Hama massacre (1982)
The Hama massacre (1982) (Arabic: مجزرة حماة, مُجَزَرَت حمَا) took place in Syria on February 2, 1982, when the Syrian army and the "Defense Forces", under the orders of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and under the command of his younger brother Rifaat al-Assad, attacked the city of Hama and massacred thousands of Sunni Syrian civilians, in order to prevent an attempted coup against the dictatorial government in the country. In a matter of days, government warplanes destroyed most of the city, opening the way for ground troops. Hafez Assad’s brother, Rifaat, led the artillery unit that shelled the city and killed thousands, earning him the nickname the “Butcher of Hama.”[1]
The city was surrounded by over 12,000 government forces, cutting off electricity, phones, and laying siege for 27 days, Hama was bombed indiscriminately to allow infantry and tanks to enter relatively easily, destroying most of the old city. Each day soldiers entered a new neighbourhood, they began by killing and arresting randomly. Torture and mass executions of any suspected sympathisers to the MB resulted the deaths of thousands within a very short period. Over 100,000 were arrested. 15,000 went missing. 75% of Hama was destroyed, with 63 mosques and 4 churches.
The human rights organization Amnesty International estimated that the number of people killed in the massacre ranged from 10,000 to 25,000 people, however the Syrian Organization for Human Rights estimated that about 40,000 people were killed in the massacre.[2]
Contents
Background
In the early 1980s, Syria was deeply involved in the Lebanese Civil War that began in 1976. Problems also arose from Turkey, which moved its forces to the Syrian border to deal with the Kurdish rebellion in the region. The Turkish government accused Syria of supporting and training Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels in Turkey itself. The Muslim Brotherhood movement in Syria took advantage of the chaos that ensued and began an uprising against the rule of Hafez al-Assad. The Muslim Brotherhood carried out guerrilla and terrorist operations in several cities, attacking officers, government officials, and infrastructure. Violence against the regime included the killing of 83 Syrian army cadets at an artillery school in Aleppo in June 1979, and three car bombings in Damascus between August and November 1980, killing hundreds.
In July 1980, the penalty for belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood was set at death, with the approval of Law No. 49. During the early 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood carried out several bomb attacks against government buildings and its members.
Legacy
The massacre created resentment that fanned the flames of another uprising against Hafez Assad’s son years later.[1] At the toppling of the Assad torturous[3] regime Dec 2024, capture of the city was seen as symbolic, after some 700,000 dead in the Arab on Arab genocide since 2011.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 El Deeb, Sarah (Dec 6, 2024).Why the rebel capture of Syria’s Hama, a city with a dark history, matters. AP.
- ↑ Summary of Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem. (2024). United Kingdom: Milkyway Media. Echos of Hama
- ↑ (Mar 19, 2017). 700,000 documents highlight appalling tortures in Assad’s prisons. SyrianHR. "A new documentary film shed light on hundreds of thousands of documents and evidence that exposes widespread torture and murder of Syrian detainees by Bashar al Assad’s regime."
- ↑ (15 Jun 2020). Syria war: Assad under pressure as economic crisis spirals. BBC. — "The US estimates that something like 700,000 people have been killed and that 90% of the survivors inside Syria live in poverty."
