Randy's Corner Deli Library

02 February 2009

27th Anniversary of the Hama (Syria) Massacre - 40,000 Killed by the Syrian Government

The Hama massacre (Arabic: مجزرة حماة) occurred on February 2, 1982 when the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood. Amnesty International estimates between 10,000 and 25,000 were killed at Hama.[1][2] The Syrian government has made no official claim about the number killed at Hama.

Background

Syria had been deeply involved in Lebanon's Civil War since 1976 and the beginning of the 1982 Lebanon War. Problems also arose from Turkey, which mobilized troops on its borders with Syria primarily to deal with Kurdish rebels and accused Syria of supporting and training the PKK rebels within Turkey. The Muslim Brotherhood took advantage of this situation to start defying Hafez al-Assad's rule. It undertook guerrilla activities in multiple cities within the country targeting officers, government officials and infrastructure. The anti-regime violence included the killings of eighty-three young military cadets at an artillery school in Aleppo in June 1979, and three car bomb attacks in Damascus between August and November 1980 that killed several hundred people. In July 1980, membership in the Muslim Brotherhood was made a capital offense punishable by death, with the ratification of Law No. 49. Throughout the early 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood staged a series of bomb attacks against the government and its officials, including a nearly successful attempt to assassinate president Hafez al-Assad on June 26, 1980, during an official state reception for the president of Mali. When a machine gun salvo missed him, al-Assad allegedly ran to kick a hand grenade aside, and his bodyguard sacrificed himself to smother the explosion of another one. Surviving with only light injuries, al-Assad's revenge was swift and merciless: only hours later many hundreds of imprisoned Islamists were murdered in a massacre carried out by his brother Rifaat al-Assad in Tadmor Prison.

The Massacre

Calls for vengeance grew within the brotherhood, and bomb attacks increased in frequency. Events culminated with a general insurrection in the conservative Sunni town of Hama in February 1982. Islamists and other opposition activists proclaimed Hama a "liberated city" and urged Syria to rise up against the "infidel". Brotherhood fighters swept the city of Ba'thists, breaking into the homes of government employees and suspected supporters of the regime, killing about 50. The goal of the attack on Hama was to cease the rebellious activities of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. The assault began on February 2 with extensive shelling of the town of 350 000 inhabitants. Before the attack, the Syrian government called for the city's surrender and warned that anyone remaining in the city would be considered as a rebel. Robert Fisk in his book Pity the Nation described how civilians were fleeing Hama while tanks and troops were moving towards the city's outskirts to start the siege. He cites reports from fleeing civilians and soldiers of mass death and shortages of food and water.[3]

According to Amnesty International, the Syrian military bombed the old streets of the city from the air to facilitate the introduction of military forces and tanks through the narrow streets, where homes were crushed by tanks during the first four days of fighting. They also claim that the Syrian military pumped poison gas into buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding.

The army was mobilized, and Hafez again sent Rifaat's special forces and Mukhabarat agents to the city. After encountering fierce resistance, Rifaat's forces ringed the city with artillery and shelled it for three weeks. Afterward, military and internal security personnel were dispatched to comb through the rubble for surviving Brothers and their sympathizers.[4] Then followed several weeks of torture and mass executions of suspected rebel sympathizers, killing many thousands, known as the Hama Massacre. Journalist Robert Fisk, who was in Hama shortly after the massacre, estimated fatalities as high as 10,000 [5]. The New York Times estimated the death toll as up to 20,000.[1] According to Thomas Friedman [6] Rifaat later boasted of killing 38,000 people. The Syrian Human Rights Committee estimates 30,000 to 40,000 were killed. Most of the old city was completely destroyed, including its palaces, mosques, ancient ruins and the famous Azzem Palace mansion. After the Hama uprising, the Islamist insurrection was broken, and the Brotherhood has since operated in exile. Government repression in Syria hardened considerably, as al-Assad had spent in Hama any goodwill he previously had left with the Sunni majority, and now was compelled to rely on pure force to stay in power.

After the Massacre

Western countries denounced the attack as a breach of human rights and a massacre. In an official speech, Al-Assad called on those countries and the world not to harbour those who fled Syria and to consider them as a threat and terrorists. His calls fell on deaf ears. Most members of the Brotherhood fled mainly to Jordan, the U.S, England and Germany. Large numbers of them settled in the latter two, which granted them political asylum.

Locally, within Syria, the attack was publicized in order to act as a deterrent. However, even the most conservative (but not radical) elements within Syria did not rise to the aid of the Brotherhood, nor strongly expressed sympathy, largely because of the Brotherhood's violent means and actions, compared to Al-Assad's initial patience in dealing with them, until the attempt on his life and Hama's uprising. Thomas Friedman points out that never again have Muslim extremists threatened the Syrian government.

Even today the public at large is not well informed on the events in Hama, especially when compared with comparable or smaller events in Iraq, Lebanon, or in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Occurring eight months before the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, in comparison, Hama is heavily underdiscussed in both the media and in academic circles.

Hama, which had some small tourist attractions like open parks and water wheels, turned into a poor city. After the massacre most of its inhabitants moved away, and in their place came commoners from nearby villages.

See also

References

1. ^ Hama Rules The New York Times
2. ^ The Massacres of Hama: Law Enforcement Requires Accountability Syrian Human Rights Committee, February 1, 2005
3. ^ Pity the Nation, pages 185-86
4. ^ (The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, Random House, c2002, p.86
5. ^ Pity the Nation, pages 186
6. ^ From Beirut to Jerusalem, pages 76-105

Bibliography

al-‘Arabiyyah in written Arabic (Kufic script):
Pronunciation: /alˌʕa.raˈbij.ja/
Spoken in: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman,
..... Click the link for more information.
February 2 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 672 - Death of Saint Chad, whose feast day this is.

..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s
1979 1980 1981 - 1982 - 1983 1984 1985

Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII
..... Click the link for more information.
Anthem
Homat el Diyar
Guardians of the Land


Capital
(and largest city) Damascus

..... Click the link for more information.
Hama (Arabic: حماه, meaning fortress) is a city on the banks of the Orontes river in central Syria. It is the provincial capital of the Hama Governorate.
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The Muslim Brothers (Arabic: الإخوان المسلمون al-ikhwān al-muslimūn, full title "The Society of the Muslim Brothers
..... Click the link for more information.
Kurdistan

Turkey [1] [2]

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The Muslim Brothers (Arabic: الإخوان المسلمون al-ikhwān al-muslimūn, full title "The Society of the Muslim Brothers
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Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: حافظ الأسد
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For the biographical film about Che Guevara, see .
A guerrilla (loaned from the Spanish guerrilla, a diminutive form of guerra, war) is a body of fighters engaging in mobile asymmetric irregular warfare, which is now known as
..... Click the link for more information.
For other meanings, see Aleppo (disambiguation). Halab redirects here; for other meanings, see Halab (disambiguation).


مدينة حلب
City of Aleppo

Citadel of Aleppo
..... Click the link for more information.
Damascus
دمـش?
Damascus Skyline

Seal
Nickname: (Al Fayhaa) The Fragrant City
Damascus' location within Syria
Syria
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Motto
"Un peuple, un but, une foi"
"One people, one goal, one faith"
Anthem
Pour l'Afrique et pour toi, Mali
"For Africa and for you, Mali"
..... Click the link for more information.
Rifaat al-Assad (Arabic: رفعت الأسد) is the younger brother of the former President of Syria, Hafiz al-Assad, and the uncle of the current President Bashar al-Assad, all of whom come from the minority Alawite Muslim sect.
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Tadmor prison (Arabic: سجن تدمر) is located in Palmyra in the deserts of eastern Syria approximately 200 kilometers northeast of Damascus (Tadmor, or Tadmur
..... Click the link for more information.
Sunni Muslims are the largest denomination of Islam. Sunni Islam is also referred to as Sunnism or as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘h (Arabic:
..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1950s 1960s 1970s - 1980s - 1990s 2000s 2010s
1979 1980 1981 - 1982 - 1983 1984 1985

Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII
..... Click the link for more information.
The Arab Socialist Ba'th Party (also spelled Baath or Ba'ath; Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي) was founded in 1945 as a left-wing,
..... Click the link for more information.
February 2 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 672 - Death of Saint Chad, whose feast day this is.

..... Click the link for more information.
Robert Fisk (born July 12 1946 in Maidstone, Kent) is a British journalist and is currently a Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent.[1] He was married to the American journalist Lara Marlowe.
..... Click the link for more information.
Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization which defines its mission as "to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity,
..... Click the link for more information.
Mukhabarat (مخابرات) is the Arabic term for intelligence, as in intelligence agency. Organizations using the name include:

In Egypt:
  • Al-Mukhabarat Al-'Ammah (General Intelligence Service)


..... Click the link for more information.
Robert Fisk (born July 12 1946 in Maidstone, Kent) is a British journalist and is currently a Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent.[1] He was married to the American journalist Lara Marlowe.
..... Click the link for more information.


The May 8, 2007 front page of
The New York Times
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet

Owner The New York Times Company
Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.
Staff Writers 350
Founded 1851
Price USD 1.
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Posted by Randy Shiner at 5:50 PM
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