Domestic Sovietization
Just as the democracies are the only true, long-term allies of the United States, so the Soviet Union develops its deepest ties with totalitarian governments. That the Asad years have witnessed a turn away from authoritarianism (government control of politics) and toward totalitarianism (government control of everything) is apparent from changes that have occurred in the economic, social, and cultural realms. Although the Syrian government yet lacks the all-encompassing institutions of state control of the U.S.S.R., the trend is clearly in that direction.
The Syrian economy has come increasingly under bureaucratic jurisdiction. In agriculture, the government has reduced the proportion of private farms from 82 percent in 1972 to 66 percent in 1982, while increasing the proportion of state-controlled cooperatives. In manufacturing, the state owns all of what are called "strategic industries." Besides the obvious ones, this also includes such enterprises as sugar refining and wool spinning. Attendant on this has been a Soviet-style inefficiency, drop in quality, and misdistribution of goods.
Asad gains direct influence over many Syrians by having them work for him. Civilian employment by the government rose from 12 percent of total employment in 1973 to 22 percent in 1983. Growth in military employment has been even more dramatic, rising from 6 percent of adult males in 1968 to 15 percent in 1982.
As in most Soviet-bloc countries, Syria's leaders devote an extraordinary proportion of their country's resources to military strength. According to highly-placed officials, the Syrian government earmarked 60 percent of its budget in 1980 for military expenditures, 70 percent in 1981, and 60 percent in 1986. Outside sources estimate this to be 30 percent of the country's GNP. Such expenditures give the Syrian military a prominence that matches its Soviet counterpart. Its activities permeate the country's life. The military, for example, freely requisitions land and material resources, interferes in private life via the intelligence services, takes up large portions of the school day for pre-military training, and owns one-third of the motor vehicles in Syria. When added to the "strategic industries" and the vast resources devoted to military power, the picture emerges of a society dominated by Soviet-style militarism.
To offset its economic burden, the Syrian government receives a large percentage of Soviet bloc economic aid, with the U.S.S.R. providing about half and the states of East Europe the other half. This money mostly goes for infrastructure projects such as railroads, ports, dams, land reclamation, and oil refineries. It is spent in such a way as to assure Soviet-style control of the economy as well as dependence on Soviet parts and technicians. Over 1,000 Soviet economic advisors work in Syria. Unofficial estimates place the military debt to the U.S.S.R. at $14 billion.
Soviet-style media have emerged in Asad's Syria. Soviet movies and television-which never attract an audience if an alternative is available-play frequently in Syria. In its official pronouncements, Damascus uses boilerplate leftist language with the numbing regularity of all Soviet-bloc regimes. According to the World Press Encyclopedia, Syrian media, "like the nation, speaks with one voice,... a de facto state-mobilized press exists." The same reference work points out that the two leading papers, Ath-Thawra and Al-Ba'th, published respectively by the Ministry of Information and the Ba'th Party, serve as the Izvestia and Pravda of Syria.
Foreign journalists find that, as in the Soviet bloc, citizens are scared to talk to them about politics. But the Syrian regime has gone farther than the Soviet prototype in that it forbids Western journalists to take up residence in Syria. This means that they are prevented from cultivating personal contacts, and must rely almost entirely on official sources. Following Soviet practice, even the most innocuous military information is deemed a state secret.
The similarities to the Soviet Union do not end with this, however, but extend to the repression of citizens. Like all Soviet-bloc regimes, Syria disregards the rule of law, controls speech, persecutes religion, and engages in torture. Reports of brutality are numerous. One day after an attempt on Hafiz al-Asad's life in July 1980, 600 to 1,000 political prisoners held in a jail in Palmyra were massacred. According to an eye witness, the prisoners were lined up against walls and machine-gunned until all were killed; in reward each of the soldiers was given 100 Syrian pounds.
The regime's violence has been greatest in the city of Hama, which was three times the scene of massacres-in April 1980, April 1981, and February 1982. The last occasion was the largest-scale killing of civilians in the Middle East in many years; 12,000 troops attacked opposition strongholds with field artillery, tanks, and air force helicopters, killing about 24,000 citizens. In addition, 6,000 soldiers lost their lives and most of the 10,000 inhabitants of Hama who were jailed then disappeared. In all, one-tenth of Hama's population died.
Amnesty International's report on Syria in 1983 stated:
Syrian security forces have practiced systematic violations of human rights, including torture and political killings, and have been operating with impunity under the country's emergency laws. There is overwhelming evidence that thousands of Syrians not involved in violence have been harassed and wrongfully detained without chance of appeal and in some cases have been tortured; others are reported to have 'disappeared' or to have been the victims of extrajudicial killings carried out by the security forces.
The Department of State concurs. Its annual review of human rights practices regularly points to Syrian government offenses. It stated in 1983 that "activities which the regime considers to be a threat to its security can lead to detention without charge, severe prison sentences, mistreatment, torture, or execution." The authorities "pursued dissident elements, carried out cordon-and-search operations without judicial safeguards against invasion of the home, carried out arrests, in many cases causing persons to 'disappear,' and engaged in torture and other brutal practices." More recently, the State Department has noted that "while the more public forms of repression have diminished in the past 3 years, there have been no indications of a trend toward a more open political system or greater respect for the integrity of the person." Stalin's methods, in other words, have been replaced by Brezhnev's.
Although the Syrian government denies these accusations, it publicly celebrates brutality. For example, in October 1983 (according to a report in The Jerusalem Post), Syrian television showed
16-year-old girls-trainees in the Syrian Ba'ath Party militia-fondling live snakes as President Hafez Assad and other Syrian leaders looked on approvingly. Martial music reached a crescendo as the girls suddenly bit the snakes with their teeth, repeatedly tore off flesh and spat it out as blood ran down their chins. As the leaders applauded, the girls then attached the snakes to sticks and grilled them over the fire, eating them triumphantly.
After this, militiamen "strangled puppies and drank their blood." Such demonstrations are clearly intended to send a message to the regime's domestic opponents.
These internal developments are not in of themselves unusual in the Middle East, nor do they require close ties to the Soviet Union. But when combined with close relations with the U.S.S.R., hostility to the U.S., and aggression toward neighbors, they contribute in an important way to the regime's overall Soviet orientation.
Just as the democracies are the only true, long-term allies of the United States, so the Soviet Union develops its deepest ties with totalitarian governments. That the Asad years have witnessed a turn away from authoritarianism (government control of politics) and toward totalitarianism (government control of everything) is apparent from changes that have occurred in the economic, social, and cultural realms. Although the Syrian government yet lacks the all-encompassing institutions of state control of the U.S.S.R., the trend is clearly in that direction.
The Syrian economy has come increasingly under bureaucratic jurisdiction. In agriculture, the government has reduced the proportion of private farms from 82 percent in 1972 to 66 percent in 1982, while increasing the proportion of state-controlled cooperatives. In manufacturing, the state owns all of what are called "strategic industries." Besides the obvious ones, this also includes such enterprises as sugar refining and wool spinning. Attendant on this has been a Soviet-style inefficiency, drop in quality, and misdistribution of goods.
Asad gains direct influence over many Syrians by having them work for him. Civilian employment by the government rose from 12 percent of total employment in 1973 to 22 percent in 1983. Growth in military employment has been even more dramatic, rising from 6 percent of adult males in 1968 to 15 percent in 1982.
As in most Soviet-bloc countries, Syria's leaders devote an extraordinary proportion of their country's resources to military strength. According to highly-placed officials, the Syrian government earmarked 60 percent of its budget in 1980 for military expenditures, 70 percent in 1981, and 60 percent in 1986. Outside sources estimate this to be 30 percent of the country's GNP. Such expenditures give the Syrian military a prominence that matches its Soviet counterpart. Its activities permeate the country's life. The military, for example, freely requisitions land and material resources, interferes in private life via the intelligence services, takes up large portions of the school day for pre-military training, and owns one-third of the motor vehicles in Syria. When added to the "strategic industries" and the vast resources devoted to military power, the picture emerges of a society dominated by Soviet-style militarism.
To offset its economic burden, the Syrian government receives a large percentage of Soviet bloc economic aid, with the U.S.S.R. providing about half and the states of East Europe the other half. This money mostly goes for infrastructure projects such as railroads, ports, dams, land reclamation, and oil refineries. It is spent in such a way as to assure Soviet-style control of the economy as well as dependence on Soviet parts and technicians. Over 1,000 Soviet economic advisors work in Syria. Unofficial estimates place the military debt to the U.S.S.R. at $14 billion.
Soviet-style media have emerged in Asad's Syria. Soviet movies and television-which never attract an audience if an alternative is available-play frequently in Syria. In its official pronouncements, Damascus uses boilerplate leftist language with the numbing regularity of all Soviet-bloc regimes. According to the World Press Encyclopedia, Syrian media, "like the nation, speaks with one voice,... a de facto state-mobilized press exists." The same reference work points out that the two leading papers, Ath-Thawra and Al-Ba'th, published respectively by the Ministry of Information and the Ba'th Party, serve as the Izvestia and Pravda of Syria.
Foreign journalists find that, as in the Soviet bloc, citizens are scared to talk to them about politics. But the Syrian regime has gone farther than the Soviet prototype in that it forbids Western journalists to take up residence in Syria. This means that they are prevented from cultivating personal contacts, and must rely almost entirely on official sources. Following Soviet practice, even the most innocuous military information is deemed a state secret.
The similarities to the Soviet Union do not end with this, however, but extend to the repression of citizens. Like all Soviet-bloc regimes, Syria disregards the rule of law, controls speech, persecutes religion, and engages in torture. Reports of brutality are numerous. One day after an attempt on Hafiz al-Asad's life in July 1980, 600 to 1,000 political prisoners held in a jail in Palmyra were massacred. According to an eye witness, the prisoners were lined up against walls and machine-gunned until all were killed; in reward each of the soldiers was given 100 Syrian pounds.
The regime's violence has been greatest in the city of Hama, which was three times the scene of massacres-in April 1980, April 1981, and February 1982. The last occasion was the largest-scale killing of civilians in the Middle East in many years; 12,000 troops attacked opposition strongholds with field artillery, tanks, and air force helicopters, killing about 24,000 citizens. In addition, 6,000 soldiers lost their lives and most of the 10,000 inhabitants of Hama who were jailed then disappeared. In all, one-tenth of Hama's population died.
Amnesty International's report on Syria in 1983 stated:
Syrian security forces have practiced systematic violations of human rights, including torture and political killings, and have been operating with impunity under the country's emergency laws. There is overwhelming evidence that thousands of Syrians not involved in violence have been harassed and wrongfully detained without chance of appeal and in some cases have been tortured; others are reported to have 'disappeared' or to have been the victims of extrajudicial killings carried out by the security forces.
The Department of State concurs. Its annual review of human rights practices regularly points to Syrian government offenses. It stated in 1983 that "activities which the regime considers to be a threat to its security can lead to detention without charge, severe prison sentences, mistreatment, torture, or execution." The authorities "pursued dissident elements, carried out cordon-and-search operations without judicial safeguards against invasion of the home, carried out arrests, in many cases causing persons to 'disappear,' and engaged in torture and other brutal practices." More recently, the State Department has noted that "while the more public forms of repression have diminished in the past 3 years, there have been no indications of a trend toward a more open political system or greater respect for the integrity of the person." Stalin's methods, in other words, have been replaced by Brezhnev's.
Although the Syrian government denies these accusations, it publicly celebrates brutality. For example, in October 1983 (according to a report in The Jerusalem Post), Syrian television showed
16-year-old girls-trainees in the Syrian Ba'ath Party militia-fondling live snakes as President Hafez Assad and other Syrian leaders looked on approvingly. Martial music reached a crescendo as the girls suddenly bit the snakes with their teeth, repeatedly tore off flesh and spat it out as blood ran down their chins. As the leaders applauded, the girls then attached the snakes to sticks and grilled them over the fire, eating them triumphantly.
After this, militiamen "strangled puppies and drank their blood." Such demonstrations are clearly intended to send a message to the regime's domestic opponents.
These internal developments are not in of themselves unusual in the Middle East, nor do they require close ties to the Soviet Union. But when combined with close relations with the U.S.S.R., hostility to the U.S., and aggression toward neighbors, they contribute in an important way to the regime's overall Soviet orientation.