Beginning of the end for Syrias Alawite Establishment

Dr. Ali White: July 2012 The significance of the Alawite establishment in Syria for the regimes power base is easy to establish and has been right from the beginning of the Assad clans dictatorship. In November 1970, then-Air Force General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, took power in a military coup dtat, establishing a Baath Party dictatorship, with himself becoming the President 12 months later. However, the regime has always based itself very firmly on the countrys most powerful Alawite clans. Thus, most of the lite group under Hafez al-Assad belonged to the latters Alawi minority (Collelo, 1987). In Syria there are four powerful Alawi confederations, each divided into tribes: the Kalbiya, the Khaiyatin, the Haddadin, and the Matawira/Numilatiyya. Haydar Abu Ali belongs to the Haddadin (or Haddadi) Alawi tribe. The ruling dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, belongs to the Kalbiya tribe (GlobalSecurity.org, 5 July 2011; Goldsmith, 16 April 2012; Zisser, 1999) Syrias Alawi tribes have been of pivotal importance in the countrys history under the Baath. Thus, in 1982, the Haddadin helped the then president, Hafiz al-Asad, brother of the current dictator, prepare the way for the notorious massacre in Hama in 1982. The tribe agreed to be the regimes eyes and ears in the region, and to monitor especially the movements of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region. This request, writes one eminent authority, demonstrated the importance of their tribal leadership in managing internal security matters: could not be managed by the regimes security forces alone but required the cooperation of the Bedouin. It was the de facto recognition of the tribal presence and power in the semi-arid steppe land of Syria. The Hadidiyin are said to have agreed and to have joined an alliance called Ali al-Murtadd Whatever the origins of the Hadidiyin, their relations with the Alawites have been historically strong (Chatty, 2010: 44-45). Some Alawi tribal leaders, including the Hadidiyin: are particularly powerful because of the size of their tribes as well as the strategic location of the villages, grazing areas, and water wells they control. The Bedouin leadership remains a force to be reckoned with and to ignore or play down the influence and authority that they possess is foolhardy (Chatty, 2010: 49). Several important and influential military figures supported Hafez al-Assad. Major General Muhammad Khawli, chief of air force intelligence and head of the National Security Council, was Assads right-hand man. Khawli was a Matawirah Alawi and a long-time trusted friend of Assad (Collelo, 1987). Ali Aslan, also a Matawirah Alawi, was deputy chief of staff of the armed forces. Aslan, a rising political star, was promoted to army corps general in 1984, a rank shared only by the Minister of Defence and the armed forces Chief of Staff. Both Khawli and Aslan were elected to the Baath Party Central Committee in 1984. Adnan Makhluf, the presidents brother-in-

law, commanded the Republican Guard, a presidential protection force. Other core members of the Syrian power lite included Air Defence Commander Ali Salih and Army Intelligence Chief Ali Duba, both Alawis of the Matawirah tribe (Collelo, 1987). When Hafez al-Assad died on 10 June 2000, his son Bashar succeeded him as President. To establish a power base for Bashar in the military, old divisional commanders were pushed into retirement, and new, young, Alawite officers with loyalties to him took their place. In Syrias Alawite ruling lite, the more things change, the more they remain the same. President Bashar al-Assads rule is centred four-square on the countrys Alawites. As shown above, it is through the Alawites that the Assad clan has maintained control of the military. And through integrating this Alawite-dominated military into the regime, the Assad family developed a strong political safety net (Brning, 7 March 2011) Traditionally Alawis have lived in the Alawite Mountains along the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Latakia and Tartous (where Haydar Abu Ali lived) are the regions principal cities. Today Alawis are also concentrated in the plains around Hama and Homs. Alawis also live in all major cities of Syria. They have been estimated to constitute about 11-12% of Syrias population some 2.1 million people. Mr. Almohamad was born in Damascus and lived his life in the Syrian city of Tartous. His father is a former Syrian Customs official. His mother formerly lectured at Tishreen University in Syria.

What happens to Alawite oppositionists Alawites have begun actively joining the opposition movement. Large and repeated demonstrations of Alawites demanding freedom and justice and an end to the sectarianism practiced by the regime have occurred since early 2012 in the areas of Damasrakho, Mashqita and al-Daatour in Latakia (Asharq Al-Awsat, 14 February 2012). At the same time, however, there is ample (and very current) evidence that Alawites who join the Sunni opposition movement are treated especially harshly by the Assad regime. Thus: A large-scale campaign of arrests followed the demonstrations targeting political activists and ordinary citizens who had participated in the protests against the Damascus regime (Asharq Al-Awsat, 14 February 2012). Alaa, an Alawite political activist who lives in Latakia and is secretly working to co-ordinate opposition political activity in the governorate, told Asharq Al-Awsat: the Alawites are the victims of the al-Assad regime twice-over; once because they are part of the Syrian people who have been suppressed and persecuted for decades; and a second time because they are defending this suppression and the regime that perpetuates it (Asharq Al-Awsat, 14 February 2012). In a recording released on YouTube in early February 2012, Alawite opposition political activists denounced the Assad regime which is trying to [contain] the people within a suffocating security environment by relying on a network of profiteers and systematic sectarian incitement (Asharq Al-Awsat, 14 February 2012).

Responding warmly to this development, the wholly Sunni opposition co-ordinating body, the Syrian National Council (SNC) strongly condemned as abhorrent sectarian attacks upon the Alawite community in some areas, calling on: all Syrians regardless of their religious, ethnic, or political affiliations to protect their neighbors from such attacks. Syrians are urged to report any sectarian attacks to their Local Coordination Committees and to identify the perpetrators of such heinous crimes. These crimes will not be tolerated and all persons who take part in or instigate sectarian killings will be tried for crimes against humanity and severely punished (Syrian National Council, 11 December 2011). The SNC warns all Syrians: to be extremely vigilant against the attempts by the Assad regime to deliberately drag the country into a sectarian civil war as a desperate attempt to justify the survival of the regime following its increasing isolation (Syrian National Council, 11 December 2011). The SNCs statement continues: The Alawi [Alawite] community plays a critical role in the Syrian Revolution It is also a fact that the regime reserves its most brutal punishment for dissidents and opposition members who happen to be Alawis. The 40-year history of the Assad regime is full of examples of courageous and proud Alawi dissidents who were systematically assassinated or who have spent long years in jail for daring to shatter the myth that the Assad family is the protector of the Alawi community (Syrian National Council, 11 December 2011). Al Jazeera journalist Nir Rosen very recently spent two months in Syria. As well as meeting members of various communities across the country (supporters of both the regime and of the opposition alike), he spent time with armed resistance groups in Homs, Idlib, Deraa, and Damascus suburbs. He also spent time with the Alawite community (Rosen, 8 March 2012). Rosen reports: Western backers of the SNC and opponents of the regime often say the Damascus leadership will only fall when the Alawite community is persuaded to abandon it. An older Sunni opposition intellectual who spent time in prison before and during the current uprising agreed with this analysis when I spoke to him in Damascus. The system will fall only when Alawites believe they are headed in the wrong direction, he said Dima, an Alawite third-year architecture student whom interviewed in Damascus, has participated in many anti-regime demonstrations. She told that being an Alawite does not help if one is against the regime. Thus: By December [2011], Dimas status in the university was frozen because of her opposition activities and she could take no more classesOne day, Military Security officers came to her house.

They knew everything I did and told my family everything, she said After this incident, Dima left Syria to complete her studies in Europe. Her father works in a government ministry and was worried he would lose his job because of her . Dimas claim that Alawite students and staff who beat demonstrators in an anti-government protest she took part in at the medical faculty of Damascus University in November thumped an Alawite student protester from the city of Tartous worse than anybody . Rosen also interviewed Ahmed, an Alawite political science professor in the city of Homs: He is an open critic of the regime and has participated in many locally driven dialogue sessions between leaders of the Alawite, Christian and Sunni communities in order to prevent communal violence. His Sunni students who were opposition activists spoke highly of him . Ahmed fears Sunni extremists, but: He also feared extreme Assad supporters, and carried a pistol in self-defence. After speaking at a national dialogue conference he received death threats and fled to Europe. I felt I would be killed in 24 hours by pro-regime extremists, he said Muhamad had spent one year in jail for opposition activities before the revolution. In January, he felt that the mukhabarat [intelligence] was closing in on him again and he fled to Algeria. He said he was beaten on the street there by pro-regime Syrians who had been monitoring him and knew all the details about his family and history .

Alawites abroad and the Sunni opposition As the brutal massacres continue and deepen in Syria, it should not be surprising that some among the Alawites also begin to turn against the Alawite regime. This is easier, in every way, of course, for those many Syrian Alawites currently studying abroad. Haydar Abu Ali (a real person, not his real name) is a student studying in the West. He has openly supported the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim opposition to the Alawite Assad regime in Syria. As the regimes repression of the Syrian protest movement has become visibly more brutal and as Haydar Abu Alis knowledge and understanding of the nature of the regime has grown and deepened with time so, too, has his resolve to oppose the regime and work for its downfall. He is well known in the Arabic-speaking community in the city where he lives abroad, for his strong views in opposition to the Syrian regime. Recently, events in his homeland convinced him to step up his practical opposition to the Assad regime. One consequence of this is the unrestrained opposition to President Assad on his Facebook page, which warmly supports the resistance of the people of Homs to the regime. Following Haydar Abu Alis return from Syria, he received an e-mail from a Syrian student in the same city where he lives abroad, warning him to desist from his oppositional activities.

This is both a testament to the seriousness that the regime accords to applicants opposition and a warning that a cruel fate awaits him if the regime can take him into its custody. Death by military service Since returning from visiting his family, Haydar Abu Ali has received notification from the Syrian regime that he is expected to present himself for his military service. Haydar managed to extend the deadline for him to report for commencing his service until April 2012. He did not report for commencement of his military service at that time, however, so is now in breach of the Syrian law on military service. Haydar cannot in all conscience perform his military service at this time that is, under the current regime. He believes passionately that the present regime perpetrates crimes against humanity on a daily basis and refuses to assist them in this. If he returns while the current regime remains in power, however, he will be prevented from leaving the country and he will be required to serve in the Army. The Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada points out that: the UK Country Report referring to a War Resisters International (WRI) report published in 1998, explains that Syrian nationals living outside the country are often subject to questioning upon re-entry into Syria, and that they may be charged with draft evasion (27 Oct. 2006, para. 9.04). Due to his oppositional activism against the regime abroad, he has a reasonable fear that the regime, fully aware of this, will forcibly enlist him in the Syrian Army and then attempt to compel him to slaughter other oppositionists or that he will himself be murdered by the military. It should be understood very clearly that the Assad regime does not recognise moral objections to its brutal orders. Thus, Syrias Government has repeatedly stated that conscientious objection of any sort to military service is not legally recognised, adding that there have been no known cases of conscientious objection in the country (Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1991; UN Commission on Human Rights, 1997; UN Commission on Human Rights, 1980; Eide, 1983). Furthermore, draft evasion and desertion are very harshly punished under the 1950 Military Penal Code. A Syrian conscript who deserted from the Army only last year told CNN on 6 July 2011 that his military service was like war against your own people (Watson, 2011). The conscript told CNN that he had deserted and fled Syria after he was repeatedly ordered to open fire on un-armed demonstrators who were protesting against the Syrian government. Our officer gave us the order to shoot at the people, the soldier said, in an interview with CNN. It didnt matter how many people would be killed, the important thing was for the protest to be dispersed. (Watson, 2011) Wissam Tarif, director of the Syrian human rights group INSAN testifies concerning what the conscript just cited had said:

There is very clear evidence that this is a crime against humanity and its organized and widespread, Tarif said. Theres no mistake here, the orders were to shoot and kill the protesters. (Watson, 2011) The CNN report continues: The sniper said his unit was dispatched several times a week through the month of May to attack demonstrators. When the troops returned their weapons to commanders at the end of each day, he said it was important to show that much of the day's supply of ammunition had been used. Questioning orders was dangerous. When one protest was taking place, there was a guy from eastern Syria named Wael, the conscript said. He had an argument with an officer and said I wont shoot at the people. The next morning, when the sniper awoke at his temporary barracks, he noticed Wael was missing. I asked about him and they told me he got killed, the soldier said. They told us he got killed and hes a martyr now. The sniper has little doubt what happened to Wael: If you don't shoot at people, they kill you. [] If they caught me, they would kill me right away because I was a traitor to the country, the man said (Watson, 2011). This story is repeatedly verified. Thus, another Syrian conscript 23-year-old man named Marouan told a journalist that in October 2011 he: was in his last month of military service when his Syrian Army unit stormed a village at the border. He said he was ordered to open fire at any civilians trying to cross over to Lebanon. He said when he was told to kill or be killed, he ran away; he was shot in the arm and shoulder as he tried to cross the border. Marouan made it into Lebanon and underwent surgery at a local hospital. Then the Red Cross moved him to Tripoli. Marouan said that he and his friends in the Army never talked about defecting they were afraid to talk. We were being watched all the time, even at night, Marouan said. Marouan added that kind of tight control is what prevents more soldiers from leaving the Army (Olivesi, 27 December 2011). Human Rights Watch (2011) interviewed 63 defectors from the Syrian military. All of these related that that they received standing orders to suppress, stop, or disperse the protests by all means necessary prior to deployment, and that they:

universally understood the phrase by all means necessary as an authorization to use lethal force, especially in the light of the fact that they were issued live ammunition as opposed to other means of crowd control (Human Rights Watch, 2011: 29) Human Rights Watch (2011: 62-70) has also catalogued the deadly fate of soldiers who disobey their orders to carry out illegal attacks upon civilians. Human Rights Watch shows that they face arrest, torture and execution. Not only that, but close relatives have been arrested as a means of putting pressure on soldiers who run away from the military, in order to force them to return to their unit. Haydar Abu Ali now lives in fear that he will suffer real harm (physical and mental), at the hands of the Syrian regimes secret police (mukhabarat) who are notorious for their brutal torture and arbitrary violence, and from the Syrian Army. His own democratic oppositional activity abroad is enough to place him in the way of such brutal violence. His Alawite confession means that he faces an especially high risk of harm, since the regime is absolutely intolerant of Alawites who desert their own, defecting to the enemy (as the regime views it). This has already been amply demonstrated above. There would seem to be no way that Haydar could avoid suffering real harm (physical and mental), at the hands of the Syrian regimes mukhabarat, were he compelled to return home. Haydar Abu Ali may or may not avoid being sent home, given that the West is far more willing to denounce the Assad regime that it is to genuinely assist those suffering from it. But we can be sure that Haydar will not be the last of Syrias Alawis to declare opposition to the brutal regime in Damascus. And therein lies the beginning of the end for the Alawite establishment in Syria.

References Asharq Al-Awsat (14 February 2012) Syrias Alawites growing disillusioned with al-Assad, in Asharq Al-Awsat, available at: http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?id=28481. Brning, Michael (7 March 2011) The Sturdy House that Assad Built: Why Damascus is not Cairo in in Foreign Policy, available at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67561/michael-broening/the-sturdy-house-that-assadbuilt. Chatty, Dawn (2010) The Bedouin in Contemporary Syria: The Persistence of Tribal Authority and Control, in Middle East Journal, Vol. 64, No. 1, Winter: 29-49. Collelo, Thomas (1987) Syria, a Country Study, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, available at: http://onlinelit.harvey.lib.il.us/the%20middle%20east/country%20studies/syria.txt. Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1991) Ambtsbericht, s-Gravenhage, 8 July, cited in War Resisters International, http://www.wri-irg.org/de/co/rtba/syria.htm.

Eide, A. C. Mubanga-Chipoya (1983) Conscientious objection to military service, report prepared in pursuance of resolutions 14 and 1982/30 of the Sub-Commission of Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, United Nations, Geneva. GlobalSecurity.org (5 July 2011) Alawi Islam, available at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-alawi.htm. Goldsmith, Leon (16 April 2012) Alawites for Assad: Why the Syrian Sect Backs the Regime, in Foreign Affairs, available at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137407/leon-goldsmith/alawites-for-assad?page=show Human Rights Watch (2011) By All Means Necessary! Individual and Command Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Syria: 62-70. Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (8 March 2007) SYR102395.E, available at: http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca:8080/RIR_RDI/RIR_RDI.aspx?id=451040&l=e. Syrias Alawite activists stuck in the middle: Despite fears of sectarianism if the regime falls, some in the Alawite minority are speaking out against Assad, in http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/03/201237101424192726.html Syrian National Council (11 December 2011) The Alawi Community: A Hostage and a Victim of the Assad Regime, available at: http://www.syriancouncil.org/en/opinion/item/4-the-alawi-community-in-syria-a-hostageand-a-victim-of-the-assad-regime.html. UN Commission on Human Rights (1997) The question of conscientious objection to military service, report of the Secretary-General prepared pursuant to Commission resolution 1995/83, United Nations, Geneva. UN Commission on Human Rights (1980) Report by the Secretary-General, United Nations, Geneva. Watson Ivan (2011) Syrian deserter: It was like a war against your own people, CNN, available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/07/05/syria.sniper/. Zisser, Eyal (1999) 'The Alawis, Lords of Syria: From Ethnic Minority to Ruling Sect', in Minorities and the State in the Arab World: 109-22, in Minorities and the State in the Arab World, by Ofra Bengio and Gabriel Ben-Dor (Eds.), Lynne Rienner Publishers.