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Syria: In exile, opposition groups unite
against Damascus
1.11.2005
By James Brandon
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The UN Security Council
passed a resolution calling on Syria to cooperate
with the Hariri assassination probe.
LONDON Almost daily Jawad Mella receives
calls from the dusty steppes of Syrian Kurdistan.
The callers, who never give their names for fear the
lines are tapped, ask him when Babi Azad is coming.
"Babi Azad means 'the father of freedom' in
Kurdish," explains Dr. Mella, the president of the
Government of West Kurdistan in exile. "They're
talking about George Bush."
But while only a few Syrians are openly calling for
US military intervention against President Bashar
al-Assad's regime, many opposition leaders are
hoping for greater international support as the
United Nations Security Council piles pressure on
Syria and opens the way for possible sanctions.
Monday, the Security Council passed a resolution
demanding that Syria cooperate "unconditionally"
with the ongoing UN investigation into the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri. A UN report released last month
implicated Syrian security officials and their
Lebanese allies in the murder.
The resolution also calls for Syria to detain and
make available to UN investigators those implicated
in the murder.
Although not as toughly worded as the United States,
France, and Britain had hoped, the resolution, which
passed unanimously, leaves open the possibility of
economic sanctions if Mr. Assad's regime does not
comply.
John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, said that
despite the changes the resolution, which originally
included the threat of sanctions, will deliver an
"unmistakably … clear message."
Far from Damascus, Syria's exiled opposition groups
anxiously awaited the Security Council's decision
Monday, the culmination of a storm of international
criticism that has dogged Damascus since the
February assassination of Mr. Hariri.
"The regime is not supported by the people," says
Ali Sadreddin al-Bayanouni, leader of Syria's Muslim
Brotherhood. "It is protected by the security
organizations, the Army, and the international
community.
"We think that if this international cover or
protection is removed, and if the people are allowed
to protest and demonstrate, as in Lebanon, the
regime won't survive," says Mr. Bayanouni, who has
led the group since 1996.
In recent weeks Bayanouni's underground Islamic
movement has recently formed a loose, but
unprecedented alliance with secular opposition
parties against the Syrian government. "The message
is that they are united and all have a shared
vision," says Obeida Nahas, who runs the antiregime
Website, thisissyria.net. "It was a way of showing
that the secular and religious of Syria can unite."
The opposition's increasingly unified appearance
aims to refute Assad's assertions that without him,
the country would descend into Iraq-style anarchy
and ethnic conflict. "The only threat [for Assad]
left to play on is the fear of the unknown if the
regime collapses - civil war, Iraqi-style chaos,"
says Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East analyst at Chatham
House in London.
Although the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood can
only be estimated, it probably has more power and
influence than all the other opposition groups
combined and it is perceived as the greatest
military and ideological threat to the regime.
But although Syria's Law 49 of 1980 still condemns
any member of the Muslim Brotherhood to death, "they
still have a lot of presence inside Syria," says
Walid Suffour, president of the Syrian Human Rights
Committee, who estimates that there are 4,000 Muslim
Brotherhood members in prison and thousands more who
have been released.
"Officially the Muslim Brotherhood do not exist in
Syria but they are still the largest political
[opposition] organization," explains Nahas, adding
that they have benefited politically from the
increase in grass-roots religiosity in Syrian
society.
"And after four decades of dictatorship," says Nahas,
"the Muslim Brotherhood realize that there can never
be another period of one-party rule."
Bayanouni, a precise, silver-haired man living in
exile in North London, emphasizes his organization's
increasingly moderate interpretation of Islam. He
also says that he is willing to work with the US
against the Assad regime to reestablish democracy
and political freedom in Syria.
"In principle we can deal with any country on the
basis of mutual interest. I think that this is the
natural way of dealing with others," says Bayanouni.
"I am ready to have talks with anyone in order to
help my people - as long as the interests of our
country are not threatened."
Islamist resistance
During the early 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood's
armed opposition to the Syrian regime resulted in
the death of 20,000 people in 1982 when the Army
attacked the Brotherhood's base in the Syrian city
of Hama. Today, however, like all other opposition
groups, the movement emphasizes that political and
economic, not military, action is the solution.
"After what happened in Hama we started changing our
ideas, rejecting violence and asking for peaceful
change," says Bayanouni "Our main principle is to
accept others and live peacefully with them.
"After the death of Hafez al-Assad we tried to push
[his successor] Bashar Assad toward creating a
better, democratic solution," says Bayanouni. "We
showed him that we are ready to help; that we were
willing to turn over a page and forget the past.
"But during the last five years Bashar didn't take
any real steps in this direction," he says. "There
are still political prisoners who have been in
prison for more than 20 years, and thousands are
still missing."
"So in the last few months we and other opposition
parties changed from asking for reform to demanding
complete change," says Bayanouni, who sent British
Prime Minister Tony Blair a letter of condolence
after July's London bombings.
"Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood accept
that they cannot control the country alone," says
Najdat Asfari, a member of the Syrian National
Council, which organized a recent Paris conference
between Syrian opposition parties. "So they have
asked for a consortium of all the people who believe
in creating a democratic system for Syria."
Damascus Declaration
Together the Paris conference and the subsequent
Damascus Declaration for Democratic and National
Change that was signed in October by opposition
groups in Damascus and Beirut indicates that Syria's
fragmented opposition may be jelling as the pressure
from the international community mounts. In this
alliance between secular parties and the Muslim
Brotherhood, only the Kurdish separatists are
absent.
"A real alliance between the Kurds and the Muslim
Brotherhood would pose a serious challenge to the
regime, but I don't think it's likely," says Robert
Lowe, a Chatham House analyst who visited Syrian
Kurdistan this summer. "Replacing a Baathist regime
with an Islamic regime is not really in the Kurds'
interest."
Mella, who met Prime Minister Blair in April and
whose influential London-based party, the Kurdistan
National Congress, is the most ambitious and
separatist Kurdish group, agrees.
"The Kurds have become far from Islam. All we see of
Islam is killing. They shoot us, they gas us. And
they say that we are all Muslims," says Mella. "For
1,400 years we have been Muslims and they haven't
for even one day understood that we are a nation. We
are a Kurdish nation - not Arabs."
However, events are moving swiftly, and last
Saturday Mella and Bayanouni arranged a historic
first meeting. Both said that they were determined
that the possible fall of the Assad regime should
not be an excuse for further bloodshed.
"I am worried that the fall of this regime that for
40 years has destroyed political life in Syria might
lead to a lack of stability," says Bayanouni. "We
think that the Damascus Declaration will help to
reduce the potential for instability in the country.
We want to emphasis that people shouldn't think of
revenge and killing."
US pressure
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the
Security Council after Monday's vote that Syria had
been put on notice by the international community
that it must cooperate with the investigation led by
German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.
"With our decision today, we show that Syria has
isolated itself from the international community -
through its false statements, its support for
terrorism, its interference in the affairs of its
neighbors, and its destabilizing behavior in the
Middle East," Rice said. "Now, the Syrian government
must make a strategic decision to fundamentally
change its behavior."
www.csmonitor.com
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