The Syrian opposition:Political analysis with original testimony from key figures

By Michael Weiss and Hannah StuartAdditional research by Samuel Hunter

©Copyright Henry Jackson Society, 2011

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Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

INTRODUCTION 4

BACKGROUND

Syria at a glance 5

Timeline of the protests 7

PART ONE – OPPOSITION IN SYRIA

Who are the opposition? 14

Key regime & opposition figures 14

The National Initiative for Change 15

Syria Conference for Change: Antalya 18

The role of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists 18

Military defections: myth or reality? 18

Opposition voices on the ground – original interviews 19

PART TWO – FOREIGN INVOLVEMENT

Perceptions of Western inaction 22

Assad and the ‘peace process’ 23

The Iranian-Syrian alliance 24

Turkey’s influence 24

CONCLUSION 25

APPENDIX: Full transcripts of original interviews 26

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REGIME BRUTALITY Over the last three months, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime – including the security forces, the army and private militia – has been responsible for at least 1,100 killings, 4,000 injuries to men, women and children and 10,000 arbitrary detentions.

Despite initial promises of reform, Assad shows no signs of relenting in his suppression of the opposition.

Whole cities and surrounding areas remain under siege, with little or no access to water, electricity, communications and medical supplies.

THE OPPOSITION Initially ad-hoc, the opposition movement has developed coherence and sophistication throughout the uprising, culminating in the creation of the National Initiative for Change (NIC). The NIC released a joint statement signed by 150 figures within and outside Syria, demonstrating a practical road-map for a democratic post-Assad Syria.

The opposition is broadly pro-Western. Despite the regime claims to the contrary, the Islamist quotient among the opposition is very low. Protesters have decried regime propaganda that they are controlled by ‘Salafis’ and have denounced Iranian and Russian meddling by burning their national flags in the streets.

The revolution is not characterised by sectarianism. Desire for freedom from Assad and the co-ordination of oppositionists both inside and outside of Syria has, for now, quelled the country’s sectarian differences.

INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT Responses from the West, Arab states and the international community as a whole have been muted, especially in comparison to international reaction to Egypt and Libya.

The opposition believes that increased condemnation from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations would encourage the Syrian Army to defect from the regime

THE IRANIAN-SYRIAN ALLIANCE Iranian influence in Assad’s suppression of the Syrian revolution is an accepted fact by both the United States government and the opposition. Commercial and military ties between Iran and Syria have never been stronger.

The opposition are fiercely anti-Hezbollah. After Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian- sponsored Lebanese terrorist organisation, pledged his support for Assad’s regime, protesters burned his picture in the streets.

ASSAD AND THE ‘PEACE PROCESS’ The revolution has been generally free of anti-Israel sentiment. The exception – cited by several domestic oppositionists we spoke with – is the perception that the West acquiesces to Assad’s brutality because of its belief in Syria’s strategic role in brokering Israel-Palestine peace.

TURKEY’S INFLUENCE Turkey and Syria have grown commercially and militarily closer over the past three years. The Turkish Prime Minister has only said that he is ‘quite concerned and annoyed’ by Assad’s crackdown. This is in stark contrast to his calls for regime change in Egypt and Libya, where Turkish troops are currently helping to enforce the Nato-led no-fly zone.

Despite this lack of direct support, between 300 and 400 Syrian oppositionists met for a three-day conference in in the Turkish resort of Antalya at the end of May. The goal of the meeting was to produce some form of logistical and legal support for the revolutionaries.

RECOMMENDATIONS Western governments are uniquely placed to support Syrian aspirations for freedom, and simultaneously de-stabilise Iranian influence in the region and transform an anti-Western regime into a key strategic ally. They should take the following steps:

RHETORICAL SUPPORT The US, UK and the EU must call for the immediate resignation of Bashar al-Assad from power, along with his inner circle. The UN Security Council should pass a resolution condemning Assad’s violence and demanding his immediate resignation.

PRACTICAL SUPPORT The US and the UK should work closely with the opposition umbrella group, the National Initiative for Change (NIC), to help establish a transitional council in Syria that can be recognised by the international community.

The US and the UK should provide the opposition with greater material aid, in particular encrypted laptops and satellite phones and SIM cards in order to withstand the regime’s media blackouts and continue the uninterrupted documentation of regime atrocities and human rights abuses

MILITARY SUPPORT The Syrian opposition pins its hopes on turning the Syrian Army over to its side and then serve as a caretaker government in

the transition to democracy. The US and UK ought to use regional intelligence assets to persuade or entice sympathetic Syrian officers to defect.

The Syrian opposition is not yet calling for military intervention but this option should be seriously considered by the US, UK and Nato and preparations should be made in the event that this transpires.

Executive Summary

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INTRODUCTIONThree months into the uprising in Syria, there is little sign of either side backing down. The authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad continues to violently suppress demonstrations by his own people (despite condemnation from the international community) while the opposition – now more coherent than ever – has made it clear that the people will accept nothing less than his removal from power.

Assad’s regime – including the security forces, the army and private militia – are responsible for at least 1,100 killings and 4,000 injuries to men, women and children. Entire communities in and around the cities of Deraa and Homs and elsewhere remain under siege, with little or no access to water, electricity, communications and medical supplies. Despite this state-sponsored violence, ordinary Syrians continue to defy the regime by protesting in their thousands. Chants such as ‘the people want to topple the regime’ can be heard across the country by members of all sects of Syrian society. The desire for freedom from Assad and the co-ordination of oppositionists both inside and outside of Syria has, for now, quelled the country’s sectarian differences.Western media and policy-makers have been slow to react to events in Syria in contrast to their handling of the uprisings in Egypt or Libya. Little is known of the Syrian opposition; specifically its organisation, ideology and strategy for transitioning from dictatorship to democracy. Assad’s regime continues to prohibit free movement of journalists, making accurate information difficult to obtain.Nevertheless, The Henry Jackson Society has obtained exclusive interviews with opposition figures in the urban centres of the Syrian revolution: Deraa, Damascus, Douma, the Al-Tall District, Hama and Homs. We have also interviewed two key Western spokespersons of the opposition, Ammar Abdulhamid, a Maryland-based spokesperson, and Radwan Ziadeh, author of the statement by the National Initiative for Change (NIC), the most coherent template for what Syria ought to become if the revolution succeeds produced thus far.This briefing provides an overview of the uprising – namely the protests and resultant violence and casualty figures – and provides unique insight into the situation on the ground in Syria. It also examines geopolitical calculations relevant to Western policy in the region and concludes with policy prescriptions for Western governments.

A boy holds up a placard during an anti-government protest in Baniyas – AP Syrian protestors call for UN condemnation of Assad’s violence. – Reuters

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The Syrian Arab Republic came into being in 1961, after Syria broke away from the United Arab Republic which it had joined with Egypt in 1958.

Syria is a predominantly Arab nation with a small Kurdish and Armenian minority. It is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim (74%) in religious orientation; 14% are Alawite Muslim; Shia and Druze minorities make up 2%; and various Christian denominations make up 10-12%. There is also a very small Jewish population centered in Damascus, Qamishly and Aleppo.

The UN Human Development Index, which measures health, education and income, ranks the country 111 out of 169 with comparable data, concluding that Syria is below regional average for human development.1

Total population: 22,500,000 approx. (61% is young or middle-aged, 15-64 years old) Population below poverty line: 11.9% Unemployment rate: 8.3% (94th most jobless country worldwide) National literacy rate: high (estimates vary 79.6% – 84.7%) Total internet users nationally: low (4.469 million, 17.3 per 100 people)

POWER IN SYRIAPower is held disproportionately by the country’s Alawite religious-tribal minority elites, who dominate the ruling Syrian Ba’ath Party and the military. Syria has been controlled by the Assad family for the last four decades: Hafez al-Assad, a former Air Force lieutenant and member of the Syrian Ba’ath Party seized power in a bloodless coup in 1970, and was succeeded after his death in 2000 by the current President Bashar al-Assad.

Hafez al-Assad served as Defence Minister in 1967 when Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the Six-Day War. His rule was characterized by strong ant-Israeli actions abroad and brutal domestic oppression at home, most notably, the Hama massacre in 1982, in which tens of thousands are said to have been killed. With the succession of Bashar al-Assad, Syria saw the beginnings of reform, as many political prisoners were released, but substantial change has yet to materialize.

The state security and intelligence services, known as the mukhabarat, remain loyal to Assad. The various apparatuses include the State Security (Amn al-Dawla), Political Security (Amn al-Siyasi) and Military Security (Amn al-Askari) forces.2

BACKGROUND – SYRIA: AT A GLANCE

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THE SYRIAN ECONOMYAlthough there were signs of growth from 2008-2010 (4-5%), the Syrian economy is extremely modest, with a GDP of $59.63 billion. Of a population of more than 22 million, just 5.5 million are members of the Syrian labour force. The economy is largely state-controlled. A stock exchange was opened in Damascus, the capital, in 2009.3

Syria is the 56th largest oil exporter, and the 180th largest natural gas producer Most Syrians are employed in the service sector (67%) Iran claims to be increasing its trade relations with Syria from $400 million per year to $5

billion In 2010, the inflation rate was 5.9%

FREEDOM IN SYRIASyria is not a politically free country. Since emergency rule was imposed in 1963, human rights activists in Syria have faced arbitrary detention without trial, unfair trials, torture and ‘disappearance’ by Syrian security forces.

Freedom House designates Syria ‘Not Free’, as it is a state in which ‘basic political rights are absent and basic civil liberties are widely and systematically denied’. Recent assessments show there has been minimal improvement in Syria’s aggregate freedom score between 2003 and 20011. Syria is a republic under an authoritarian regime, ranked 152 out of 167 countries with comparable data in the Economist Democracy Index 2010.

Syrian media is predominately state-owned; criticism of the president and his family is prohibited and the press (domestic and foreign) is censored. Private radio broadcasters, first established in 2005, are prohibited from transmitting news or political content. Two thirds of the population have satellite dishes, which provide access to foreign media.4

THE SHABBIHAViolence directed against the protest movement has been conducted by the Syrian security forces, reportedly with the aid of a militant group known as the shabbiha. The shabbiha operate a criminal network throughout Syrian coastal regions and specialise in smuggling, robbery and prostitution. Members are drawn from the Shiite Alawite community and the group is connected to the Assad family – the senior leaders are said to be first cousins of Assad.

The shabbiha are accused of conducting violent attacks against protestors under orders from the Syrian regime. The extent to which the militia are taking orders from Assad is unclear. It is also unclear whether they seek to capitalise on civil unrest and consolidate their criminal network through intimidation.5

Operate a network of illegal activities in coastal areas Members come from the Shiite Alawite sect Loyal to the Assad family Believed to be involved in violent suppression of Syrian protestors

A protester displays Arabic words on his hands, reading ‘Yes to freedom, no to violence’ – AP

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TIMELINE OF THE PROTESTS

Syrian authorities have not allowed the free movement of journalists during the uprising. As such, the information contained in this timeline has been obtained from news agencies, human rights organisations6 and blogs run by Syrian exiles, including Ammar Abdulhamid’s Syrian Revolution Digest, which reliably charts daily developments in the uprising.7

WEEK ONE – Monday 14 March – Sunday 20 MarchAt first, oppositionists called for reform rather than full-scale revolution. On Tuesday 15 March, 40 people gathered in al-Hamidiyeh souk in the capital Damascus’ old city chanting ‘God, Syria, Freedom – that’s enough’ and ‘Peaceful, Peaceful’. Galvanised by the Arab Spring, the Syrian chants echoed those heard in Egypt’s Tahrir Square.

16 March, commonly considered the beginning of the uprising, saw 150 demonstrators outside the Ministry of the Interior in central Damascus, protest against the imprisonment of 21 human rights activists. They were confronted by Assad’s feared mukhabarat, the state security forces, and between four and 18 protesters were arrested. One protester, Suhair Atassi, a veteran human rights campaigner, was severely beaten by the security forces, who pledged: ‘We sacrifice our soul and blood for you, Bashar.’ The following day, at least 32 protesters were charged with attacking the ‘reputation of the state’.

By Friday, 18 March, protests had spread to Deraa, a city in south west Syria near the border with Jordan; Homs, the third largest city in Syria; and the coastal city of Baniyas in the north west. Friday prayers were utilised by the opposition from the start, with ‘Days of Dignity’ called to coincide with Islamic worship. Four are killed in Deraa when the security forces shot at those protesting in response to the arrest and torture of 15 schoolchildren who had graffitied city walls with anti-regime slogans.

By Sunday, the platform of reform had transformed into a full-scale insurrection. Protesters set fire to the headquarters of the Ba’ath party in Deraa, tore down a statue of former President Hafez al-Assad and defaced walls with the slogan, ‘Down with Assad’. Chants included: ‘No, no to emergency law. We are a people infatuated with freedom!’8

A Facebook page called ‘The Syrian revolution 2011’ was established (it currently has over 150,000 followers) to provide updates on the timings of protests and the fate of detained or killed protestors.

Protests in: Damascus, Deraa, Homs and Baniyas Week one casualties: 4 killed

Protesters in Douma, a Damascus suburb

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WEEK TWO – Monday 21 March – Sunday 27 MarchTuesday, 22 March, saw protests spread to Nawa, a city 15 miles north of Deraa in the south west. On Wednesday, the sixth day of protest in Deraa, Syrian forces killed six people during an attack on protesters in Omari mosque.9 In response, Assad removed Faisal Kalthoum from his position as regional governor of Deraa, and the next day announced that the government would consider the removal of emergency law and adopting new legislation to license political parties. A further 15 people were killed in Deraa the same day.10

Assad’s response was to alternately blame these incidents on the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the ‘Salafis’ or the Israeli Mossad, much like Gaddafi tried to attribute the Libyan rebellion to Al Qaeda. Significantly, any Islamist affiliation has been loudly played down by the opposition, who chanted: ‘No to Iran, No to Hezbollah. We want Muslims that fear Allah.’11

By Friday, 25 March, protesters in Deraa began to call for regime change, and the size of the protests increased dramatically, with numbers up to 300,000, between 20 and 100 were reported as killed.12 Protests of between 100 and 3,000 people took place in and around Damascus, including the suburb of Mazzeh and in nearby Douma and Mouddamiyeh.13 Six protesters in Al-Tall District were arrested and taken to nearby Damascus, where they were interrogated and tortured by the security service agencies.14

There were also widespread protests that day in solidarity with those in Deraa.15 There were small protests for the first time in Syria’s second city Aleppo; in Idlib, around 40 miles from Aleppo in the north west; and in Lattakia, Syria’s principal city port in the north west, where 12 demonstrators are killed by Assad’s forces.16 In the north east, protests spread to Deir Ezzor, the largest city in that region, and to Qamishly, where armed gangs reportedly patrolled the streets intimidating the city’s predominantly Kurdish population.17 Protests also spread to Hama, the central city attacked by former President Hafez al-Assad during the Hama Massacre in 1982.18

Protests in: Damascus, Douma, Mouddamiyeh, Deraa, Homs, Baniyas, Nawa, Al-Tall, Hama, Aleppo, Idlib, Lattakia, Deir Ezzor and Qamishly

Amnesty International cumulative death toll: 19 22 March = 6

Week two casualties: 50–150 killed

WEEK THREE – Monday 28 March – Sunday 3 April Reports of shabbiha terrorising communities in Lattakia and Damascus emerged early during the third week of the uprising. The gangs, known for their criminal activities along the Syrian coast, started patrolling the streets targeting both civilians and local police officers.20

On Tuesday, the government officially resigned and Naji al-Otari, head of the former government since 2003, was appointed caretaker prime minister.21 The following day, Assad addressed the Syrian People’s Assembly and blame foreign conspirators for the national disruptions and labelled parliamentarians ‘reformers’. He also told the Assembly that security forces had been ordered not to use violence against protesters.22 Assad’s speech was dismissed by protesters who took to the streets of Deraa and Lattakia minutes later chanting for freedom and calling for an end to the regime. At least one protester was killed in Lattakia and a 10-year-old boy was left severely injured.23

Friday, 1 April, saw repeated protests across the country. Fifteen people were killed in Douma,24 and a massacre was reported near a military checkpoint near Deraa between the villages of Ankhen and Sanamein.25 In Homs, the city’s Bedouin population joined the on-going protests, and two people were killed.26 Thousands took to the streets in Deraa, Lattakia, Baniyas, Homs, Qamishly, Deir Ezzor, Idlib and the Damascus suburb of Dariyyah. For the first time, protests spread to the coastal city of Jableh,27 and the predominantly Kurdish city of Amouda in the north on the border with Turkey.28

On Sunday, a new government was formed, and former agriculture minister Adel Safar was appointed prime minister.29 On the same day in Douma, over 20,000 people took part in a public funeral for two of the people killed during Friday’s protests.30

Protests in: Damascus, Douma, Mouddamiye, Deraa, Homs, Baniyas, Lattakia, Qamishly, Deir Ezzor, Idlib, Jableh and Amouda

Week three casualties: at least 18 killed; casualties in Deraa massacre unknown

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WEEK FOUR – Monday 4 April – Sunday 10 April Early in the week, security forces continued to arrest protesters in Homs, Deraa and Aleppo in an unsuccessful bid to quell their support. Citizens of Deraa and Homs staged a general strike in solidarity with the protestors of Douma, and there were sit-ins reported in Deir Ezzor.31 An increasing number of women were seen participating in the protests and leading chants, a new trend by the opposition.32

There were protests in the areas surrounding Damascus – to the north in Al-Tall, to the east in Kafar Batna, Douma, Harasta and Saqba, to the west in Mouddamiyeh and to the south in Kisweh – with an unknown number killed in Mouddamiyeh and seven killed in nearby Wadee Al-Masharee. 33

On Wednesday, Assad reversed a recent ban on schoolteachers’ wearing the niqab, the Islamic head-covering, a move denounced by the opposition as a token gesture to the country’s Islamists.34

Friday, 8 April, saw up to 500,000 protesters gather in multiple cities across the country, including for the first time in Tartous, a coastal city south of Lattakia, and in Albou Kamal, a town on the border with Iraq.35 The cities of Deraa and Homs were besieged by the Syrian Army. In Deraa, security forces attempted to block access to the city to prevent the protest from escalating, but were overwhelmed. The Ba’ath party headquarters were burnt and protesters attempting to enter the security headquarters were shot at, leaving between 40 and 100 protesters dead. In Homs, 10,000 protesters came under heavy gunfire from security forces, but casualty figures were unknown. Protests in the Damascus suburb of Harasta were also violent – with one reported fatality – as security forces opened fire on protesters. Members of the shabbiha also opened fire on protesters in Lattakia.36

Protests in: Damascus, Douma, Al-Tall, Mouddamiyeh, Dariyyah, Harasta, Deraa, Homs, Baniyas, Hama, Lattakia, Deir Ezzor, Qamishly, Amouda, Idlib, Jableh, Tartous and Albou Kamal

Week four casualties: 47 – 107 at least killed

Amnesty International cumulative death toll: 8 April = 171

WEEK FIVE – Monday 11 April – Sunday 17 April The cities of Deraa, Baniyas, Lattakia, Homs and Douma began the week under siege.38 On Tuesday, the village of Al-Bayda, near Baniyas, was attacked by the shabbiha,39 who arrested hundreds of citizens and beat them in the public square.40 In solidarity, protests were held across the country. The uprising spread for the first time to Suweida, a primarily Druze city in the south-west. This prompted blogger oppositionist Abdulhamid to observe: ‘with Suweida now on board, every major city and town in Syria can be said to have been hit by protests’.41 Friday’s protests saw the largest turn-out since the beginning of the uprising; fatalities were relatively low, with one in Lattakia and ‘several’ in Homs.42 Also, Human Rights Watch reported that Syrian troops had stopped ambulances carrying wounded protestors to hospital in Deraa.43

On Sunday, 17 April, thousands of protesters co-opted Syrian Independence Day for revolutionary purposes. In Homs, Suweida, Mouddamiyeh and Lattakia protesters were met with heavy gunfire and teargas, leaving 30 dead in Homs and 12 in Lattakia.44

In the same week, human rights organisations reported that the security service had been arbitrarily detaining hundreds of protesters in Deraa, Damascus, Douma, Al-Tall, Homs and Baniyas and subjecting many to torture. Techniques reported by the detainees include electro-shock devices, whips and beatings. Human rights activists and protesters, their families, lawyers, journalists, writers, university and high-school students, community leaders and those found using mobile phones to record the protests were singled out for abusive treatment as well. Children were also among those detained.45 In some areas – for example, Deraa – detentions were completely arbitrary.46

Protests in: Damascus, Douma, Mouddamiyeh, Deraa, Homs, Baniyas, Al-Bayda, Hama, Lattakia, Aleppo, Jableh, Idlib, Deir Ezzor and Suweida

Amnesty International cumulative death toll: 14 April = 200

Protesters burning the Iranian flag – www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwQia0Bz7VQ&feature=player_embedded#at=11

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WEEK SIX – Monday 18 April – Sunday 24 April Assad ended emergency law, which had been in place for 48 years.47 Unsatisfied with anything short of Assad’s removal, the Syrian people continued to mount demonstrations across the country.48

Friday 22 April, which oppositionists subsequently called ‘Great Friday’, saw the bloodiest single day thus far in the Syrian revolution. Live rounds were used against protesters and 112 people were killed in the space of a few hours during protests covering nearly every major city, town and suburb in Syria – 47 deaths were reported in Damascus and surrounding areas, 32 in Deraa and surrounding areas, 27 in Homs and surrounding areas , five in Hama and one in Lattakia.49

The scale of brutality led Nasser al-Hariri and Khalil al-Rifaei, two recently elected members of the People’s Assembly, to resign, along with the mufti of Deraa, Rezq Abdulrahman Abazeid.50

Protests in: Damascus, Deraa, Douma, Deir Ezzor, Mouddamiyeh, Homs, Baniyas, Hama, Lattakia, Aleppo, Jableh, Idlib, and Suweida

Amnesty International cumulative death toll: 20 April = 220; 21 April = 228; 22 April = 303; 25 April = 393

WEEK SEVEN – Monday 25 April – Sunday 1 May Assad’s regime continued its major military deployment in Deraa. Protesters chanted: ‘Lift the siege, lift the siege’ and 25 were killed in clashes with troops. Basic services, including water, electricity, phone lines and internet services were cut off. Assad’s forces blocked incoming food and medical aid. Residents reported that they were too afraid to collect the bodies from the street and a local Imam was recorded saying that the army opened fire on protesters without provocation.51 Abdulhamid wrote that in Deraa:

[…] gunfire and the echoes of artillery shells continue to reverberate through the street of this small city. House to house searches were conducted in certain neighborhoods, and dozens of arrests were made. Some were shot on the spot by some eyewitness reports. Even doctors and patients at the National Hospital were put under arrest.52

Reports emerged that members of the army in Deraa were defecting, a claim substantiated by video footage showing residents providing medical treatment to soldiers who said they had been shot by the security service for refusing to fire on protesters.53 Later in the week, the regime claimed to have quelled the mutiny and, according to Abdulhamid, broadcast a ‘staged fireworks celebration that was billed as “spontaneous” show of how happy the people of Deraa were with the arrival of the army to liberate them from the Salafist phantoms’.54

In Homs, video footage showed security forces opening fire into a crowd of unarmed protesters and there were reports similar actions in nearby Tal Kalakh.55 In Damascus, video footage showed snipers on the Jobar-Zamalka Bridge, as protesters chanted the now ubiquitous phrases: ‘The people want to topple the regime’ and ‘We choose death before humiliation’. Another video showed a silent Kurdish demonstration in Amouda and a small protest in the Ramleh district in Lattakia was ‘quickly and violent put down by security forces and shabbiha gangs’.56

Reports from Syrian human rights campaigners and protesters claimed that the suppression of protests in Homs and towns surrounding Damascus had resulted in the disappearance of numerous residents from each of these areas. A significant rise in the number of women targeted by Assad’s detention campaign was also reported.57

Opposition figures declared a national ‘Day of Rage’ on Friday, 30 April, on social media networks. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets: the death toll was estimated at 62, but other reports claimed 60 were killed in Deraa alone with a further 30 in Homs, five in Lattakia and one in Damascus.58

In the same week, the newly-formed umbrella opposition group, the National Initiative for Change (NIC), released a document with 150 signatories, claiming to represent the majority of ethnic and religious groups across Syria. The growing protests across Syria were increasingly defined by their cross-ethnic support which appeared to collapse long-standing sectarian and inter-communal rivalries.

Protests in: Damascus, Deraa, Homs, Tal Kalakh, Baniyas, Nawa, Hama, Lattakia, Aleppo, Suweida, Douma, Jableh, Mouddamiyyeh, Jassem, Ankhel, Amouda and Zabadani

Week seven casualties: 93 – 127

Cumulative death toll reaches 474 by 27 April59 and reported to be up to 1,000 on 1 May 60

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WEEK EIGHT – Monday 2 May – Sunday 8 May The army siege of Deraa and Homs continued, while mass arrests took place across Syria. Towns and suburbs near Damascus – including Saqba, Zabadani, Al-Tall and Arbeen – were subject to house-to-house arrests; in Deraa, detainees were said to number 500, including many teenagers. Kurdish activists in Qamishly were also arrested, as an increasing number of Kurds joined the uprising. In addition, a major student-led protest in Aleppo numbering 2,000 prompted university sit-ins across the country.61 Reports also emerged of Assad’s security forces raiding mortuaries and removing bodies to hide evidence of their brutality.62

The ‘Friday of Defiance’ saw mass protests across the country: 3,000 people in Damascus; 3,000 in Qamishly; 5,000 in Deir Ezzor, in the east, and 10,000 in Homs.63 The protesters in Deraa were clear about who they are and what they want: one banner read ‘No to terrorism, no salafism, we reject intervention by security forces’; while a protest speaker told the crowd, ‘martyrs fell only when there were security forces around […] we want the international community to intervene to stop the bloodshed’.64

Friday also saw at least 30 protesters killed across the country, including in Homs, Hama, Deir Ezzor, Jableh and Lattakia.65 That night, Baniyas was raided: basic services, including water, electricity and communications were cut off and six people, including four women, were killed.66 On Sunday, Assad’s forces targeted areas to the south where the uprising started and 14 people – including a 12 year old boy – were killed in Homs.67

Protests in: Damascus, Deraa, Homs, Baniyas, Nawa, Hama, Lattakia, Aleppo, Suweida, Douma, Jableh, Mouddamiyyeh, Jassem, Ankhel, Amouda, Zabadani, Al-Tall, Arbeen, Deir Ezzor, Albou Kamal and Qamishly

Amnesty International cumulative death toll: 3 May – 542; 9 May – 580

INSAN detention figures: ‘the number of detainees and the missing to date could exceed 8000’68

Graffiti on a burnt car in Banias challenges shabbiha – AP

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WEEK NINE – Monday 9 May – Sunday 15 May During the week, the regime increased its efforts to suppress the protests. Tanks were deployed across the country and basic services were still down in Deraa, Baniyas, Jableh, Lattakia, Deir Ezzor, parts of Homs and Mouddamiyyeh, where three protesters were killed. Communities across the south endured heavy shelling and gunfire, including in Tafas, Jassem, Ankhel and Al-Harra, where 13 were reported dead.69 Following promises of restraint by the security forces, three protesters were killed in Homs during Friday’s protests, along with two in Damascus and one in Deraa.70

Also the same week, hundreds of protesters were imprisoned following house-to-house raids across the country. Activist sources claimed that up to 10,000 protesters had been detained by the authorities since the uprising began, including 500 in two days alone.71 Martin Fletcher, a journalist with The Times of London, who had been arrested in Homs after stealing into Syria to report on the revolution, described the conditions of his imprisonment to the BBC:

I was taken from a checkpoint on the edge of the city into a windowless basement of a drab apartment block down a barricaded side street […] what I saw inside was literally scores of young men sitting huddled on the floor. And, during the six hours I was held, more young men were brought in at regular intervals and put into this room. Quite clearly what was happening was that

the regime was rounding up any young man of fighting age it could find on the streets and locking them up.72

Protests in: Damascus, Deraa, Homs, Baniyas, Nawa, Hama, Lattakia, Aleppo, Suweida, Douma, Jableh, Mouddamiyyeh, Jassem, Ankhel, Amouda, Zabadani, Al-Tall, Arbeen, Deir Ezzor, Albou Kamal, Al-Harra, Tafas, and Tal Kalakh

WEEK TEN – Monday 16 May – Sunday 22 May The tenth week of the uprising saw new military operations launched around Deraa, in the local communities of Sanamein, Al-Haraak and Kafar Shams.73 Communications were not functioning or cut off in parts of Homs, Idlib, Deir Ezzor as well as in Darayyah, Mouaddamiyyah, Saqba and Douma.74 Further reports of mass graves in Deraa emerged, with between 25 and 40 bodies discovered before being removed by the army.75 The death toll rose to 27 in Tal Kalakh; 13 in Jassem; and 21 in Ankhel.76 There were mass arrests of students in Aleppo, and in Baniyas, a women’s protest was disrupted with gunfire.78

Friday, 20 May, was named ‘Azadi Friday’ after the Kurdish word for ‘freedom’, to reflect what Abdulhamid refers to as ‘the growing coordination between Arab and Kurdish protesters.’ He claims the term also ‘denotes the failure of Assad’s policies aimed at neutralizing the Kurds’.79 On this day, Assad’s security forces killed at least 44 people in what was described as ‘the largest day of protest yet’.80 The following day, security forces kill 11 after they open fire on a funeral procession numbering 50,000 for those killed the previous day in Homs81

In the same week, YouTube footage emerged showing demonstrators burning the Iranian, Russian and Chinese flags.82 One video shows protesters carrying signs written in Russian saying: ‘Mr Medvedev, I beg your pardon, but the Syrian people want freedom’.83

Protests in: Damascus and suburbs, Hama and suburbs, Homs and suburbs, Idlib and suburbs, Deraa and suburbs, Albou Kamal, Deir Ezzor, Qamishly, Amouda, Kobani (in the north), Baniyas, Jableh, Tal Kalakh, Jassem and Ankhel.

Amnesty International cumulative death toll: 17 May = 622

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WEEK ELEVEN – Monday 23 May – Sunday 29 May Protests continued across the country, from Deraa in the south to the capital Damascus to Aleppo in the north.84 Idlib and surrounding towns and villages were the centre of a number of protests, which were violently put down.85 The National Organistation for Human Rights in Syria released a statement stating that Syrian and international human rights organisations had documented more than 1,100 killings and approximately 4,000 injuries ‘causing permanent disabilities to young men, women and children.’ 86

On Wednesday, 25 May, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged his support for Assad’s regime, a longtime patron of the Lebanese terrorist organisation. Nasrallah claimed that the regime’s downfall would serve American and Israeli interests. Marking the 11th anniversary of Israeli troops leaving Lebanon, Nasrallah called for a rejection of sanctions against Syria, saying: ‘No one denies that Syria has committed mistakes, but no one can deny the historic achievement of Syria to Lebanon, also Syria’s stance on Israel and the Palestinian resistance.’87 In response, protesters in Albou Kamal burned pictures of Nasrallah.88

On Thursday, the opposition called on the army to join the uprising against Assad’s regime. In an attempt to capitalise on recent defections, an open letter posted on the Syrian revolution 2011 Facebook page claimed that Friday’s protests would honour the army, which was referred to as the ‘Guardians of the Nation’.89

On the same day, European countries urged the United Nations Security Council to warn the Syrian regime that ‘the widespread and systematic attacks currently taking place in Syria by the authorities against its people may amount to crimes against humanity’. A draft resolution condemned the regime’s violence and called for the lifting of the siege against Deraa.91 This was followed by a similar call from the Group of Eight (G8), which released a draft statement stating: ‘Should the Syrian authorities not heed this call, we will consider action in the United Nations Security Council.’92

Protests in: Damascus and suburbs, Hama and suburbs, Homs and suburbs, Idlib and suburbs, Deraa and suburbs, Albou Kamal, Deir Ezzor, Jebleh, Qamishly, Amouda, Kobani, Rastan and Baniyas

WEEK TWELVE – Monday 30 May – Tuesday 31 MayAn online video began to circulate showing the mutilated body of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, a 13 year-old boy who was abducted by security forces on 29 April at a protest in Jiza, a village to the south of Deraa. The regime had returned Hamza’s corpse to his parents on the condition that they make public any statements about his torture and murder. Hamza’s body, shown bloated and empurpled on the video, was burnt with cigarettes, his arms and legs were stripped of their skin, and his genitalia cut off. A 58,000-strong Facebook page memorialising him describes Hamza as a ‘child martyr’. Activists marched on what some called the ‘Saturday of Hamza’, and opposition figures, including Radwan Ziadeh and human rights attorney Razan Zeitouneh, suggested that Hamza’s death could be the incendiary symbol that takes the revolution to its next level.

As a result of the video, and the new wave of protests his brutal death precipitated, the regime detained Hamza’s father.

On Tuesday, 31 May, Assad offered ‘amnesty’ to all oppositionists engaged in anti-regime activity prior to that date. His offer was generally dismissed by the opposition as both insufficient and a sign of his weakening position.93

Vigil for Hamza al-Khatib in Beirut, Lebanon – EuroNews

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PART ONE: OPPOSITION IN SYRIA

WHO ARE THE OPPOSITION?Although the modest protest of 40 or so people that broke out on 15 March 2011 in Damascus’ old city seemed spontaneous, there is some evidence of coordination and planning. Western spokesperson Ammar Abdulhamid told the New York Times that the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia inspired Syrians to wage their own campaign against authoritarianism, although the timing caught even him by surprise:

I wanted it to be in the summer because I felt that we weren’t quite ready. I knew that so many regions of the country didn’t have

people to monitor events because the media was completely unfree. I also knew that the opposition in Syria couldn’t play a role like they did in Egypt. I knew that everything

had to be underground. 95

Abdulhamid added that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s devastation of Libya, and the international calls for sanctions and a no-fly zone, accelerated the Syrian ferment to mid-March.

In an original interview for this report, Radwan Ziadeh, opposition figure and founder of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, described three types of opposition forces working in concert in Syria:

A ‘traditional’ opposition, consisting of longtime socialists and nationalists who played a role in the so-called ‘Damascus Spring’ of 2001, when it was thought Bashar al-Assad’s ascension to power would lead to a thaw in authoritarian rule.

A new consortium of local leaders coordinating activities at the street-level in major towns and cities and suburbs.

An online-based activist corps that uses Facebook, Skype and social networking technologies to disseminate information about the timings of protests, relay the footage of the regime’s crackdown on protests, and unify the political messages to be pursued.

KEY REGIME FIGURES INVOLVED IN VIOLENCE AGAINST PROTESTORS

Maher al-Assad – Bashar’s younger brother; Commander of the Syrian Army’s 4th Division; member of Ba’ath Party Central; main actor in violent suppression of protest movement; implicated by United Nations investigators in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri

Ali Mamlouk – Head of General Intelligence Service; shown in WikiLeaks-obtained documents boasting of his ability to penetrate ‘terrorist organisations’

Mohammed Ibrahim Al-Chaar – Minister of the Interior

Hafez Makhlouf – Colonel and Head of Unit in General Intelligence Directorate, Damascus Branch

Mohammed Dib Zeitoun – Head of Political Security

Amjad Al-Abbas – Head of Political Security in Banais

Rami Makhlouf – Syrian businessman; Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and associate of Maher al-Assad; finances a lot of regime activities; estimated to be worth billions; Owns Syriatel Telecommunications Company; oil interests; owns Syria’s only private newspaper; told New York Times on 10 May 2011: ‘If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel. No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime.’96

Abd Al-Fatah Qudsiyah – Head of Syrian Military Intelligence; led committee that investigated 2008 assassination of Hezbollah head Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus (thought to have been perpetrated by Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad)

Jamil Hassan – Head of Syrian Air Force Intelligence

Rustum Ghazali – Head of Syrian Military Intelligence, Damascus Countryside Branch

Fawwaz Al-Assad – Regime coordinator, shabbiha militia

Mundir Al-Assad – Regime coordinator, shabbiha militia

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KEY OPPOSITION FIGURES Mouhja Kahf – Poet at the University of Arkansas

Najib Ghadbian – Kahf’s husband, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas

Ausama Monajed – Director of the Strategic Research and Communication Centre

Osama Kadi – Co-founder and president of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies, based in Washington, D.C.

Ammar Abdulhamid – Director of the Tharwa Foundation; prominent Western spokesperson for the opposition, based in Maryland; author of the Syrian Revolution Digest blog

Radwan Ziadeh – Founding director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies; executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies, based in Washington, D.C

Burhan Ghalioun – Professor of Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris

Riad Seif – Former Syrian MP detained a number of times by the Assad regime

Abdurrazzaq Eid – Member Elected to Consultative Council at Antalya meeting

Amr Al-Azm – Member Elected to Consultative Council at Antalya meeting

Ghassan Mifleh – Member Elected to Consultative Council at Antalya meeting

THE NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR CHANGE Six weeks into the uprisings in Syria, the opposition began to develop an organistational structure. On 22 April, ‘Great Friday’, key figures from major cities and towns, acting in so-called ‘local coordinating committees’, released a joint statement of principles and demands, which included:

An immediate end to torture, violence and extrajudicial killings

A transparent media

State assumption of responsibility for all violence

The release of all political prisoners and detainees from the protests

Constitutional amendments that will usher in a democratic transition whereby Syria will become a ‘multi-national, multi-ethnic, and religiously tolerant society’

Free and fair elections to both national parliament and municipal councils

An independent judiciary

Compensation for political exiles

Protests following mass arrests and civilian deaths in Deraa – Reuters

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A week later, a group known as the National Initiative for Change (NIC) was formed by three Syrian exiles – Radwan Ziadeh, Ausama Monajed and Najib Ghadbian – to represent the Syrian people in their common cause.

The NIC produced a statement, ‘Towards a Peaceful Transition to Democracy in Syria’, that was signed by 150 people both within and outside Syria, mainly drawn from the secular and nationalist camps although including a few Islamists. Largely congruent with the local coordinating committees’ joint statement, the NIC called for:

Rewriting of the constitution to guarantee basic rights and checks and balances

Separation of powers between and among the executive, legislative and judiciary

Immediate end to extrajudicial, special, martial and field courts

Release of all political prisoners

Commitment to non-interference in the affairs of Lebanon

Repositioning of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to the forefront of Syrian foreign policy aims

Formation of a free and independent media

Development of the economy and more investment in infrastructure

Formation of a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate crimes of the regime

Compensation for political exiles and disappeared political prisoners

Political rights for the Syrian Kurdish minority

Military supervision of a transitional government

The NIC statement was written by Ziadeh, who provided The Henry Jackson Society with an original English translation. Based on the Eastern European, Latin American, Spanish and South African models for post-dictatorship transitions to democracy, the NIC’s platform includes a detailed road-map for handing off power to a caretaker government composed of Syrian military officials; overhauling the security and intelligence apparatuses, instituting a targeted de-Ba’athification programme and refashioning state-controlled media as an independent and transparent public corporation.

“Towards a Peaceful Transition to Democracy in Syria”NIC – KEY POINTS

Transition Period State security and police forces, the Syrian parliament (‘People’s Assembly’), the state-controlled media and the Syrian executive are all rendered illegitimate arbiters for easing the country’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. Instead, the Syrian military is presented as the only trusted national institution to oversee the transitional period. The NIC emphasizes on the role of current Minister of Defense General Ali Habib and the Chief of Staff General Dawud Rajha:

Both individuals represent a background that Syrians can positively relate with that enables them to take a key pivotal role during the transition process by leading negotiations with civilian representatives from the leadership of the opposition or other respected individuals to form an interim government. By entering the negotiation phase that should take us on a specified timeline to accomplish the democratic transition by first drafting an interim constitution for the country that should be ratified by a national referendum. The transition government will be responsible to monitor the elections and safeguard the successful accomplishment of the transition period beginning with certifying a new constitution drafted by professional constitutional and reform specialists. Afterwards, the interim government shall issue a new election and political party law to regulate the election process for the president and members of the parliament which is monitored by an independent national committee based on judicial as well as domestic and international observers with an open door policy welcoming the formation of political parties that will participate in the elections.

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SECURITY APPARATUS REFORM The state security and intelligence forces are not earmarked for dismantling but will be redefined as beholden to the ‘people’ rather than the state. The NIC recommends a period of ‘cleansing and rehabilitation’ whereby leaders will be subjected to ‘legal and judicial accountability’ – i.e. trials for those involved in extrajudicial killings or torture – while the security apparatus is reduced in size from four units to two and professionalised. They recommend that the police department be similarly modernised and made to establish ‘general order,’ in keeping with newly affirmed constitutional rights of the people.

DE-BA’ATHIFICATION The Ba’ath Party is designated under the 1973 Syrian Constitution as the ‘leader of the state and society’.

The NIC calls the party ‘nothing but a facade that was manipulated as one of the pillars of the totalitarian regime in order to further its hold in a pyramid-like power structure’. Money and property taken from the public purse to pay Ba’ath Party employees’ salaries and state-owned facilities intended for party use is to be returned. However, if any current members wish to reconstitute the party in light of post-revolutionary changes to the constitution and government, they are free to do so, pending a review of their complicity in ‘corruption or violations of human rights.’

PRESS FREEDOM At present, almost all Syrian news outlets (television, radio, newspapers, online) are state-controlled under the auspices of the Ministry of Information. The only ‘privately owned’ newspaper belongs to Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s cousin and confidant, now targeted by US

sanctions for his complicity in the regime’s crackdown on protestors. The NIC calls for unencumbered press freedom whereby state organs are transformed into independently run, taxpayer-funded organisations on the model of the BBC. They recommend that the Ministry of Information be dissolved, and for all current outlets to be merged into a joint corporation that is managed by a board of directors.

TRANSITIONAL COUNCILIn an exclusive interview with The Henry Jackson Society, Ammar Abdulhamid said that the goal of the anti-Assad groups was to form a ‘transitional council’ amenable to both internal and external protest leaders, under the aegis of the NIC. This would be followed by international legitimation, on the model of Libya’s National Transitional Council, which has earned diplomatic recognition from France, Italy, Qatar and other countries.

Protest in Duma, a city near Damascus, Syria

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MILITARY DEFECTIONS: MYTH OR REALITY?Rumours of wide-scale military defections have strengthened the opposition’s strategy to turn the Syrian Army against the Assad regime.

In early May, the Times of London reported that 81 soldiers’ corpses had been transferred from Deraa to Damascus, ‘most of them killed by a gunshot bullet to the back’, according to the Damascus Centre for Human Rights.97

On 12 May, three Syrian soldiers sought asylum in Lebanon for protecting refugees. The soldiers were subsequently deported back to Syria, where they are likely to face execution. According to a Syrian human rights monitor Wissam Tarif, Mourad Hejjo, a conscript to Assad’s militia who refused to fire on civilians in Madaya village, was shot in the back by snipers.98 YouTube footage of injured or dead soldiers appears to confirm that Assad’s militias have resorted to martial executions.99

However, the Army’s command structure remains intact, and on 18 May the US imposed sanctions on Assad and his inner circle, including Defence Minister Ali Habib, one of two men the opposition had hoped would turn to their side.100

Abdulhamid told HJS: ‘We still need to keep pushing for army support, and the idea is not to split the army along confessional lines, but to get the support of many Alawite officers and generals.’

THE ROLE OF THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AND ISLAMISTSAs to the Muslim Brotherhood representation in the opposition, Ziadeh told us that this was minimal, largely because of the regime’s long persecution of the Islamist group: ‘The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria is different from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, where the group is the primary beneficiaries of the post-Mubarak political landscape.’

Noting that Hafez al-Assad destroyed most of the Brotherhood during his scorched earth campaign in Hama in 1982, where at least 10,000 people were killed, Ziadeh contended that the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria is still present but not powerful. Membership in the organisation was made punishable by death, and though informal members are scattered in Hama and Aleppo, their presence elsewhere is limited. ‘The business elite in Damascus is not affiliated with the Brotherhood at all’, Ziadeh said.

Abdulhamid affirmed that the Islamists constitute ‘less than a third’ of the opposition and that the Islamists are themselves ‘diverse’ and atomised. The Muslim Brotherhood, he agrees, is a spent force:

What’s emerging right now is a pretty pragmatic group, and I believe that, considering the diversity of ethnic, religious and ideological groups in the country, pragmatic arrangements will end coloring the political landscape in Syria. We all know about politics and bedfellows. One thing Western leaders should understand: Islamists can neither be excluded from, nor can they dominate, the political scene in Syria.

According to Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, at the Syria Conference for Change in Antalya:

Muslim Brothers and Islamists were under intense pressure to accept the notion of a secular government where religion and state would be separate. They resisted this most of the day but ultimately conceded at the eleventh hour. We do not have the statement or wording on this ‘secular’ statement. But the MB accepted to not contest the separation of state and religion in the conference statement.

SYRIA CONFERENCE FOR CHANGE: ANTALYAFrom 31 May – 2 June, a large contingent Syrian oppositionists, under the name of the Syria Conference for Change, met at the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya, Turkey to discuss a joint doctrine and core strategy for removing Assad from power. All key figures cited earlier in the report -- barring Ausama Monajad -- were present as delegates of the opposition to establish a ‘consultative council’ with 31 elected members. The Conference also issued a statement calling for ‘president Bashar al-Assad to resign immediately from all of his duties’ and to hand over power to Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa until the election of a transitional council that will draft a new constitution and oversee parliamentary and president elections ‘within a period not to exceed one year’ from Assad’s resignation. Recognising the multi-ethnic composition of Syrian society, the delegates also established the ‘legitimate and equal rights of all under a new Syrian constitution based on national unity, civil state and a pluralistic, parliamentary, and democratic regime.’

A second opposition conference took place at the Renaissance Hotel in Brussels at the weekend of 4 June - 5 June. According to organiser Bassem Hatahet, the aim of this conference was to further pressurise Assad to either end his crackdown or renounce power.

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ASSAD’S TACTICS –

SUPPORT FOR ASSAD:[T]here are no Ba’athists, they don’t rule us […] We are occupied by a family and its criminal friends. Every death in Syria is under the name of Bashar al-Assad […]

The head of the Deraa Ba’athist Party, an important person, was arrested and tortured. No one is safe from this mafia; there is no Ba’athist Party, just Assad. People are only in the party because of fear.

Deraa

I know it is hard for the West to understand, but [Assad] has been the most brutal dictatorship ever in the Middle East. They are old men [the ones doing the killing], the same men who made thousands of Lebanese vanish during the Civil War. They are Assad’s men, loyal with business interests.

Damascus

MASS GRAVES:We got news that while the occupation force was in Deraa, some of those who were arrested were killed and buried in mass graves. So as soon as the occupation force retreated to other villages, we went in and dug up the mass graves. We have identified five people who were killed.

Deraa

[The security forces] have been banning people from burying the their dead to avoid further demonstrations that they can’t control, then they come in at night and attempt to steal the bodies in order to hide their crimes.

Homs

ARRESTS AND TORTURE:[In Douma] the system is going after all the former politicians, thinkers, doctors and lawyers who have resigned from the Ba’ath Party. The regime is subjecting them to torture.

Douma

They are pulling out toe and fingernails, teeth and eyes. Rape, death by firing squad and amputations are the reality of what will happen to you if you are arrested and yet tens of thousands in every city still come out.

Hama

THE SHABBIHA:The security forces use trucks to bring these shabbiha. They all look like cows, fat and ugly. Believe it or not, these guys get paid 500 Syrian Lira [USD 10.5] to kill fellow Syrian people.

Hama

MEDIA PROPAGANDA:The government is the sectarian [player], not us. Christians, Alawites and Sunnis are demonstrating. The regime is the one through its media channels making allegations of sectarianism.

Damascus

The army isn’t to blame. They are forced to attack us by the militias and security forces. They have no access to phones, the internet, or television. They actually believe we are armed and are Salafis or Mossad [Israeli intelligence agency] or foreign powers. […]

There is no rift in the army, because they have a media blanket like the rest of the world, with no access to

what is going on; they can’t even speak to friends or family.

Damascus

COMMUNITIES UNDER SIEGE: On a mass scale, this regime has cut power, electricity, communications, food supplies, baby formula; and killed, arrested and tortured its own people in the thousands, and you think we won’t continue to demonstrate?

Hama

Today we have had snipers on the rooftops of schools, security forces in cars driving recklessly and looking to run over people. Even an 11-year old child was killed.

Homs

THE OPPOSITION –

DEMANDS:The opposition is the people. If the killing hadn’t started, then we’d have just wanted reforms. Now we need the system to fall.

Douma

Having a party manifesto is down the line. We are not for Israel; we are not doing this for Israel and the West. We are doing this to get rid of a dictator, be it peacefully or bloodily.

Deraa

We are a people at the heart and the cradle of civilization; we will not be ruled by a dictator and his friends. We will not be a footnote in the history books, we will make history.

Hama

ORGANISATION:At the beginning, for the first four weeks, there wasn’t anyone who

OPPOSITION VOICES ON THE GROUND

The Henry Jackson Society interviewed opposition figures in the major cities of the Syrian revolution: Deraa, Damascus, Douma, the Al-Tall District, Hama and Homs. We have omitted the names and any identifying trace of these figures out of concern for their personal safety.

The following extracts are their responses to key issues surrounding the protests, including Assad’s tactics; the nature of the opposition; international involvement; and the future of the protests.

2020

actively organized demonstrations... But that all changed when martyrs started to fall so we created a local council.[…]

[Then] a delegation from those who were elected to the council as the representatives of Douma went to meet directly to negotiate with representatives for President Assad. Instead they were kidnapped and tortured, including prominent doctor Bassel Hammdan.101

Douma

We also had a council, at the beginning of local representatives that the regime attempted to arrest. They are all in hiding in various areas in Houran.

Deraa

The first recorded death is Bashir Doulan. We are documenting and keeping track of all the names of those killed, missing, kidnapped and tortured. We are identifying the names and identities of those perpetrating the violence against the Syrian people.

Douma

USE OF THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA:If the West wanted to help those who have signed papers condemning the brutal oppression of the people or those who resigned, how would they know who they are? Read what we post […] If I die or get arrested, then someone else will create a page and upload pictures and videos and demonstrate.

Damascus

The command centre of the revolution in the city is always the demonstrators themselves. They make the decisions and we get everything published. We decide who the brothers are on each demonstration that are doing the filming and we have a group that goes through what everyone else sends in.

Douma

We also have professional designers working in the biggest international companies who have designed a private webpage for the city. We have people who also work for the

biggest IT companies who also provide us with ideas and solutions on how to bypass security measures by the regime.

Douma

LOW ISLAMIST QUOTIENT:I estimate the number arrested is from four thousand to five thousand in the area […] the few that have been released have suffered great trauma under the hands of the occupation. Beaten to a pulp and made to sign papers claiming that they are part an Islamist uprising, which is not true. Deraa never had Islamists.

Deraa

The people of Syria are the opposition, there are no figureheads, and there’s been no opposition here for decades, no Islamists, no one […] This is a true people’s revolution; we have no guidance, no ElBaradei,102 no-one.

Damascus

LACK OF SUPPORT FOR HEZBOLLAH: We even found a Hezbollah flag from one of the security forces and burnt it – funny how they have supported some uprisings, others not all and actually work to suppress one.

Homs

SECTARIANISM:Our revolution is not sectarian. All the people of Syria are part of it […] We are not sectarian; we are poor and need our freedom.

Deraa

We will never stop, Druze, Sunni, Alawite and Kurd, we will never stop.

Homs

INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT –

LACK OF INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT:History has never seen such a criminal regime like the one we are facing peacefully, yet the international community is doing nothing to help.

Deraa

Ten died in Libya today and the media went crazy. More than one hundred died today and no one cares.

Damascus

We know what we are doing and what we got ourselves into, we just didn’t know the international community was going to be so muted. We are smart and educated people, we know what would happen if no one came in. But now we prefer it this way. We need to do it on our own.

Deraa

We are not stupid and don’t expect anything from the international community. We will free our country ourselves. We don’t care for your support; this is our revolution and not yours.

Damascus

IMPACT OF SANCTIONS:What Syria is going through today is massacre and death to all, so we either come out now or never, but after what the EU just did, there will be increase of 90%. The more pressure applied from abroad the more people, who were scared, will come out.

Hama

PERCEPTIONS OF WESTERN SUPPORT – ISRAEL:We know the West wants Bashar and does not care about the real people. They are allowing him to kill and torture us for Israel. But our message is that we don’t care about Israel, we don’t care about Islamists and we don’t want the interference of the West, we just want our freedom.

Deraa

IRAN:It is crucial for Hezbollah, Iran and Israel to keep Assad in place, but we tell you this: We don’t care about who is outside, we care about our freedom.

Deraa

[The regime] has nowhere – but Iran – to go

Hama

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LACK OF SUPPORT FROM GULF COUNTRIES:Once we free our country, we won’t let anyone in to visit. That is our revenge. First the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] states for not supporting us.

Damascus

THE FUTURE –Look at it this way: the city has one hundred and fifty thousand people, with over three hundred killed, five thousand wounded and dying due to lack of medicine, supplies and food. There is no turning back.

Deraa

If things carry on the same way, this dictatorial regime cannot survive more than five weeks before collapsing. There are many reasons: the images of mass graves reaching all Syrians; the collapse of the economy; the paralysis of the country; the smuggling of funds by families allied to the regime; the start of sympathy being shown by the army to the people; crushing the barrier of fear by the wider population; divisions within the security forces; the steadfastness of the people for a peaceful revolution; and finally the impact on the economy the drop in tourism will have.

Al-Tall District

ARMY DEFECTIONS:We have heard through the grapevine that for the Army to split and to have a major coup that Damascus and Aleppo – the only two major cities that haven’t risen on the scale of the country – to rise in their millions.

Deraa

With more of the elite fleeing Syria, the Army will notice something is up and will splinter.

Al-Tall District

Now with this news about the US and Europe adding pressure, we hope that the army will finally splinter. With talk of over seven hundred soldiers killed by the system and those senior staff fleeing then it is a matter of time.

Hama

We have it on good authority, there are senior army deserters, at least four who have deserted to Turkey, but we can’t say their names until their families are safe, because this regime goes after everyone you know.

Homs

PROTESTERS TAKING UP ARMS:Some have said that they will pick up arms, and that is their prerogative […] if we pick up arms, then this will

become much worse than Libya.

Deraa

STRATEGY:The strategy is to continue demonstrating until the militias are left directly under the control of Assad – when everything is transparent – then it becomes clear to everyone who and what is going on and then we have a shot at liberating our country.

Damascus

Eventually, all chapters will join up and become a united front so that the people will officially become the opposition.

Douma

You will see a lot more tactical demonstrations and manoeuvres now. Damascus is planning them and so is Aleppo, to avoid being caught because you don’t want to be caught, if you do then you’re either going to be severely tortured to the point it damages your body or you die.

Homs

What we are going to do? Because of lack of security in prisons due to everyone being sent to attack us, there are very few guards, so we are trying to get word out for prison outbreaks or try and break in. That is one tactic that we can use if things escalate.

Al-Tall District

“Down with al-Assad”. Regime-critical graffiti was an early sign of the uprising

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PERCEPTIONS OF WESTERN INACTIONMost Syrian oppositionists have expressed impatience and dissatisfaction with the pace of Western actions against the Assad regime, in particular the United States’ slow-paced condemnations and sanctions. Although President Obama called for the departures of both Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben-Ali after comparatively fewer protestors had been killed in those country’s uprisings, he has been relatively silent on Syria. On 8 April, the White House issued its first statement: ‘It is time for the Syrian government to stop repressing its citizens and to listen to the voices of the Syrian people calling for meaningful political and economic reforms’.103

The US National Security Council held two meetings in mid-April with Western representatives of the Syrian opposition, who asked the US to impose sanctions on Damascus, publicly condemn Assad, and propose a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council criticizing Assad’s actions. The US maintains that it lacked the leverage to deal with Assad in the way it had with other autocrats engulfed by the Arab Spring. Minor sanctions against a handful of Assad’s outlying officials were imposed in mid-April, but not against the dictator himself.

By mid-May, the United States had shifted its position somewhat, condemning Syria for trying to build an illegal nuclear reactor (bombed by Israel in 2005) and asking the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to censure Syria on the basis of a recently-concluded UN investigation.104

Yet there was little movement

against Assad. The New York Times quoted a White House official who explained the US position: ‘[Assad] sees himself as a Westernised leader and we think he’ll react if he believes he is being lumped in with brutal dictators’.105 On 22 April, President Obama again ‘encouraged’ Assad to implement ‘meaningful reforms’ and ‘respect the rights of the Syrian people’.106 Another unnamed White House official offered another explanation for sluggishness in confronting Syria: ‘We’re talking about a country whose economy is about the size of Pittsburgh’s’.107

On 6 May, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was still citing Assad’s potential for ‘reform’, telling the Italian television programme In Mezz’Ora, ‘People do believe there is a possible path forward with Syria. So we’re going to continue joining with all of our allies to keep pressing very hard on that’.108 Three days later, the European Union – led by Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands – passed an arms embargo against Syria, along with sanctions and travel bans on subordinate members of the Assad regime. Bouthaina Shaaban, a senior advisor to Assad who spoke to the New York Times’ Anthony Shadid on the condition that he spend a ‘few hours’ in country where a blanket media blackout was still in place, seemed sanguine about the US response.109 The comments by Obama and Clinton, Shaaban said, were ‘not too bad’, and her

government could easily ride out the sanctions.110

On 17 May, Clinton indicated an abrupt about-face, criticising Assad and his cohort more forcefully for ‘embrac[ing] the worst tactics of their Iranian ally’ and for a ‘heavy-handed, brutal crackdown [that] shows [Assad’s] true intentions’.112 Newer and tougher sanctions on Syria, she insisted, were imminent.

These arrived the following day, targeting Assad personally as well as his inner circle: Vice President Farouk al-Shara, Prime Minister

Adel Safar, Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar, Defense Minister Ali Habib Mahmoud, head of Syrian Military Intelligence Abdul Fatah Qudsiya and Political Security Directorate Chief Mohammed Dib Zaitoun.

In his Middle East foreign policy speech, delivered on 19 May, President Obama offered his most aggressive challenge to Assad, whom he said must either facilitate a peaceful transition to democracy or ‘get out of the way’.

When asked about the slow pace of the West’s push-back against Assad, Abdulhamid told HJS that this was due to a variety of factors including the ‘stability of Lebanon, the Kurdish Question, the borders with Iraq, the Iranian alliance and the [Israel-Palestine] peace process’, all of which would be dramatically affected by regime change.

Abdulhamid believes that while Assad is viewed as a consummate mischief-maker – the patron of Hamas and Hezbollah and much of the Iraqi insurgency earlier in the decade – Western leaders nevertheless view his removal from power as a de-stabilising force in

PART TWO: FOREIGN INVOLVEMENT

On 8 April, the White House issued its first statement: ‘It is time for the Syrian government to stop

repressing its citizens and to listen to the voices of the Syrian people

calling for meaningful political and economic reforms’.

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the Middle East. Yet Abdulhamid is convinced that as the Syrian protests and regime violence escalate, the ‘international community will be left with little choice in this matter: instability is fast becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy’.

On 27 May, Ziadeh published an op-ed in the New York Daily News calling for UN Security Council resolution on Syria as the ‘continued silence of the Security Council sends the chilling message that the protestors are alone and that the world will turn a blind eye as murder continues on the streets’.

ASSAD AND THE ‘PEACE PROCESS’Several domestic oppositionists with whom we spoke argued that Israel’s preference to keep Assad in power has been a major motivation for Western acquiescence to his atrocities – even though many Israeli officials have publicly condemned the violence in Syria.

This is the exception to what has so far been a mass movement free of the kind of anti-Israel sentiment seen elsewhere in Arab Spring countries. So far, there is no evidence of anti-Semitic iconography being used by any Syrians to rally protestors, in marked contrast to widespread Egyptian accusations that Hosni Mubarak was a stooge of Israel. If anything, such scaremongering and scapegoating has been the purview of the Assad regime in trying to discredit the opposition.

Nevertheless, there is strong evidence that the US establishment has long believed in Syria’s strategic role in brokering Israel-Palestine peace. This misapprehension – encouraged by Arab autocrats – has contributed to Washington’s sluggishness in confronting Assad.

According to WikiLeaks-obtained State Department cables, in

November 2007 the Emir of Qatar told US Senator John Kerry:

In Qatar’s view, now is the time to reach out to Damascus. The Syrian Government can help Arab extremists make tough choices, but only if the US, whose involvement is essential, demonstrates to Syria early on a willingness to address the return of the Golan Heights and supports Turkey’s mediation efforts between Israel and Syria.113

As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Kerry has long endorsed US rapprochement with Assad

along these lines, as has former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, with whom Kerry wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2008 entitled, ‘It’s Time to Talk To Syria’,114 and former Democratic Speaker of the House Representative Nancy Pelosi, who has said: ‘The road to Damascus is a road of peace.’115

Furthermore, the supposed threat of de-stabilising Israel’s security is one being made by the Syrian regime itself. On 10 May, Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s cousin and the billionaire Syrian industrialist now sanctioned by the US, told the New York Times: ‘If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel. No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime’.116

The following week, Sunday 15 May,

hundreds of Syrians flooded into the hitherto pacified Golan Heights under the pretext of ‘Nakba Day’ protests – the Palestinian national day of remembrance for the ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s founding. Several Syrians breached the Golan border-fence and entered Israeli territory. At least a dozen protesters were killed when a small contingent of Israel Defence Force soldiers – caught by surprise – open fired on them after non-lethal crowd controls methods failed to halt their advance. Tragically, some of the Syrians raiding Israel seemed to be fleeing Assad’s persecution, not staging a pro-Palestinian demonstration.117 Others, according to oppositionists

on the ground, were Sy r i a n - Pa l e st i n i a n refugees who had been bused en masse by the regime to the Golan Heights a day earlier.118

This civilian invasion, which could not have been accomplished without the aid and acquiescence of the Syrian state, was a demonstration of the seriousness of Makhlouf’s threat to Israel. As Abdulhamid

stated on his blog:

Of course, there was nothing spontaneous about the border incursions that took place in the Golan Heights today. If the fact that this is happening for the very first time since 1974 and only days after Bashar Al-Assad’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, made his threatening statements is not a clear enough indication of this, then let’s mourn the death of reason, and glory in the triumph of impunity and willful blindness over everything decent. 119

Assad after dismissing his government – Syrian TV via Reuters

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THE IRANIAN-SYRIAN ALLIANCEIranian influence in Assad’s suppression of the Syrian revolution is an accepted fact for both the US government and the opposition. Commercial and military ties between Iran and Syria have never been stronger. The Islamic Republic News Agency, Tehran’s state-owned media outlet, recently claimed that trade relations with Syria is set to increase from $400 million to $5 billion.120

In tandem with the Obama administration’s 18 May sanctions, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions against two prominent Iranian nationals: Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF), who is cited in the sanctions order as ‘the conduit for Iranian material support’ to the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate; and Mohsen Chizari, the commander of operations and training for the IRGC-QF.121

‘Green Voice of Freedom’, an Iranian opposition website, alleges that Iranian Brig Gen Ahmad Reza Radan, the police commander responsible for suppressing the 2009 protest movement in Iran, visited Damascus in mid-April to instruct his Syrian counterparts on how to similarly handle their own popular revolt.122 However, a former Iranian diplomat, who attests to the intimacy between

Tehran and Damascus, denies this meeting took place.123

However, Abdul-Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian vice president who served under both Assad and his father, observed: ‘Anyone who believes that political decisions in Damascus are taken without Iran these days is mistaken. Bashar and his brother Maher have become vicarious agents of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.’124

Abdulhamid agreed: ‘The Iranian alliance is all too real and several treaties, including a mutual defense agreement, have been signed over the years. Iran has a lot to lose if the Assads were removed from power.’

TURKEY’S INFLUENCETurkey has used the crisis as a means of flexing its growing geopolitical clout in the Middle East. Although Syria and Turkey nearly went to war with each other in 1998, the current relationship between Damascus and Ankara is warm. Turkey and Syria currently hold joint military exercises. Trade has tripled since 2008. And visa requirements were lifted, creating open borders between the two neighbors

Compared with his calls for regime change in Egypt and Libya, where Turkish troops are currently helping to enforce the Nato-led no-fly zone, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has merely said that he is ‘quite concerned and annoyed’ by

Assad’s crackdown. He’s described the Syrian revolution as, ‘the equivalent of internal politics for Turkey.’ 125

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has, by his own estimation, travelled to Syria more than 60 times over the past eight years. While Davutoglu acknowledges the Assad regime’s killing of civilians and claims that ‘time is running out’ for any resolution to the crisis, as of 25 May, the eleventh week of the uprising, the most Davutoglu would offer on Assad was: ‘Now what he needs is shock therapy to gain the heart of his people’.126

Such ‘shock therapy’ evidently includes anti-corruption efforts, reform for the security apparatus and a national dialogue inclusive of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which Turkish officials believe ought to be offered two ministries in a new Syrian government.127

Despite Ankara’s lenience toward Assad, on Wednesday, 31 May, between 300 and 400 Syrian oppositionists met for a three-day conference in in the Turkish resort of Antalya.128 The goal of the meeting was to produce some form of logistical and legal support for the revolutionaries. Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members had met earlier in Turkey as part of a contingent of dissident groups hosted there, an event that rankled Damascus.

‘Green Voice of Freedom’, an Iranian opposition website, alleges that Iranian Brig Gen Ahmad Reza

Radan, the police commander responsible for suppressing the 2009 protest movement in Iran,

visited Damascus in mid-April to instruct his Syrian counterparts on how to similarly handle their own

popular revolt.

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Rhetorical support The US, UK and the EU must call for the immediate resignation of Bashar al-Assad from power, along with

his inner circle.

The UN Security Council should pass a resolution condemning Assad’s violence and demanding his immediate resignation.

Practical support The US and the UK should work closely with the opposition umbrella group, the National Initiative for Change

(NIC), to help establish a transitional council in Syria that can be recognised by the international community.

The US and the UK should provide the opposition with greater material aid, in particular encrypted laptops and satellite phones and SIM cards in order to withstand the regime’s media blackouts and continue the uninterrupted documentation of regime atrocities and human rights abuses

Military support The Syrian opposition pins its hopes on turning the Syrian Army over to its side and then serve as a caretaker

government in the transition to democracy. The US and UK ought to use regional intelligence assets to persuade or entice sympathetic Syrian officers to defect.

Syrian opposition is not yet calling for military intervention but this option should be seriously considered by the US, UK and Nato and preparations should be made in the event that this transpires.

CONCLUSION

The Syrian opposition is the most Western-friendly movement to emerge from the Arab spring, yet has received the least amount of support from the West, which has so far offered only token condemnations of violence and minimal economic penalties against a regime that has killed an estimated 1,100 people and imprisoned 10,000 more.

With Western forces engaged in military operations in Afghanistan and Libya Syria is not seen as a priority. Geopolitical calculations have been made about Assad’s role as peacemaker in the Israel-Palestine conflict, his perceived potential to “reform” and the economic negligibility of Syria. However, the West could benefit from a revived liberalized Syrian economy and the scale and nature of Assad’s brutality belie his image as a stable force in the region.

The Syrian people, like the Tunisians and Egyptians before them, have stated their aims clearly: they seek freedom, human rights and genuine democratic accountability. Unlike the Tunisians and Egyptians, the Syrians have developed a coherent and sophisticated platform for democracy that, based on our examination of on-the-ground sentiments, approaches the national consensus.

Assad believes that the revolution will eventually peter out, calculating that without increased international pressure and external aid to the opposition, the Syrian Army will remain loyal to the regime and that in the face of ongoing brutality, the protesters will eventually give up.

Western governments are uniquely placed to support Syrian aspirations for freedom, as well as de-stabilising Iranian influence in the region and transforming an anti-Western regime into a key strategic ally. Israel will be blamed by Assad for fomenting a national crisis no matter what it says or does. But by demanding and facilitating an end to his dictatorial rule, Western countries will helpfully be able to demonstrate that they are not putting Israel’s security concerns above the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people.

The Syrian oppositionists have clearly indicated the direction they want for their country. They have decried regime propaganda that they are controlled by ‘Salafists’. Rather than resort to any form of characteristic anti-Americanism, they have denounced Russian and Iranian hegemony and indicted Hezbollah as co-conspirator in Assad’s depredations.

Western governments should strongly support Syrian aspirations for freedom in the following ways:

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Through the use of an intermediary based in Beirut, The Henry Jackson Society was able to obtain exclusive interviews with opposition figures in the major cities of the Syrian revolution: Deraa, Damascus, Douma, the al-Tall District, Hama and Homs.We have omitted the names and any identifying traces of these individuals out of concern for their personal safety.

DeraaWe got news that while the occupation force was in Deraa, some of the arrested were killed and buried in mass graves. So as soon as the occupation force retreated to other villages, we went in and dug up the mass graves. We have identified five people who were killed.

Now the news is that following what we have discovered, security forces are going to come in to Deraa again and raid all those homes in an attempt to remove all mobile phone devices. They also want to claim these bodies back in an attempt to hide what happened.

However, there were more demonstrations, and people’s steadfastness with this news is increasing with more demonstrations from Deraa. Look at it this way: the city has one hundred and fifty thousand people, with over three hundred killed and five thousand wounded and dying due to lack of medicine, supplies and food. There is no turning back. We have discovered what this family [the Assads] is all about and we will not stop.

We fear the thousands arrested will end up in mass graves. Deraa is surrounded by around two hundred villages, all of those villages are Houran, and Deraa is the capital. History has never seen such a criminal regime like the one we are facing peacefully, yet the international community is doing nothing to help.

I estimate the number arrested is from four thousand to five thousand in the area. If you look at all the pictures we have posted you will find the majority of those killed died from head and chest wounds – snipers of the criminal regime.

At the moment, we have around five hundred people on the critical list, in homes dying slowly as we speak.

The few that have been released suffered great trauma at the hands of the occupation. Beaten to a pulp and made to sign papers claiming that they are part an Islamist uprising, which is not true. Deraa never had Islamists.

We know the West wants Bashar and does not care about the real people. They are allowing him to kill and torture us for Israel. But our message is that we don’t care about Israel, we don’t care about Islamists and we don’t want the interference of the West, we just want our freedom, and we are thinking about it day to day, and once we topple Assad, and we don’t get the freedom that we asked for then we will continue to protest until we have a democratic Syria that is run by the people for the people.

Even the Salafists want that - whoever they are – but if they are out there then they are a tiny minority who ha