Syria torn between armed and peaceful struggle

ANALYSIS:SYRIAN OPPOSITION activists, determined to regain the initiative from rebel groups unsuccessfully battling the army, have called for demonstrations today to commemorate the first anniversary of the revolt against the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

But it may be too late for protesters to resume their people-power campaign modelled on the peaceful mass-action Egyptian uprising. Since late last year, the Syrian revolt has been taken over by armed rebels seeking to replicate the Libyan model by drawing outside powers into the struggle to topple the regime by force.

The regime has fought back on a no-holds-barred basis. And so far, the international community has exhibited little appetite for direct involvement in another Middle Eastern war.

While Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait favour providing the rebels with arms and money – and are already doing so – it is feared that militarisation will simply prolong Syria’s agony and could destabilise neighbouring Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan.

The rise of the rebels and marginalisation of popular protests in Syria was inevitable because from the outset that country’s revolt was very different from the uprising in Egypt.

While there were small, scattered protests in Syria during January and February last year, these were inspired by local grievances and not organised by internet-connected activists with a common goal, as was the case in Egypt.

The initial Egyptian event was an organised popular rally against the regime; the spark that ignited protests across Syria was, again, a local grievance: the detention and abuse of 15 teenagers in the southern city of Deraa. They had inscribed on walls the stirring and provocative slogan of the Egyptian uprising: “As-Shaab/ Yoreed/ Eskaat el-nizam!” (The people/ want/ the end of the regime!).

Demonstrations in Syria never reached the critical mass of those fuelling the uprising in Egypt. Thousands of Syrians took part, but their rallies did not attract the hundreds of thousands of protesters who participated in Egypt – totalling 11 million out of a population of 85 million.

Residents of Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s main cities, did not join the protests, while in Egypt people in all the major cities took part. Cairo’s Tahrir Square became a global icon of protest.

The protests in Syria had little leadership. From the outset, they were infiltrated by violent elements and were soon dominated by Sunni Muslim fundamentalists viewed with suspicion by secularists and minority Christians, Alawites, Druze and Kurds.

The managers of the Egyptian uprising were secular, liberal, educated young men and women who kept protests peaceful and won the support of people from all backgrounds and opinions.

Muslim Brothers and puritan Salafis took part in demonstrations but were not dominant. There was no armed component of the uprising.

In Syria the revolt has been largely fuelled by resentment felt by the urban and rural poor against the regime rich who became richer after the government shifted from a social to a “social market” economy in 2005. This was not the case in Egypt, where the poorest sections of the population did not take part in the protests.

The Syrian revolt has gone on for 12 months; the Egyptian uprising lasted 18 days. The Syrian army and security forces remain loyal to Assad. While several colonels and brigadiers have deserted, most defectors come from the ranks.

Egypt’s military, fearing defections from middle-level officers and conscripts, staged a coup against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The uprising also resolved a dilemma the Egyptian military command faced: the proposed appointment of Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son, as his successor, a move even loyal generals resisted. The Syrian succession is not an issue.

Suffering has not dissuaded the authorities from cracking down hard in either country. The UN puts the death toll in Syria at 8,000 civilians. In Egypt 846 were killed in 18 days, 47 people a day. If the uprising had continued for a year, the toll could well have been more than 17,000.

So far, neither protests nor rebel warfare has brought down the Syrian regime and it seems the struggle for Syria will continue for some months, taking more lives and wreaking increasing destruction unless UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan brings an end to the violence.

His aim is to commit both government and rebels to a simultaneous ceasefire, install monitors to oversee it, ensure the delivery of humanitarian supplies to those in need, and initiate negotiations that will end the political stand-off between the regime and the deeply divided opposition-cum-rebels.