Syrian opposition leader says imperialism should not be pretext

BEIRUT - Alternative Staff

January/February 2006

PARIS: Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals and leftists should not succumb to the blackmail of Arab regimes and take their side under the pretext of facing the American or imperial attack on them, according to a Syrian old time activist.

Riad Turk, a Syrian communist leader, said during a session with activists from the Paris Group of the Democratic Left Movement (DLM) that confronting dictatorships was not "less important than the importance of protecting our homeland from occupation."

Turk has been a staunch opponent of the ruling Syrian Baath Party since the latter took power in the mid 1960s. He was detained in 1980 for 17 years and again in 2001 for a year. Syrians often describe him as Syria's Mandella, in reference to former South African leader Nelson Mandella whom the Apartheid regime imprisoned for decades before it released him in the early 1990s.

Turk added before the DLM group, which included Antoine Abdo, Bashir Hilal, Dima Younes, Mahmoud Harb, Nayla Akl, Ziad Majed and Pierre Akl, that the Lebanese battle of independence and the building of their democratic state would be good support in their confrontation with the threats of the Syrian regime and its terrorism.

"The price of freedom is expensive," Turk told his DLM audience. "The process of emancipation from the hegemony of the Syrian intelligence started with the martyrdom of Rafik Hariri and Bassel Fleihan and was carried on through the sacrifices of Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Gebran Tueni as well as the pains of Marwan Hamadeh and May Chidiac."

A string of bombings targeting Lebanese politicians started in November 2004 and led to the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, Beirut MP Bassel Fleihan, journalist and DLM founder Samir Kassir, leftist leader George Hawi and Beirut MP Gebran Tueni. The Syrian regime, through its intelligence, is believed to stand behind these attacks.

The process of emancipation from the domination of the Syrian regime over Lebanon, according to Turk, "should not be punctured by fear or obstructed by terrorism."

Commenting on the Syrian domestic situation, Turk said that the regime was in a state of decline, that its social base was shrinking and that it was trying to crack any deal it could get with the Americans through Egyptian, Russian and other mediators in order to maintain its power and carry on with "its confiscation of the Syrian society."

"The silent resistance of the Syrian society against authoritarianism is bigger and deeper than political resistance," said Turk. "I hope the opposition succeeds in unifying its rank and file and organizing itself in order to launch further initiatives similar to the Damascus Declaration," he added.

The Damascus Declaration for Democratic and National Change was signed in October 2005 by opposition groups in Damascus and Beirut. The alliance included most of the nation's secular parties as well as the Muslim Brotherhood. Opposition groups formed of Syria's Kurdish minority were not on board, however.

Turk called for "full cooperation" between the different opposition factions on the basis of national principles and democracy. "There is no need to fear the Muslim Brotherhood and there is no need to fall in the trap that the regime is trying to build and market by saying either us [the regime] or Muslim radicalism and in other instances either us or chaos," Turk said.

What is needed in Syria today, according to the veteran politician, was change in full swing and the correction of bilateral relations with Lebanon.