Interviews with Ammar Abdulhamid

We have been living under the same system, under the rule of the Baath party, since 1963. The Baath party came as a result of a coup d’état. They like to call it a revolution. But it was really a coup d’état. A few officers, few army officers, mounted a coup. They went on tanks, occupied government buildings, they staked a view, whatever, and announced a new government.

Ever since that time, the star of one of these generals who led the coup, his name is Hafez Assad, began to rise. And in 1967, he became a security of defense. And that is when the Golan War broke out and we lost the Golan. But instead of retiring in shame, he actually mounted a coup d’état three years later and he became the president. He blamed everybody else for the loss of the Golan. And he made himself a leader, introduced a new constitution in 1973. And he introduced his family members, like his brother, into sort of the security apparatuses and many members of his family and entourage from his own small family and then his own small sect.

He, Hafez Assad, comes from a sect called the Alawite, which represents around eight to ten percent of the Syrian people. And he basically began relying a lot on that group to populate the security apparatuses, the army, in order to gain their loyalty and rely on their loyalty vis-a-vie the other police parties and the other groups in Syria.

So we really moved towards a system not only of oppression but of extreme sectarianism. And that had a backlash in the 1970s. Some Sunni groups who are, you know, responsibly religious and then became very fanatical also, launched a wave of terror against the regime. And there was a civil war in 1982 that led to the destruction of the city of Hama, where Assad ordered his troops basically to open fire randomly and bombard the city leading to some people say 10,000, other say 40,000 people dead. We really don´t have accurate numbers.

But we know that after that period, around 200,000 people went into exile from Syria and really established a major opposition forces outside the country. In 19– in 2000, after Hafez Assad died of, you know, we think of leukemia, his son came to power. He had, you know, done his best to smooth the way and pave the way for his son, Bashar Assad, to actually become the leader, who once again in a sham referendum was announced as the new president.

He promised reform. So some people had some hopes that he will introduce some reforms. But he, you know, months down after he became president, he cracked down on all the literary salons, all the political forces that emerged, and tried to sort of enunciate a message of reform and you know, for the country. And so, in other words, he turned his back [on] his promises immediately after, you know, occupying office.

And so for us, it became a joke when we ever heard an international leader or whatever speak to Bashar as a reformer. Because we knew he´s not. Finally and after ten years of patience and waiting, you know, the Syrian people have decided to take matters into their own hand and have mounted a revolution. And one of the cities that have become important and central in this revolution is Hama, the city that was destroyed in 1982.

Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian human rights activist who in 2003 founded the Tharwa Foundation, a grassroots organization that enlists local activists and citizen journalists to document conditions in Syria. In response to his activities, the Syrian government subjected Abdulhamid to repeat interrogation and threats. In September 2005, he and his family were forced into exile in the United States. From his home in Maryland, Abdulhamid remains one of the leading bloggers and commentators on events in Syria through the Syrian Revolution Digest.

Follow Ammar Ahbdulhamid on Twitter @Tharwacolamus and on his blog, Syrian Revolution Digest.