1982 Hama massacre

1982 Hama massacre
The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982 when the Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies, under orders of president Hafez al-Assad, besieged the town of Hama for 27 days in order to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood against the Ba'athist government. The campaign that had begun in 1976 by Sunni Muslim groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, was brutally crushed in an anti-Sunni massacre at Hama, carried out by the Syrian Arab Army and Alawite militias under commanding General Rifaat al-Assad.
Prior to the start of operations, Hafez al-Assad issued orders to seal off Hama from the outside world; effectively imposing a media blackout, total shut down of communications, electricity and food supplies to the city for months. Initial diplomatic reports from Western countries stated that 1,000 were killed. Subsequent estimates vary, with the lower estimates reporting at least 10,000 deaths, while others put the number at 20,000 (Robert Fisk) or 40,000 (Syrian Human Rights Committee and SNHR). The massacre remains the "single deadliest act" of violence perpetrated by an Arab state upon its own population, in the history of Modern Middle East.
Nearly two-thirds of the city was destroyed in the Ba'athist military operation. Robert Fisk, who was present at Hama during the events of massacre, reported that indiscriminate bombing had razed much of the city to the ground and vast majority of the victims were civilians. Patrick Seale, reporting in The Globe and Mail, described the operation as a "two-week orgy of killing, destruction and looting" which destroyed the city and killed a minimum of 25,000 inhabitants.
The attack has been described as a "genocidal massacre" which was motivated by sectarian animosities against the Sunni community of Hama. Memory of the massacre remains an important aspect of Syrian culture and evokes strong emotions amongst Syrians to the present day.
Background
The Ba'ath Party of Syria, which advocates Ba'athism, the ideologies of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism had clashed with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group which advocates a Sunni Islamist ideology, since 1940. The two groups were opposed in important ways. The Ba'ath party was nominally secular, nationalist. The Muslim Brotherhood, like other Islamist groups, saw nationalism as un-Islamic and religion as inseparable from politics and government. Most Ba'ath party members were from humble, obscure backgrounds and favored radical economic policies, while Sunni Muslims had dominated the souqs and landed power of Syria, and tended to view government intervention in the economy as threatening. Not all Sunni notables believed in fundamentalism, but even those who did not often saw the Brotherhood as a useful tool against the Ba'ath.
The town of Hama in particular was a "stronghold of landed conservatism and of the Muslim Brothers," and "had long been a redoubtable opponent of the Ba'athist state." The first full-scale clash between the two occurred shortly after the 1963 coup, in which the Ba'ath party first gained power in Syria. In April 1964 riots broke out in Hama, where Muslim insurgents put up "roadblocks, stockpiled food and weapons, ransacked wine shops." After an Ismaili Ba'ath militiaman was killed, riots intensified and rebels attacked "every vestige" of the Ba'ath party in Hama. Tanks were brought in to crush the rebellion and 70 members of the Muslim Brotherhood died, with many others wounded or captured, and still more disappearing underground.
After the clashes in Hama, the situation periodically erupted into clashes between the government and various Islamic sections. However, a more serious challenge occurred after the Syrian invasion of Lebanon in 1976. In October 1980, Muhammad al-Bayanuni, a respected member of the religious hierarchy of Aleppo, became the Islamic Front's Secretary-General, but its leading light remained 'Adnan Sa'd al-Din, the General Supervisor of the Muslim Brothers. The chief ideologue of the Islamic Front was a prominent religious scholar from Hama, Sa'id Hawwa, who along with Sa'd al-Din had been a leader of the northern militants during the mid-1970s. Anti-regime activists such as Marwan Hadid and Muhammad al-Hamid were also carefully listened to.
From 1976 to 1982, Sunni Islamists fought the Ba'ath Party-controlled government of Syria in what has been called a "long campaign of terror". In 1979 the Brotherhood undertook guerrilla activities in multiple cities within the country targeting military officers and government officials. The resulting government repression included abusive tactics, torture, mass arrests, and a number of selective assassinations, particularly of prominent mosque preachers. In July 1980, the ratification of Law No. 49 made membership in the Muslim Brotherhood a capital offense.
Throughout the first years of the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood and various other Islamist factions staged hit-and-run and bomb attacks against the government and its officials, including a nearly successful attempt to assassinate President Hafez al-Assad on 26 June 1980, during an official state reception for the president of Mali. When a machine-gun salvo missed him, al-Assad allegedly ran to kick a hand grenade aside, and his bodyguard (who survived and was later promoted to a much higher position) smothered the explosion of another one. Surviving with only light injuries, al-Assad's revenge was swift and merciless: only hours later a large number of imprisoned Islamists (reports say from 600 to 1000 prisoners) were executed in their cells in Tadmor Prison (near Palmyra), by units loyal to the President's brother Rifaat al-Assad.
In an earlier massacre in 1981, over 300 residents of Hama were killed by the Baathist security forces.
Attack by insurgents in Hama
The events of the Hama massacre began at 2 am on 2 February 1982. An army unit searching the old city "stumbled on the hideout of the local guerilla commander, Omar Jawwad (aka Abu Bakr) and were ambushed. Other insurgent cells were alerted by radio and "roof-top snipers killed perhaps a score" of Syrian soldiers. Reinforcements were rushed to besiege Abu Bakr who then "gave the order for a general uprising" in Hama. Mosque loudspeakers used for the call to prayer called for jihad against the Ba'ath, and hundreds of Islamic insurgents rose to attack the homes of government officials and Baath Party leaders, overrun police posts and ransack armouries. By daybreak of the morning of 2 February, some 70 leading Ba'athists had been killed and the Islamist insurgents and other opposition activists proclaimed Hama a "liberated city", urging Syrians to rise up against the "infidel".
Counter-attack by government forces
According to author Patrick Seale, "every party worker, every paratrooper sent to Hama knew that this time Islamic militancy had to be torn out of the city, whatever the cost." The military was mobilized, and president Hafez al-Assad sent Rifaat's special forces (the Defense companies), elite army units and Mukhabarat agents to the city. Before the attack, the Syrian government called for the city's surrender and warned that anyone remaining in the city would be considered a rebel. Hama was besieged by 12,000 troops for three weeks – the first week spent "in regaining control of the town," and the last two "in hunting down the insurgents." Robert Fisk, a journalist who was in Hama midway through the battle, described civilians fleeing pervasive destruction.
According to Amnesty International, the Syrian military bombed the old city center from the air to facilitate the entry of infantry and tanks through the narrow streets; buildings were demolished by tanks during the first four days of fighting. Large parts of the old city were destroyed. There were also unsubstantiated reports of use of hydrogen cyanide by the government forces.
Rifaat's forces ringed the city with artillery, shelled it, then combed the rubble for surviving Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters. Suspecting that rebels were still hiding in tunnels under the old city, he had diesel fuel pumped into them and stationed tanks at their entrances to shell fleeing militants. Alawite military units loyal to Rifaat al-Assad such as the Defense Companies entered the city and indiscriminately massacred thousands of Sunni civilian survivors.
The indiscriminate bombardment by government forces razed much of city's districts, streets, heritage sites, mosques and churches. The Azm palace was severely damaged. Baathist paramilitaries continued looting for weeks and numerous families were rounded up and shot. Baathist dissident Akram al-Hawrani asserted that women, children and all Hama inhabitants irrespective of their political leanings were targeted indiscriminately during the regime onslaught. Even Ba'ath party members, according to Hawrani, were victims of the "savage slaughter" ordered by Hafez al-Assad.
Estimates of fatalities
Initial diplomatic reports from western governments in 1982 had stated that 1,000 were killed in the fighting. Subsequent estimates of casualties varied from 10,000 to 40,000 people killed, including about 1,000 soldiers. Robert Fisk, who was in Hama shortly after the massacre, originally estimated fatalities at 10,000, but has since doubled the estimate to 20,000. Syrian general and brother to the president Rifaat al-Assad reportedly boasted of killing 38,000 people. Amnesty International initially estimated the death toll was between 10,000 and 25,000.
Reports by Syrian Human Rights Committee claimed "over 25,000" or between 30,000 and 40,000 people were killed.
Twenty years later, Syrian journalist Subhi Hadidi, wrote that forces "under the command of General Ali Haydar, besieged the city for 27 days, bombarding it with heavy artillery and tank [fire], before invading it and killing 30,000 or 40,000 of the city's citizens – in addition to the 15,000 missing who have not been found to this day, and the 100,000 expelled." Report published by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) on the 40th anniversary of the Hama massacre estimates that around 40,000 inhabitants were killed in the massacre; in addition to about 17,000 civilians who were disappeared and have not been found as of the present day.
Aftermath
Around two-thirds of the city was completely demolished in the military operations during the massacre. After the Hama massacre, the Islamic revolution was crushed, and since then, the Brotherhood has operated in exile and other opposition factions either surrendered or slipped into hiding. Government attitudes in Syria hardened considerably during the uprising, and Assad would rely more on repression than he would rely on political tactics during the remainder of his rule, although an economic liberalization program was launched in the 1990s.
After the massacre, the already evident disarray in the insurgents' ranks increased, and the rebel factions experienced acrimonious internal splits. Particularly damaging to their cause was the deterrent effect of the massacre, as well as the realization that no Sunni uprisings had occurred in the rest of the country in support of the Hama rebels. Most of the members of the rebel groups either fled from the country or remained in exile, mainly in Iran, while others made their way to the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. The Muslim Brotherhood—the largest opposition group—split into two factions, after giving up on armed struggle. One faction, more moderate than the other faction and recognized by the international Muslim Brotherhood, eventually headquartered itself in the UK, where it remains today, while the less moderate faction headquartered itself in Iran and retained a military structure for several years, with backing from the Iranian government, before it rejoined the London-based mainstream.
Internationally, the Hama massacre became a symbol of the al-Assad government's human rights violations as well as a symbol of its brutal repression. Within Syria, mention of the massacre has been strictly suppressed, but the general contours of the events—and various partisan versions, on all sides—are well known throughout the country. When the massacre is publicly referenced, it is only referenced as the "events" or it is referenced as the "incident" at Hama. In 2012, Professor Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch characterized the Hama massacre as a 'genocidal massacre', and he also stated that its methods could prompt the regime to pursue future mass killings during the Syrian Civil War (which was just beginning at the time).
Memory of the Hama Massacre has become an important aspect of Syrian culture and on an emotional level, it has evoked a strong feeling of resentment amongst Syrians to the present day. During the Syrian Revolution in 2011, older Syrians frequently warned younger activists about the Assad regime's determination to "do Hama again", i.e., its willingness to exterminate hundreds of thousands of civilians in order to ensure its survival. The satirical slogan "Asad 'alayya wa fi-l-huriibi na'iimah (Against me a lion and in the wars an ostrich...)" became popular amongst Syrian dissidents for Hafez al-Assad's comparatively muted response to Israeli invasion of Lebanon the same year.
Lawsuits
In December 2013, human rights organization "Trial International" filed a criminal lawsuit against Rifaat al-Assad over his role as commander of Defense Brigades that organized the ground campaign of the massacre. Charges in the war-crimes lawsuit included organizing extrajudicial killings, large-scale torture, sexual violence, mass-rapes, summary executions and forced disappearances.
A criminal investigation was launched by the Swizz Office of the Attorney General the same year. Almost a decade later in August 2023, the Federal Criminal Court ordered the extradition of Rifa'at al-Assad, prompting Switzerland to issue an arrest warrant to prosecute him.
See also
2004 al-Qamishli riots
Counterinsurgency
History of Syria, Baath Party rule under Hafez al-Assad
Human rights in Syria
List of massacres in Syria
List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
Siege of Hama (2011)
Siege of Homs
References
Notes
Bibliography
Benkorich, Nora; 16 Feb. 2012, Trente ans après, retour sur la tragédie de Hama
Benjamin, Daniel; Steven Simon. 2002. The Age of Sacred Terror. Random House.
Global Politician.com. 2006 May 23. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.
Human Rights Watch. 2010 July 16. A wasted decade. V. Legacy of enforced disappearances. Report on human rights in Syria.
Syrian Human Rights Committee. 2006 Massacre of Hama (February 1982) Genocide and a crime against Humanity.
Syrian Human Rights Committee. 2005 (Arabic) The Massacre of Hama: Law Enforcement Requires Accountability.
United States of America. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. Background note: Syria.
Further reading
Kathrin Nina Wiedl: The Hama Massacre – reasons, supporters of the rebellion, consequences. München 2007, .
More Detailed Account of the actual Hama Massacre and Killings
Islamist uprising in Syria
Conflicts in 1982
1982 in Syria
Anti-Sunni massacres
Terrorism committed by Syria
History of Hama
Massacres in 1982
Massacres in Syria
Political repression in Syria
February 1982 events in Asia
Massacres committed by Syria
Genocidal massacres
Genocides in Asia