Syria ends co-operation with US

Despite this, it's a failing of Bush...

Syria crackdown seen as reflection of US pressure
Published: 5/24/2005

BEIRUT - The Syrian authorities arrested eight members of the country's sole tolerated political forum in a dawn crackdown on dissidents Tuesday amid tense US pressure and opposition calls for reform.

Participants in the Al-Atassi Forum for National Dialogue were taken from their homes in security force raids, human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni told AFP.

Among those detained were the forum's president Suhair al-Atassi and journalist Hussein al-Awadat, who previously headed the official SANA news agency and served as an advisor in the prime minister's office, Bunni said.

The forum was one of a number set up in a brief political honeymoon after President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his iron-fisted father Hafez in 2000 promising democratic reforms.

It was the only one still operating amid an intensifying crackdown by the authorities.

Awadat is a former member of the ruling Baath party who had made increasingly strident calls for reform in recent weeks. He urged unity among the country's "democratic forces" and pressed the regime "to change its domestic and foreign policies".

The arrests came two weeks before the Baath party's first congress in five years at which Assad has promised the reform process will take a "great leap forward".

Preparations for the June 6-9 meeting have triggered a heated debate between the party old guard and reformers about the pace of change.

A Western diplomat based in Damascus told AFP he was not surprised by the latest arrests and said he saw "a link between this clampdown and US pressures on Syria".

"The regime is tense because it feels under siege," the diplomat said.

"As a result, all those likely to create problems for the regime are under close scrutiny," he added, alluding to Kurdish and Islamist groups that have long posed the biggest challenge to the regime.

US officials have recently turned the heat on Damascus over its alleged interference in neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Friday that Syria was "out of step" and "should not think itself immune from the way that the region is going."

The same day US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said that Syria's troop pullout from Lebanon last month was not enough and demanded that it also stop backing the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

"The Americans are letting off steam on Syria because of their failure in Iraq," an Arab diplomat told AFP.

Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Moustapha, told the New York Times Tuesday that the administration had decided "to escalate the situation with Syria" despite steps taken against insurgents in Iraq and its withdrawal from Lebanon.

He said that as a result, Damascus was ending the coordination with US officials it had agreed last year.

In separate hearings on May 15 and May 22, Syria's state security court jailed four Kurdish activists and jailed two more amid what the leader of the banned Yakiti party, Hassen Saleh, said was a renewed crackdown on the Kurdish minority nearly a year after deadly clashes with the security forces.

A Syrian official told AFP that the eight had been detained because they had "used the forum to disseminate the ideas of the Muslim Brotherood," outlawed on pain of death here since 1980.

The Islamist group led an uprising in the 1980s which remains the biggest challenge to date to the Baath party's 42-year grip on power.

A group of 34 students was detained for three months earlier this year on suspicion of Islamist activity in the Mediterranean port of Latakia.


05/24/2005 17:12 GMT