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Syria ANTI-REGIME OPPOSITION MOVEMENTS
Opposition movements to the Syrian government in the 1980s
were based on ideological, ethnic, or religious motives. However,
because of the interrelationships in Syria between ideology and
sectarian questions, distinctions among the reasons for dissent
were often blurred.
Ideologically Based Opposition Movements
Although the Syrian government has frequently blamed Iraqi
agents for many breaches of internal security, several other
groups also were real or potential threats to Syrian political
stability. In 1987 Syria's armed forces constituted the greatest
potential threat to the regime, if only because they had been the
kingmakers in every change of government since 1949. By early
1987, however, Assad had not been seriously challenged by the
military in his sixteen years in power. This situation can be
attributed to effective intelligence agents within the officer
corps and to Assad's genuine popularity with the military. Assad
is popular because, like Assad, most of the top army officers
have been Alawis. Also, tremendous attention has been devoted to
building the armed forces, which are well paid. Nevertheless,
amid mounting tensions with Iraq, in 1975 there were reports that
200 military and civilian members of the Syrian Baath Party had
been arrested and charged with plotting against the government.
The Syrian Communist Party (SCP), with a membership of about
5,000, was the largest communist organization in Syria. Although
banned in 1981 when a campaign of arrests was ordered against
supporters of its veteran leader, Secretary General Khalid
Bakdash, it was reported in 1986 that as a concession to Syria's
Soviet ally, the SCP was restored to favor and had rejoined the
ruling National Progressive Front
(see The Syrian Communist Party
, ch. 4).
Until its banning in the late 1970s, the Communist Party
Political Bureau (CPPB) was one of the main ideological
opposition groups in Syria. Created in 1974 as a result of a
split within the legal SCP, the CPPB provoked the ire of the
Assad regime by protesting against Syria's intervention on behalf
of the Christian Phalangists in the Lebanese civil war. In 1987
CPPB First Secretary Riad at Turk (imprisoned without trial since
October 1980) and about 150 party members continued to be
confined in Al Mezze military prison in Damascus. Nevertheless,
CPPB remained a threat to the regime and throughout the late
1970s and early 1980s At Turk's sympathizers staged numerous
terrorist attacks against Syrian targets. CPPB also published
several pamphlets condemning the Baath regime and printed its own
newspaper, Ar Rayah al Hamrah (The Red Banner).
In the 1980s there were additional communist groups in Syria,
although they were officially banned and many of their members
held in detention. These groups included the Party for Communist
Action (PCA), with about 100 party members still in detention in
1985. In 1980, the Base Organization was formed by Yusuf Murad, a
former member of the SCP Central Committee. The Union for
Communist Struggle, formed in May 1980, was another opposition
group. Its seven members were arrested and three of them
continued to be detained through 1985. In 1983 a communist
organization called the "Popular Committees" took root among
Syria's Palestinian refugees. In July 1986, a third division
occurred within the SCP when Central Committee members Ibrahim
Bakri and Umar as Sibai split off over the Palestinian issue and
created a new "Central Committee." In mid-1986, as an unknown
terrorist group was detonating bombs in public places, the
government cracked down on the proliferating and expanding
communist opposition movements in Syria and arrested about 1,000
suspected activists.
Data as of April 1987
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