 1991, Assad’s Baath regime also enacted Law No. 10 which, “strongly” encouraged “Syrian, Arab and even foreign investment in areas” of the Syrian economy which had been “reserved for the public sector” in the previous decade, according to Eberherd Kiene’s introduction to Contemporary Syria. Yet during the 1990s, Syria’s public sector was still dominant in oil, banking and construction, while in agriculture (which accounted for 28 percent of the Syrian economy’s gross domestic product), tourism and domestic and foreign trade, Syria’s private sector was now dominant, according to an essay by Nabil Sukkar that appeared in the same book.

(end of part 23)

A People's History of Syria--Part 19: 1967 to 1973 Period

Baath Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad in the late 1960s apparently now “favored…a bigger role for the private sector” in Syria, “looser” Syrian “links with the Eastern bloc and closer ties with the wealthy Arab Gulf states and the West,” according to Alan George’s Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom.

So “after the disastrous Syrian defeat in the June 1967 war with Israel”--in which Syria’s Golan Heights region was occupied by Israeli government troops—“Assad and Jadid were at odds,” according to the same book; and “on Feb. 25, 1969…armored forces under Hafez al-Assad’s command occupied strategic posts, including media establishments in Damascus.”.

In response to the way Hafez al-Assad had used the Syrian troops under his command in February 1969, the Baath Party’s National Congress then passed a resolution in early November 1970 “stripping” Hafez al-Assad “of his defense portfolio,” according to Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom. But in reaction to this Baath National Congress resolution, according to the same book, “Assad did not delay;” and “on the night of Nov. 12-13 [1970] his men arrested Jadid and his closest associates” and established the third Baath “corrective movement” military coup regime of Hafez al-Assad.

According to Patrick Seale’s preface to Contemporary Syria: Liberalization between Cold War and Cold Peace, “on wresting power from his more radical comrade Salah Jadid, [Hafez] Assad immediately set about cautiously reassuring and encouraging the business community” in Syria. And, according to Nabil Sukkar’s essay, “The Crisis of 1986 and Syria’s Plan for Reform,” that appears in the same book, Assad’s “takeover was warmly welcomed by the upper strata of” Syrian “society and the largest part of the” [Syrian “armed forces.” In addition, when {Hafez] Assad “took power in 1970 he…rolled back many of the most radical “Baath regime “programs, such as the…land reform policies,” according to The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs To Know by James Gelvin.

Then, “4 months after his putsch,” Hafez “Assad appointed his first 173-member parliament in February 1971,” which he named the Syrian “People’s Assembly,” according to Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom; and “the following year saw the formation of” Syria’s “Progressive National Front (PNF) linking the Baath Party and 5 others” Syrian “parties deemed to be `progressive’ and `patriotic,’” according to the same book. In 1972, for example, the Syrian Communist Party [SCP] became part of the PNF, two SCP leaders were among the PNF’s central leadership and the Syrian government posts of minister of state and minister of communications under the Baath regime were soon held by SCP members.

The May 1972 formation of Syria’s Progressive National Front thus linked the Baath Party and Baath regime with various leftist and nationalist Syrian political parties during the 1970s. But on Jan. 31, 1973 the members of the Syrian “People’s Assembly” parliament that Hafez Assad had appointed in February 1971 adopted a Syrian Constitution which constitutionally guaranteed the leading role of the Baath Party in Syrian political life; and on Mar. 12, 1973, this new Syrian Constitution was “overwhelmingly approved by a national referendum,” according to Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom.

Yet, according to an essay by Hans Gunter Lobmeyer, titled “The Syrian Opposition at the End of Assad Era,” that appeared in the 1994 book Contemporary Syria, “almost all the” Syrian “leftists who had not joined the National Patriotic Front openly rejected Assad’s permanent constitution” in 1973 “because of its deeply undemocratic character” and “a great part of the secular opposition” to Assad’s Baath regime “also turned into an anti-system force in 1973.”

But according to Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom, Syria’s “1973 Constitution stipulates that 51 percent of parliamentary deputies must be workers and peasants;” and under Article 28 of Syria’s 1973 Constitution, at least theoretically, “no one shall be kept under surveillance or detained except in accordance with the law,” “no one shall be tortured physically or mentally or be treated in a humiliating way” and “the law defines the punishment of whoever commits such an act.” In addition, at least theoretically, according to Article 38 of Syria’s 1973 Constitution:

“Every citizen has the right to freely and openly express his views in words, in writing, and through all the other means of expression. He also has the right to participate in supervised and constructive criticism in a manner that will safeguard the soundness of the domestic and nationalist structure and will strengthen the socialist system. The state guarantees the freedom of the press, printing, and publication in accordance with the laws.”

And, at least theoretically, according to Article 39 of Syria’s 1973 Constitution, “the citizens have the right to meet and to demonstrate peacefully within the principles of the Constitution,” although “the law regulates the exercise of this right.”

In 1973, according to The Palestine Book Project’s 1977 book, Our Roots Are Still Alive, Hafez Assad’s Baath regime apparently also felt itself “under strong” domestic “pressure to recover the occupied Golan Heights” territory of Syria that the Israeli military had first occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. So Assad held meetings with then-Egyptian government leader Anwar Sadat during 1973 to make “final plans for a limited war against Israel on two fronts,” according to the same book.  And during October 1973, according to Our Roots Are Still Alive, the following events happened:

“On Oct. 6, 1973, Egyptian troops launched a massive surprise assault across the Sue Canal, and Syrian tanks and soldiers stormed into the Golan Heights. Well-trained and well-equipped Arab soldiers drove back the Israeli occupiers in the initial fighting…Israel suffered thousands of casualties and lost large numbers of planes and tanks. As the fighting continued, Israel attacked the Syrian capital of Damascus. To punish the Syrians, Zionist leaders decided to reduce much of the Syrian economy to rubble. The Israeli air force bombed ports, factories, power plants and oil refineries throughout the country and government buildings in the capital. These attacks killed many civilians. As Israeli troops began to drive the Syrians back towards Damascus, the government formed popular militias to defend the city…On October 22 [1973], the United States and the Soviet Union pushed a cease-fire through the UN Security Council. Syria and Egypt accepted it quickly, and U.S. pressure eventually convinced the reluctant Israelis to agree to it...”

And between 3,000 and 3,500 Syrian soldiers were estimated to have also been killed by the Israeli military during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

(end of part 19)

A People's History of Syria--Part 18: 1961 to 1967 Period

A few months after Syria’s secession from the United Arab Republic [UAR] of Nasser’s Egyptian regime, a Syrian parliamentary election was held in December 1961 in which 10 parliamentary seats were won by elected Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members, which had functioned underground during the three years that Syria was part of the UAR.

Among the anti-imperialist, secular nationalist Syrian parties that politically opposed Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood during the 1950s was the pan-Arab nationalist Baath Party which, according to Alan George’s Syria: Neither Bread Nor Freedom, “was hardly a mass movement” because “by the early 1950s the membership totaled only 4,500,” including a high school student in Latakia named Hafez al-Assad.” Yet in the early 1960s, the Baath Party’s “aim was to seize power directly by a military coup” and, utilizing the Baath Military Committee, “this they executed in alliance with Nasserist and independent nationalist” Syrian military “officers on the night of 7-8 March 1963,” according to the same book.

Following the March 1963 Baath military coup in Syria, a “State of Emergency” in Syria was declared on March 9, 1963 by “Decree 51,” all politically independent and politically competing non-Baath party journals were prohibited, the previously-elected Syrian parliament was dissolved and, according to Dilip Hiro’s Holy Wars, Syria’s Muslim “Brotherhood and other parties” in Syria “were banned in March 1963” (at the same time Syrian banks were nationalized along with a limited number of Syrian industrial firms). So, not surprisingly, in 1964 members of the now-outlawed Syrian Muslim Brotherhood “led anti-Baath riots in Syria under the slogan `Islam or Baath,’” according to Robert Dreyfuss’s Devil’s Game: How The United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

Yet despite the post-1963 Baath military coup regime’s policy of repressing opposition political parties in Syria, according to Holy Wars “the Baath Party in Syria” in the 1960s initially “proved popular with underprivileged classes and sectarian and religious minorities” such as “the Alawites…who had been the favorite military recruits of the French during their rule from 1920 to 1946.”

But by 1966, leftist members of the Baath Party had apparently become dissatisfied with the slow pace of anti-capitalist economic transformation and economic development in Syria since the 1963 Baath military coup. So on Feb. 23, 1966 a more radical leftist faction of Baath Party members led by Salah Jadid—which was then also backed by a member of the Baath Military Committee named Hafez al-Assad—staged a successful intraparty Baath military coup in Syria. And following the February 1966 coup, the now more leftist Baath regime changed the Syrian government’s planned economic policies. As Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom recalled:

“A comprehensive development program was elaborated in which state investment was to be the main driver of all economic sectors…Agricultural output was to be boosted by state-run irrigation schemes, particularly the giant Tabqa hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates…Large sums were allocated for the construction of new roads and railways. The Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc states became key partners in many of the new projects…”

And, not surprisingly, the Syrian Communist Party endorsed the more leftist Baath regime’s new economic policies.

The post-February 1966 leftist Baath regime that Salah Jadid’s faction led also ended the less leftist, previous post-1963 Syrian  Baath regime’s policy of not allowing the resistance fighters of the Palestinian liberation movement—the Fedayeen—to freely move across Syria’s borders into their former homeland of Palestine/Israel and wage guerrilla warfare against Israeli government troops. As the Palestine Book Project’s 1977 book Our Roots Are Still Alive: The Story of the Palestinian People recalled:

“…In early 1966 a left-wing military government took power in Syria. It immediately announced that it would no longer act as a `guardian for Israel’s interests.’ It opened its borders to the guerrillas and began to publish the communiques which the guerrilla groups put out after each operation. The number of raids increased dramatically…"

But the Israeli government responded to this change in Syrian government policy in the following way, according to the same book:

“That summer [of 1966] the new Syrian government began to pay the price for its support of the Palestinians…As the Fedayeen stepped up their attacks, Israeli troops began regular `reprisal raids’ across the Syrian border. After a flurry of guerrilla operations in early July [1966], the Israeli Air Force bombed targets in Syria…In January 1967, the Fedayeen began a new round of raids…The Syrians and Israelis clashed regularly in the demilitarized zone on their common border…In April [1967] the Israelis defied the Syrians by cultivating land inside the demilitarized zone…There were artillery exchanges across the border. Then Israel launched a major tank and air attack on Syrian border villages. Israeli planes shot down six Syrian MIGs and penetrated as far as the suburbs of the capital, Damascus...On…June 5, 1967, [Israeli General] Moshe Dayan ordered the attack…The Syrian defenses crumbled rapidly…Even after the cease-fire, Israeli troops pushed through Syria until they captured the Golan Heights…The Israelis expelled 35,000 people from the Golan and sacked the provincial capital of Quneitra. By the end of the war, Israel had captured Syria’s Golan Heights.”

And, coincidentally, as the U.S. based Genie Energy Ltd. notes on its website, in April 2013 its Afek Oil and Gas subsidiary “received an oil and gas exploration license from the State of Israel to explore a 396.5 sq. km. area in the Southern Golan Heights” and “the Company believes, based on its preliminary analysis and interpretation of existing geological data, that the license area may contain significant quantities of…oil and gas.”

(end of part 18)