Hama massacre

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The Hama massacre (Arabic: مجزرة حماة‎) occurred on February 2, 1982, when the Syrian army bombed the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood, and in the process thousands of people were killed. Amnesty International claims that 10,000-25,000 were killed at Hama, though many figures exist and the number could be considerably smaller or larger than this. The Syrian government has made no official claim about the number killed at Hama.

1 Background
2 The Massacre
3 After the Massacre
4 Further reading
5 External links

[edit] Background

At the time, the Middle East was in deep turmoil and 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 Hafiz 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 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.

[edit] 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.(Pity the Nation, pages 185-86)

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, they used artillery to blast Hama into submission. After a two-week battle, the town was securely in government hands again. 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 (Pity the Nation, pages 186). The New York Times estimated the death toll as up to 20,000.[1] According to Thomas Friedman (From Beirut to Jerusalem, pages 76-105) 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.

[edit] 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 the 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 instead came commoners from nearby villages.

[edit] Further reading

Robert Fisk (1990) Pity the Nation, London: Touchstone, ISBN 0-671-74770-3— pp. 181-87
Thomas Friedman (1998) From Beirut to Jerusalem, London: HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-00-653070-2— includes a chapter on the Hama Massacre; "Hama Rules"
The Economist (Nov. 16th, 2000) Is Syria really changing?, London: 'Syria’s Islamist movement has recently shown signs of coming back to life, nearly 20 years after 30,000 people were brutally massacred in Hama in 1982' The Economist
Routledge (Jan. 10th, 2000) Summary of the January 10, 2002, Roundtable on Militant Islamic Fundamentalism in the Twenty-First Century, Volume 24, Number 3 / June 01, 2002: Pages:187 - 205
Jack Donnelly (1988) Human Rights at the United Nations 1955-85: The Question of Bias , International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sep., 1988), pp. 275-303