Conflict in Syria: A Citizens Crackdown in Authoritarian Assad

A prefinal paper In compliance With PS 313 International Relations

Submitted by: Monique Diana Fandgani Submitted to: Prof. Othoniel Legada

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I.

Introduction

Syria, one of the states that were enkindled by the Arab Spring a wave of social upheaval throughout the Arab World demanding greater political freedom and an end to autocracy*. In 1946, Syria became an independent republic. After that there was a series of military coups, a union fling with Egypt resulting in Syrias change from a parliamentary system to a presidential system, and some more coups until 1970 came. It was then that Hafez al-Assad declared himself President. Unfortunately, he didnt save the people and the government from its spiralling self-destruction apparently, he lead them there faithfully while sitting in his presidential throne up until his death in 2000. Hafez al-Assad is from the ruling Baath party and has been using his selfproclaimed power to prevent opposition. Also, his centralizing policies are duly founded fears from the people not only because of the coup threat but from a palpable tension in the dealings with the Assad government and the people. The tension comes from the unique flavour of Syria in the Arab Spring. It is a majority Sunni nation that is ruled by a religious minority, the Alawite sect of Shiite Islam. Hafez is from the Alawite sect and he had cultivate his supremacy through fear, cooption and sect loyalty** Strangling controls over the almost three quarters of the Sunni Muslim Syrians caused resentment against the government, not to mention the attrocites. Terrible atrocities were committed by the Assad regime a scorched earth policy conducted to quell rival Sunni Islam community (Hama Massacre) and government violence against protesters who questioned Hafez succession in office (Latkia Protests). A year after the Latkia protests, Hafez died from pulmonary fibriosis leaving his son to take over. Now, if something fishy smells then the lowering of the age requirements for Syrian President just to accommodate Hafez 34 year old son is so fishy it smells worse than a dead fish. Bashar al-Assad had initially inspired hopes for reform* however when the Damascus Spring of vigorous intellectual and political discussion proved to be fatal to Bashars authoritarian regime he moved to thwart the opposition. There was renewed opposition activity, riots sprung up like mushrooms, there was selfimmolation and people gathered in cities to protest en masse and when the Syrian government chose to deploy tanks and send snipers thats when chaos begun and where the conflict started.

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II.

Conflict in Syria: A Citizens Crackdown in Authoritarian Assad The protest intensified greatly when a man burned himself in public. The government responded heavy-handedly and the violence escalated. For over 11 months, the Syrian people had been fighting. Fighting for the recovery of their rights and freedom, for Bashar al-Assad to step down, for a change of government, for recognition of Kurdish rights, and for the abolition of the State Security Council. Those were the main goals the people are fighting for. They utilized tactics like hunger strikes, riots, peaceful marches and some rioting. However on April last year Bashar had provided some reforms like the lifting of the decade-old emergency law, which enables the government to suspend constitutional rights not unlike what we had in the Philippines as Marcos. But protest leaders had figured them as shams and they were right. He set off the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restive cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators** By December the country is wrecked in violence that it was called to be in the verge of civil war. The people who had withstood the harassment and violence of the government, even suffering more than 7 thousand civilian death, injuries of 15, 000 and political arrests of some 60-000 to 80-000. The worst of it all is the children who had to endure this conflict, to think some of 400 of them were allegedly tortured as means to end the protests! Even the military are not immune to the inhumanity, fellow soldiers were shot if they refuse to shoot and kill the protesters! The Syrian Cabinet who probably recovered their humanity, resigned formally from the Assad government on March. And now, there are numerous army defectors joining the call for Syrian freedom from the Assad. The mass of opposition against the government formed an organized group they called Syrian National Council. The UN is now involved in this conflict and even the USA who had for the first few months had been itching to get its interventionist hands on Syria. The UN was hoping to help the Syrian government through the Security Council but they cannot get a consensus vote because of China and Russia. This is a still on-going status, even the neighboring countries are concerned about Syria and the impact on the foreign economy that may bring by this continued conflict. Only a strong third party military intervention or Bashar stepping down can end this nightmare for the Syrian people.

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III. Conclusion I conclude that the eyes of the Syrian people had been opened by the Arab uprisings from countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. And once knowing the sweet taste of freedom and true democracy they wanted it, they wanted the rights they should have been theirs all along, they want to secure a better life for their children, they wanted to have a government that they can trust and not a government they should run away from. Those Assad people however is a big story of greed and pride. For having tasted power in its greatest, do not want to be deprived of it and lashed out to the people. If Bashar is human, he must know that what he is doing is wrong and is hurting the people he should be serving. An excerpt from an interview*** shows how unsympathetic Bashar is:
PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD: We dont kill our people. Nobody killno government in the world kill its people, unless its led by crazy person. For me as president, I became president because of the public support. Its impossible for anyone in this state to give order to kill people. We have militants, those militants killing soldiers and killing civilian. This morning, we lost nine civilians killed in Homs in the middle of Syria. And they are supporters. Most of the victims are government supporters. Thats something they dont know. They think every civilian is demonstrator and every civilian is against the government, which is not true. BARBARA WALTERS: But the protesters in the beginning who were killed PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD: Yeah. BARBARA WALTERS: what about them? PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD: What do you mean?

I also would like to criticize Russia and China for not having the guts to support the UN Security Council resolution for a political transition for Syria. Should they immerse themselves in politicking when lives are at stake? But of course, they do have this kind of mindset, a political mindset where their own best interest are played up in any kind of event. There was this one quote that I forgot who was from it said: killing 1 person is murder, killing 100,000 is a policy horribly appropriate to those political leaders who would not do anything to help and those who would do anything making it violently worse. I believe that the Syrian people are very brave in this protest. But they should take it up to themselves to organize their own liberalization because if they wait for

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Bashar to resign or die in which case the former would be highly unlikely and the latter a bit too Qaddafi for the Syrian people. Or if they would wait for the UN they have to figure out a way to kick Russia or China out of the Security Council before they can help any. IV. Resources *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932012_Syrian_uprising **http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/in dex.html ***http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/7/a_struggle_for_regional_supremacy_ syria http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9063761/SyriaTwitter-debate-on-graphic-footage-of-children-caught-up-in-violence.html

Finis

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