Syria's role as a regional spoiler goes back to the 1970s, when Hafez Assad took power in a military coup. The elder Assad perfected the art of shifting alliances, stirring up trouble and keeping his enemies mired in costly battles, as he did with Israel during its occupation of south Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. When the younger Assad first rose to power, many dismissed him as incapable of playing the regional game as well as his father. But over the past seven years Bashar Assad has honed his skills -- and withstood international pressure and isolation.
"He showed that he could outlast all the leaders who were trying to bring him down: Blair, Chirac, Bush," says a Syrian analyst and writer who spent more than 10 years in prison during the elder Assad's rule. "They did their best to bring him down, but they failed. So he grew more confident and authoritarian."
When Assad became president in 2000, he promised change. There was a short period of openness, known as the "Damascus Spring." The freedoms gained were small: modest gatherings in people's homes to discuss democracy and reform; writings and speeches critical of corruption and government failures (although never directly critical of Assad or his family); gatherings of small civil society groups, not licensed by the government, that focused on human rights and women's issues. But most of these meager freedoms have been rolled back since 2001.
The crackdown continues, and has included activists, lawyers and writers who once thought that they were safe on account of their high profiles or connections to the West. But the United States and Europe couldn't -- or wouldn't -- protect them. A week after the Rice-Moallem meeting, a Syrian court sentenced Kamal Labwani, a physician and leader of a pro-democracy group, to 12 years in prison for "contacting a foreign country" and "encouraging attacks against Syria." In November 2005, Labwani was arrested at Damascus Airport after returning from Washington, where he had met with Bush officials. His sentence, handed down on May 10, is the harshest imposed on a dissident since Assad came to power. Labwani's case was meant to send a message to opposition members: Don't deal with the United States or Europe.
In recent weeks, five other activists have been convicted and sentenced. On April 24, Anwar al-Bunni, a human rights lawyer who had criticized torture in Syrian prisons, was slapped with a five-year prison sentence on charges of contacting a foreign country and "spreading false news" that could "weaken national morale." Al-Bunni was among 500 Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals who signed the "Beirut-Damascus Declaration," which urged Syria to improve its relations with Lebanon. On May 14, Michel Kilo, another signatory and one of Syria's most prominent writers and democracy campaigners, was sentenced to three years in prison for "spreading false news" and "inciting sectarian sentiments." Three other activists who had also signed the declaration were sentenced to prison.
The U.S. and several European governments have called on Assad to stop persecuting dissidents and to release political prisoners. But to many in the Syrian opposition, the West's protestations ring hollow. "Assad's regime knows the Bush administration doesn't really care about democracy and civil society in Syria. They are using it as a pressure tactic to further U.S. policy interests," says the dissident writer imprisoned for more than a decade. "We know this, and the regime knows it."
Despite the danger, a few Syrians are still willing to speak out openly against the regime. Haitham Maleh, the septuagenarian dissident lawyer, works out of an office in a rundown Ottoman building in downtown Damascus. Despite being lined with flower-print couches, the greeting room is depressing, with fluorescent lights and a ceiling fan that makes a whirring sound like an engine. On one wall hangs a certificate presented to Maleh last year by the Dutch foreign minister: the Geuzen Medal, named after the 16th-century Dutch dissidents who fought against Spanish domination. Maleh couldn't attend the ceremony -- the regime has banned him from traveling -- but he hands out reproductions of the certificate on a postcard bearing his motto, "Together for Freedom and Legitimacy."
When I visited, he was hosting two Egyptian human rights activists who had come to Damascus to monitor the trials of Syrian dissidents. At the end of the meeting, they asked to have a picture taken with Maleh, who obliged happily.
"In our meetings with Syrian colleagues, everyone introduces themselves with their name, where they're from, and how many years they spent in prison," joked one of the Egyptian visitors. "We're beginning to wonder if any of you have not been to prison." Maleh smiled behind his thick glasses and shook his head: He spent seven years in prison during Hafez Assad's reign.
"It is not possible for a dictatorship to reform itself. This is a dream," Maleh told me after the Egyptians left, his hands fluttering as he talked. He knew that his words could be crossing one of the constantly shifting "red lines" of the regime, so he added mischievously, "The worst thing about me is my mouth. I can't shut up!"
Maleh doesn't have much hope for the future. "I don't think we are ready for a change. The opposition is weak, the regime is strong and the regional situation is working in its favor. Most of the potential opposition leaders have been killed or forced into exile," he said. And along with them, so has hope for democratic reform or progress.
About the writer
Mohamad Bazzi has been the Middle East bureau chief for Newsday since 2003.
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