Security Forces Open Fire on Syrian Protesters

By ANTHONY SHADID

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Even as the now-familiar ritual of Friday protests raged across Syria, activists, diplomats and some government officials suggest that a staggering economy, a better-organized though still divided opposition, and a fumbling government response are recasting Syria, even if President Bashar al-Assad manages to survive in office.

The four-month-old uprising remains locked in a stalemate with a government that still enjoys support. But even government officials believe that there is a transition under way from four decades of authoritarian rule by the Assad family, though to what is unclear.

“We’re more or less at a stalemate, but the status quo is not sustainable,” said Peter Harling, a Damascus-based analyst with the International Crisis Group.

While the protests appear to have gained momentum, with unprecedented numbers in Hama, in central Syria, and Deir al-Zour, in the northeast, the demonstrations have yet to make decisive inroads into Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two largest cities and the focus of the government’s attention.

Security forces on Friday killed 27 people and wounded scores more in clashes at several locations.

The government has rallied its base — religious minorities and, less successfully, the middle class and business elite — through what amounts to a negative claim of legitimacy: If we go, the country could fragment, fall into civil war or be seized by Islamists.

But its reform has proven tentative. Officials seem to offer little more than the model of Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak — a tame but legal opposition, a measure of freedom of the press and expression.

Even that model seems uncertain, as a government with pretenses of modernizing Syria has fallen back on security forces to impose its control in restive regions. It claims that hundreds from the forces have died in fights with Islamist insurgents, backed from abroad.

Activists contend that their protests remain peaceful and that 1,400 people have died needlessly.

“I am pessimistic,” said Muntaha al-Atrash, a member of Sawasiah, a human rights group in Damascus. “I feel like it’s going to be a long, long journey.”

She added, “This regime won’t easily submit to people’s demands.”

But in past weeks, the most potent forces in the uprising have shifted ground again: an evolving public and an indecisive government that failed to make what it celebrated as a national dialogue more than a conversation largely with itself.

“Every week, it becomes more and more apparent that not only can it not return to where it was before, but it’s already in the middle of transitioning anyway, and it’s going to be a really bumpy road,” an administration official in Washington said on the condition of anonymity. “It’s going to be ugly, and I think that’s what scares people.”

Activists said the turnout Friday was perhaps the biggest yet, though still concentrated in regions that have proven most restive: Homs and Hama in central Syria, Deir al-Zour, and Qaboun and other suburbs of Damascus. The degree of organization in several of the rallies was striking, especially in Qaboun.

There, dozens of protesters protected local government buildings and the Baath Party headquarters from vandalism, to deny security forces a pretext to crack down. A crowd that one witness estimated at 20,000 carried balloons, flags inscribed with mottos and banners. Activists relentlessly documented the scenes.

“We are more organized now,” said a 40-year-old shopkeeper in Qaboun who gave his name as Abu Khalid. “We’ve reached the point of no return.”

When security forces opened fire — after they were provoked, according to the government — protesters built barricades to block their way. In marked contrast to the fear that long reigned in Syria, the scenes in Qaboun evoked similar, recent scuffles in Hama with security forces that no longer inspire terror in the people they are meant to control.

“The people will not stop after all these sacrifices,” said a 30-year-old farmer who gave his name as Abu Mohammed and lives in another Damascus suburb, Kisweh.

In Hama, the center of the revolt, residents said they agreed to dismantle some barricades they built in past weeks as long as security forces let them demonstrate peacefully. In Deir al-Zour, where the momentum of the uprising seems to be shifting, tens of thousands turned out in the biggest protests yet, many of them gathering in a traffic circle formerly known as President Square and now renamed Freedom Square.

“A big and clear message,” one activist called the rally.

Syrian officials have acknowledged that some protesters have legitimate grievances, but still cast the uprising in terms used for another rebellion in the late 1970s and 1980s: Islamist insurgents carrying out foreign agendas.

While the protests seem overwhelmingly peaceful, signs have emerged of more violence lately, underscoring a familiar theme of conflicts in Algeria and Iraq. In the absence of a genuine political process, opponents resort to arms to press their demands. Residents speak of more people buying weapons, in places like Homs, and the prices of guns rising.

A banner hung two weeks ago in a Damascus neighborhood listed names of government informers and threatened revenge. Human rights activists say they have reports of nearly a dozen informers killed and many more wounded, often gravely.

Diplomats say they believe a gas pipeline that exploded in the east this week was probably an act of sabotage and not, as Syrian officials have portrayed it, an accident.

Opposition figures plan to meet Saturday in Damascus and in Istanbul, and they hope to link the meetings through the Internet. But activists concede that the opposition is deeply divided, over ideology and personalities, threatening to scuttle the meeting in Istanbul.

Though the government allowed a rare opposition meeting last month, some fear it may seek to prevent the gathering in Damascus.

The economy is still reeling, with the Syrian pound losing value, growth slowing and the economy possibly contracting, tourism devastated and capital flowing out. One economist said the government had until the end of the year before facing the collapse that Mr. Assad mentioned in a speech last month. Others say he has far less time.

While Mr. Assad suggested the Constitution would be rewritten — a groundbreaking step, had it occurred four months ago — activists, and even those sympathetic to the government, see the much-touted national dialogue as an empty exercise.

“The situation is too far now from dialogue,” said Nabil Samman, director of the Center of Research and Documentation in Damascus. “The state can do something now, but if it doesn’t and if it doesn’t do it in the next week or so, I’m very pessimistic.”

Hwaida Saad and Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Beirut, and an employee of The New York Times from Damascus.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Baltimore Nonviolence Center

Saturday, July 16, 2011