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IRAQ: Syria Battles with the Reality of Regime Change
By Ferry Biedermann
DAMASCUS, Apr 12 (IPS) - Syria does not want to be confronted with the
reality of regime change in neighbouring Iraq. Officials now speak of the
country as "occupied" and call for an immediate U.S. withdrawal.
State television has still not shown the toppling of the statues of
Saddam Hussein. It gave the conflict unprecedented near round the clock
coverage until the day U.S. tanks entered the centre of Baghdad. Then the
news programmes were abruptly replaced by documentaries on Islamic art and
architecture.
The Syrian authorities have something to be worried about, other than the
removal of a fellow, albeit rival, Baath-party regime next door. The U.S.
Administration has been levelling a steady stream of accusations at Syria
during the conflict, not because of its vocal opposition to the war but
because of concrete support Damascus is said to provide to the enemies of
the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq.
The latest allegation came this week from U.S. Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld. He said he had, "scraps of intelligence saying that Syria has been
cooperative in facilitating the move of the people out of Iraq and into
Syria". The concern is that senior Iraqi government figures are making a
getaway through Syria.
This was denied by the Syrian government. "Nobody from the Iraqi
government has asked if they can cross," said the Foreign Ministry
spokesperson, Buthaina Shabaan. "They could not even come here if they
wanted to, the Americans are blocking the roads," she added.
On Friday, US forces were bombing the area of Iraq near Syrian border.
U.S. Central Command said it was to stop the movement of fleeing senior
Iraqis into Syria and the crossing of 'Arab volunteers' the other way into
Iraq.
Over the last couple of weeks, Damascus has become a hub for fighters who
cross into Iraq to fight the U.S. and British 'coalition' forces. Hundreds,
if not thousands, have already done so. Reports from Iraq indicate that much
of the fighting that is still going on in Iraq is against such volunteers.
Senior Western observers in Damascus fear that Syria is preparing to use
these fighters as an instrument to spoil U.S. and British plans for a
post-war Iraq. If that is the intention, these observers say, the government
is 'playing with fire'.
In the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp, in fact a neighbourhood of
Damascus, many a young man are still eager to join the fight, even though
the war mostly seems over. "If the situation requires it, the Jihad against
the Americans will continue," said Talal Hussein, a local representative of
the militant Hamas movement.
Yarmouk is starting to look eerily like the towns and refugee camps of
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with posters of the some 50 'martyrs' who
have thus far died in the fighting in Iraq adorning the walls of the narrow
alleyways and streets. In a comparably poor and religious nearby Syrian
neighbourhood, the number was ten on Friday.
Many young Palestinians are veterans who have trained in camps in Lebanon
to confront the Israelis. Issam Hejjo, for example, served with the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. He was one of the
first to volunteer after the war started, almost three weeks ago, and was
killed when his bus full of fighters came under American fire inside Iraq.
"We all admire Issam, we all want to be like him," said his friend
Mohammed Hassanein. He was still considering joining up himself. "It is
everybody's right to go and fight in the Jihad," he said.
The nature of the Iraqi regime was the least of his concerns. "It is none
of my business what Saddam Hussein does to his people. I would go to
confront the American invasion of Arab and Muslim land."
Such statements provoke furious responses in Iraqis who oppose Saddam
Hussein. In Sayyeda Zeinab, a mostly Shi'a Iraqi town just outside Damascus,
people howl with scorn when asked what they think about the volunteers.
"Where were the Arabs when Saddam killed us year after year," asked one
man. "Fight the Americans?" scoffed another, "so what if they take our oil?
Saddam took our freedom and our oil, maybe the Americans will at least leave
us our freedom."
Hamas representative Talal Hussein in the Yarmouk refugee camp has an
explanation for the Iraq position. "If the Iraqis asked us to stop fighting,
we wouldn't, because their request would be a result of American pressure.
No one would ask a fighter to stop a Jihad against an occupier," he says in
his office, full of posters of 'martyrs' who died in Israel and the
Palestinian territories.
Among many Syrians and Palestinians there is also a real anger at the
Iraqi regime, but not for its misdeeds over the last 30 years. Rather, they
feel disappointed that it did not put up more of a fight.
"If they show up at the border we will kill them," said one shop owner.
"They should stay and fight the Americans."
Talal Hussein expresses similar sentiments. "If what we are seeing on
television is true, then this is treason," he says angrily. "The least what
we expected from our Iraqi brethren is to resist like we resisted in Jenin."
(END/2003)
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