Assad tries to clean up his regime

Press, 20 July 1984, Page 13

Assad tries to clean up his regime

PATRICK SEALE

President Assad of Syria is engaged in a major — and hazardous — clean- up of his regime, starting with his power base, the Army. He has sent abroad, into temporary or permanent exile, a clutch of top military commanders whose squabbling earlier this year threatened to engulf his regime in civil war. They include his own brother, Dr Rifaat al-Assad, commander of the anti-putsch Defence Brigades, as well as Rifaat’s bitter rivals, General Ali Haydar, head of the Special Forces, another elite strike unit, and General Shafiq Fayyadh, who commands the Third Armoured Division. Troops from these different units confronted each other in battle order in the capital at the end of February and again at the end of March, only standing down after the' President’s personal intervention. Syria then was on the edge of catastrophe. The purge bears all the

hallmarks of Assad’s ruthless yet subtle style. On May 28, the rivals, along with some 60 other officers and officials, were put on a plane for Moscow, ostensibly for major talks with the Soviet leaders. Rifaat al Assad was received by President Chernenko and Prime , Minister Tikhonov. But it has now become clear that the trip was no more than a cover for disciplinary action against the trouble-makers. Whereas officials such as the Foreign Minister, Faruq al-Sharaa, returned home once the talks were over, the principal Army commanders did not. Rifaat and his supporters are in Geneva, while Generals Haydar and Fayyadh cool their heels in Sofia, Bulgaria. Just when these contestants for power will be permitted to return to Damascus is unclear. Moscow evidently co-operated with Assad in this unusual use of diplomacy. Russia has an interest in seeing the Syrian President’s authority unchaUenged and the

Syrian Army, rid of factions, operating as a unified and obedient force. Syria is Russia’s most valued Middle East ally. Assad’s shake-up goes beyond a rap on the knuckles of factious officers. Reports from Damascus suggest that he has ordered a severe clamp-down on smuggling, an activity in which many an Army fortune has been made. Goods from Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan have for long found their way through doubtful channels to be sold openly on the Syrian market.

A village outside Damascus called Madaya became a sort of smugglers’ “free trade zone,” its warehouses and shops stuffed with illicit products. Mcdaya has now

been closed down and some of the more prominent traffickers arrested. One warehouse was found to contain ?5.4 million worth of duty-free oriental carpets. Two smugglers caught unawares by the new severity recently died in a shoot-out with police on the Lebanese border. Military transfers and postings, which will have the effect of stripping some Army chiefs of their supporters and therefore their power, are imminent. A parallel reshuffle in the administration and the higher ranks of the Ba’th Party is expected to follow, and to be endorsed at the party’s Congress in September. Changes underway in the regime are already so far-reaching that

observers speak of Assad’s “Second Corrective Movement” — the first being his seizure of power from the Left in November, 1970, and his realignment of Syrian policies at that time. The present crisis opened when Assad suffered a heart attack last November. Contending groups jostled for power, to the intense displeasure of the stricken president. We are now witnessing the reassertion of his authority. This is inevitably a moment of peril, as the powerful men he is disciplining may well seek to hang on to the privileges and positions they have accumulated. The problem Assad has had to face is that over the years powerful senior officers have carved out baronies for themselves within the armed forces with interests extending far beyond the military sphere into politics, influence-peddling and commerce. They were enabled to build up personal fiefs by the nature of a system composed of a proliferation

of special forces, each holding the other in check, was well as numerous intelligence and security organisations. It is the President’s reported intention to restructure the Army as a cohesive fighting force and to simplify and rationalise the security services. His brother’s Defence Brigades, a force over 30,000 strong with an estimated 400 tanks, have already been severely cut down and large numbers of men transferred to the regular Army. This year President Assad secured a major political victory by forcing the cancellation of Lebanon’s accord with Israel which he saw as a deadly threat to Syria. He managed to hold Israeli and American power in check. Now he is attempting to put his own house in order in anticipation of the political battles ahead, not just over Lebanon but perhaps over the wider issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict.— (Copyright London Observer Service.)