To hear Syrian TV tell it, since Tuesday Dam ascus has been the scene of “a few insignifi cant incidents” provoked by “a handful of misguided elements.”
Perhaps not so “insignificant.”
For days, inhabitants of the Syrian capital have seen truckloads of Special Forces brought in to protect official buildings and set up checkpoints at key roads.
And more than just a “handful.” Groups of students, families of political prisoners and human-rights activists have engaged in hit-and-run battles with the police in various parts of the city, trying to fan the fires of yet another Arab uprising against despotism.
With Moammar Khadafy in Libya, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria is the most vicious Arab despotism clinging to power.
Syria’s freedom uprising started Tuesday, when some 300 protesters gathered in front of the Interior Ministry to demand news of political prisoners.
Syria has between 3,000 and a staggering 17,000 such prisoners. Some have been held since 1970, when the late President Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current despot, seized power in a military coup. Opposition sources claim that thousands of others have been held incognito since 1982, when regime special forces massacred 15,000 to 20,000 protesters in Hama, north of Damascus.
So far, three successive “Days of Rage” have been held in Damascus. By the standards set in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain, the crowds were fairly small — but then, challenging the Syrian dictatorship is no easy task.
The Assad regime is composed mainly of Alawites, a heterodox sect of Islam and some 11 percent of the population.
With a martial tradition that goes back to the Ottoman Empire, the sect has dominated Syria since independence more than 60 years ago, controlling the army and the police.
For almost 40 years, the Soviet Union underwrote Alawite rule in Damascus. After the USSR’s fall, Iran emerged as the regime’s protector.
Over the last four years, Tehran has opened 14 cultural offices across Syria and dispatched hundreds of Islamic Revolutionary Guard officers and intelligence experts to prop up the Assads. In exchange, Assad has given the Iranian navy mooring rights in Ladhakiya and a land route for smuggling weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Tehran and Damascus have also signed a series of treaties, under which Iran pumps $1 billion each year into Syria’s ailing economy.
It’s too early to tell whether the “few misguided elements” that have started defying the most brutal Middle East regime can bring freedom to Syria, but one thing is certain: Unlike previous protests, the latest “days of rage” are openly aimed at ending the Assads’ rule.
It seems that Syrians, starting with a “few misguided elements,” are beginning to free themselves of fear. At least 40 protest leaders, among them the philosopher Tayyeb Tizini and the human-rights leader Suhair al-Attasi, have been taken to an unknown destination. But more “days of rage” are planned for next week.