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PREFACE
Since the summer and fall of 1989, when the research for Syria Unmasked was largely completed, two political earthquakes have sent tremors into Syria: the decline of Soviet might and the Persian Gulf war, precipitated by Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Both have influenced human rights conditions with complex and mixed results.
The upheaval in Eastern Europe kindled hope among Syrian rights advocates that the government in Damascus might be the next to fall. Syria’s government, long identified with the Soviet bloc, minimized the importance of European events. But fledgling movements for democracy in several Arab countries— and well-publicized elections in a number of neighboring countries, including Jordan—increased pressure for change. Even high Ba'th party officials are believed to have feared that Syria’s aging president, Hafez Asad, might soon follow his East Bloc counterparts into oblivion. In November 1990, Asad completed two decades in power, with no successor in sight.
Beginning in 1989, rumors abounded that to strengthen his domestic base Asad would make major concessions: broaden the ruling National Progressive Front, release political prisoners, lift emergency laws, and allow new political parties to be formed. Initially, however, the government made only two small gestures. In April 1989, responding to a long-term campaign by the Arab Lawyers’ Union, Asad released three lawyers who had been imprisoned since 1980. Then in June, Syrian officials met for the first time in eleven years with representatives of Amnesty International. Reformers waited hopefully for a major Ba'th party congress, scheduled for the fall, that was expected to signal a change in direction. The congress, however, was never convened.
Toward the end of 1989, latent domestic pressures on the regime emerged publicly for the first time since 1982. Mothers and wives of political prisoners and the “disappeared” demonstrated twice in front of the Presidential Palace. The gatherings were small, but they were significant—security forces showed unusual restraint, allowing them to proceed without incident. Then, on December 10, 1989, the Committee for the Defense of Democratic Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria was announced, becoming the first human rights organization inside the country in nearly a decade. Although it operated clandestinely within Syria, the group claimed to have members in several cities and made a strong statement from abroad regarding the need for fundamental change.
On February 19, 1990, as many as a hundred Syrian women held a third protest before the Presidential Palace, demanding the release of political prisoners. This time, the police intervened violently to disperse the demonstrators—but there were still no arrests.
Faced with such unusual public expressions of discontent, the Asad government made further gestures toward reform, though still with little substance. In January 1990, the Syrian cabinet restricted the scope of martial law, and in March it did the same for the state of emergency, which has suspended legal and constitutional protections since 1963. But these gestures left in place all measures “relating to state security”—the most objectionable and far-reaching provisions of martial law and the state of emergency.
On March 4, Asad announced the formation of special new courts to investigate abuses of authority by civil servants, a measure that meant little and had many empty precedents. Four days later, in a speech by Asad marking the anniversary of the Ba'th party’s seizure of power in 1963, came a great letdown. Some observers had expected Asad to propose democratic initiatives; instead, he pointed to the threat inherent in having Israel as a neighbor as part of a lengthy justification for continuing the state of emergency. Such arguments have long been common in the regime’s inflated rhetoric and in its rare public responses to charges of persistent human rights violations.
Syrian security forces continued to show little change in their rough tactics toward political dissenters. In early April, opponents of the regime painted unflattering slogans on walls in the little town of Yabrud, north of Damascus, comparing Asad with Nicolae Ceauşescu, the deposed dictator of Romania. Fifteen people were arrested almost immediately. One died a few days later, apparently from torture, and another was taken from prison to the hospital in critical condition.
Yet, a modest political opening took place in the spring of 1990. On May 22, Syria held national elections to replace the People’s Assembly, whose term had expired. The government increased the number of openings from 195 to 250 “to provide more seats for independents” and issued a decree granting most Syrian citizens of voting age the right to present themselves as candidates.
Although an astonishing nine thousand candidates ran for office, the elections were highly controlled. Those outside the National Progressive Front—a body dominated by Asad’s Arab Ba'th Socialist party, to give its full title— could run only as individuals, independent of party affiliation. Authorities forced at least forty-three candidates to withdraw and arrested at least one. Officials also prevented all mass meetings except those by the Front and insisted on prior censorship of electoral statements. Some independents dubbed it the “40 percent democracy,” because Front candidates were, in practice, guaranteed at least 60 percent of the seats, in line with “predictions” announced well before the voting by Sulaiman Qaddah, a senior Ba'th party official.
Nonetheless, observers reported that the campaign was livelier than usual. Many candidates held meetings in their homes, where they criticized corruption, shortages, and inflation. Some even complained about the lack of democracy. But all conformed to the taboos of Syrian political life: none openly challenged the regime. Expressions of fidelity to President Asad were commonplace.
The overall results of the polling were no surprise. Front candidates took 166 seats—two-thirds of the assembly. Of those, the Ba'th party won 134 places, giving it a comfortable majority. The government did, however, apparently allow some “independent” seats to be filled on the basis of actual votes cast. As a result, some mavericks were elected, including sixteen Kurds openly active in Kurdish politics, the first such Syrian parliamentarians under Asad’s rule.
As the position of the Soviet Union weakened in the region, the United States initiated an intensive “dialogue” with Syria, beginning in late 1989 and accelerating in early 1990. Many well-known political figures made visits to Damascus. The State Department conducted its own intense diplomacy toward Syria, led by U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Edward Djeridjian. In June 1990, Asad responded to this courtship, appointing his first ambassador to Washington in several years.
Syrian-U.S. relations warmed dramatically after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Asad joined the U.S.-led coalition against his old foe, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, eventually sending a division of Syrian troops to bolster coalition forces and increase Arab participation in the effort to dislodge Iraqi forces from Kuwait. For this he was well rewarded. According to reliable sources, Saudi Arabia offered at least a billion dollars, and other Gulf states made sizable contributions. Germany eventually offered another enormous aid package. The United States was said to have been an important broker in these transactions, and there was talk that after the war, the United States would lend its support to vital multilateral aid to Syria through such institutions as the World Bank.
Having bolstered Syria’s previously weak economic situation, the United States appeared to accede to Syria’s longstanding desire for a broader regional role. In mid-October 1990, less than a month after high-level talks between Asad and U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, Syrian forces went on the offensive in Lebanon, attacking army units under the command of rebel general Michel 'Aoun and his predominantly Maronite Christian supporters. Accompanied by forces of Lebanese president Elias Hrwawi, the Syrians routed 'Aoun and expanded their fifteen-year-long occupation to nearly two-thirds of the country.
Brutality marked the Syrian offensive. Widespread reports suggest that during and immediately after the push, Syrian forces executed at least a hundred prisoners, including civilians, in the area of'Aoun’s headquarters in Ba'bda and in the nearby towns of Dahr al-Wahash, Bsous, Houmal, and Beit Men. Eyewitness reports say that many victims were shot in the head at close range, hands tied behind their backs. Thirteen high-ranking military officers were taken into custody by Syrian forces and transported to prison in Damascus. They were released months later. As the Syrians have expanded their control over Lebanese territory, the notorious Syrian Military Intelligence has tightened its grip by, among other measures, running private prisons.
One positive development has improved the otherwise grim Syrian rights record in recent months: in mid-March 1991, Syrian authorities released as many as two thousand Palestinian and Lebanese political prisoners. But these releases probably represent a facet of Asad’s latest regional strategy rather than an improved human rights policy; at least a thousand Palestinians remain in custody.
Overall, in recent months, rights conditions in Syria have changed little from those described in the body of this book. Security forces operate with impunity, censors insist on conformity, minorities face continued persecution and discrimination, torture is a standard feature of interrogation, and thousands languish as political prisoners. With the rapprochement between Damascus and Washington that has developed since the summer of 1989, the United States has gained important leverage not at its disposal during the long years of political estrangement between the two countries. By focusing only on President Asad’s complicity in terrorism, rather than on the legitimate human rights concerns of the Syrian people and that portion of the Lebanese populace subject to Syrian army rule, Washington is missing an opportunity to advance civil and political liberties in the Levant. It should not let this chance slip away.
Introduction
Syria Unmasked looks at human rights in Syria during two decades of rule by President Hafez Asad. It also considers the human rights practices of Asad’s predecessors, particularly the governments that emerged from the military coup d’état of March 8, 1963, under the banner of the Arab Ba'th Socialist party.
Syria, a country with a population of twelve million, has been a key player in contemporary Middle Eastern politics. In spite of limited oil revenues, the Asad regime has built a powerful army and security apparatus with the help of considerable foreign aid and a network of regional and international alliances. Such varied sources as the Soviet Union, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have provided more than a billion U.S. dollars a year in subsidies to Syria. European countries have recently begun to provide aid, and relations with the United States have been warming rapidly over the past two years, well before Iraq invaded Kuwait. That event, and the resulting shared hostility to the regime of Saddam Hussein, has produced the most amiable U.S. relations with Syria of the Asad years.
In the early 1980s, the Asad regime crushed its opposition with great violence, killing at least 10,000 citizens and jailing thousands more. Today, under a longstanding state of emergency, security forces routinely arrest citizens without charge, torture them during interrogation, and imprison them without trial for political reasons. At least 7,500 political prisoners languish in Syrian jails.
Syria is also a serious rights offender in Lebanon, where since 1976, its army has controlled more than half of the country. Using Lebanese proxy forces as well as its own army and security services, Syria has been responsible for widespread political imprisonment, torture, and massacres of hundreds of innocent civilians. The Syrian occupation, which effectively ended free expression in Lebanon, was an important factor in the demise of Beirut as the leading regional center of research, writing, and publishing. Much international commentary falsely treats Syria as a contributor to Lebanese peace and stability but overlooks the heavy price that has been paid by Arab society as a whole.
To secure its rule in Syria and Lebanon, the Asad regime relies on three institutions, in addition to the ordinary machinery of government. One is the Ba'th party—the “leading party” under the Syrian constitution—which has a virtual political monopoly in the country. It purveys the official ideology, censors opposing viewpoints, controls unions, professional associations, and mass organizations, and runs a large intelligence network.
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