Once again there is horror on the Syrian coast. The fighting began on Thursday, in the new government’s telling, after a broad uprising was launched by remnants of the old regime and allied militias. In a coordinated series of moves along Syria’s coastal areas and inland, dozens of checkpoints and bases of the new authorities were attacked all at once. Some coastal towns were set ablaze.
Overexcited commentators said this was the revenge of Bashar al-Assad, that a counter-revolution was in full swing, and that a new civil war, this time with a different outcome, was beginning.
The Syrian coast has a significant Alawi population — the sect from which much of the old regime, and the Assad family, hail. For years the Alawi have feared a massacre if the regime fell. Many young men from the coast used to be part of the old regime’s armed forces. When the old armies collapsed without a fight, they were sent home.
They have stewed for months; bored and without leadership. It is not a surprise, sources tell me, that men like this — disenchanted and fed constant stories about retribution — decided to fight the country’s new rulers. They will have received support and coordination from abroad — from Iran, many Syrians say. From Israel, others claim, but that’s not proven.
Upon hearing of the fighting, other Syrian groups of every stripe raced to the coast. Some forces loyal to the new government tried to establish control. Many former rebel groups which are closer in type to organised criminals, most of them Syrian National Army (SNA), also arrived. Pickup trucks filled with randomly assembled armed men — men with no commanders, no orders, nothing but a desire for violence and revenge — piled in.
Armed groups fought armed groups. Much of the uprising was defeated, with its surviving elements retreating into the mountains.
But what will last longer in the memory is far worse: the massacre of civilians. Armed men reportedly roamed coastal towns, collecting men and in some cases women and children, bringing them out into the streets, before shooting them in public. Much of this seems to have been filmed or photographed. In Syria, the footage is impossible to escape. It was reportedly worst in the town of Baniyas, where widespread revenge killings took place.
On Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that at least 745 civilians had been killed, many of them shot at close range, as well as over a hundred fighters affiliated with the transitional government and up to 150 militants who sought to challenge the new status quo.
This is a monstrous and barbarous event, akin to some of the civil war’s worst massacres. Without law and order, civil wars don’t just end. They bleed on and out, into the events that follow. Violence of this kind is dangerous: it threatens the country’s very survival.
The new powers that be in Damascus cannot allow this violence to continue and to spread. They face a dual challenge. Remnants of the old regime, and new militias formed in the coastal areas, threaten peace. And there is widespread lawlessness among groups and people theoretically loyal to the new government — who are willing to go house to house, street by street, and to attack people who carry no arms, but who are considered ethnic or religious enemies.
Partisans of the new government claim that orders from Damascus and security forces prevented a further massacre, and that the units who allegedly committed ‘violations’ are under arrest and will be investigated. This is not good enough. The state through its incompetence and its lack of preparation (and possibly acquiescence) let this happen and must stand responsible. It did not disarm the most violent, thuggish former rebel groups fast enough. Many hundreds of thousands of guns are still in private hands. An inferno can only be prevented if the central government establishes order, disarms its rivals and holds the ring.
Syria can only remain whole and at peace if order and tranquillity reign – if people across the country do not feel at risk of violence. Only then will they give up their own weapons.
Only then will already skittish European countries — who care not whether Syria is rich or poor, a success or a failure — consider dropping sanctions. Relief from sanctions is vital for reconstruction. Without it, Syria will likely remain poor and hopeless, and violent.
True peace must mean civic peace, and civic peace requires a monopoly of violence. Now many groups across the country, Kurds in the north and east, Druze in the south, will hold their weapons all the tighter. They will seek foreign patrons, who have their own reasons for destabilising Syria, keeping it divided and in a state of constant war. The events of this week have set Syria’s pursuit of peace and reconstruction back who knows how far. It is a national tragedy, and more than a tragedy, it is a crime.
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