Thursday, February 24, 2005
Times Online: Syria elite seeks Lebanon pullout
The letter, addressed to the Lebanese opposition, said: “We support your demand for the withdrawal of the Syrian Army from Lebanon and in correcting the Syrian-Lebanese relationship.”
Syria deals harshly with political dissent. The intellectuals who signed the letter criticising their Government risk being jailed.
Syrian national pride has been stung by widespread accusations that Damascus was responsible for the assassination last week of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese Prime Minister, in a bomb blast in Beirut. Bassel Fleyhan, a former minister, was wounded in the attack.
Mr Hariri’s death has spurred an outpouring of anti-Syrian anger in Lebanon. A dormitory for Syrians in north Lebanon was burnt down last week and mobs in Hariri’s home town of Sidon have attacked Syrian workers.
Thousands of Syrian labourers have fled in the past week, fearing further reprisals.
The Syrian activists’ letter said: “We are extremely pained and angry to see and hear that some Lebanese are insulting Syria and its people without (it) being guilty, and attacking hapless Syrian workers, who are seeking a living in Lebanon.”
As many as one million Syrians work in Lebanon, mainly in construction and street cleaning, their earnings giving Syria’s cash-starved economy a significant boost.
Michel Kilo, a Syrian human rights activist and one of the letter’s signatories, said Syria had to change its policies towards Lebanon. “You have the international community against Syria. The Lebanese are no longer with Syria. The Syrians are feeling scared and isolated,” he told The Times.
More than 100 Syrian journalists rallied in Damascus yesterday to denounce the Hariri murder. The rally “reflects the sadness of the man in the street in Syria after the misfortune which has struck our two brotherly countries”, Saber Falhout, head of the Syrian General Union of Journalists, said...
This rare open display of dissent provides the United States, and such Western states as will take it, a rare and important oportunity. Taking a page from the Sharansky school, we should be keeping an eye on how the signatories of these protests are treated and tie our treatment of the Syrian Regime not just to their ties to international terror - ties that almost always have a covert angle to them - but to how they treat this open dissent in their own country. That is the way to effect change without dropping bombs. By their act, these dissidents provide us with a hook to grab on to and pull.
