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Syrien trauert:
Präsident Assad ist tot
Hafez Assad, Syriens autokratischer Präsident, der sein Leben lang von der
arabischen Einheit gegen Israel träumte, starb gestern. Der Präsident
war schon seit längerem von Krankheit gezeichnet und starb schliesslich
an einem Herzleiden.
Das Parlament unternahm bereits den ersten Schritt, um Assads 34-jährigem Sohn
Bashar, die Nachfolge zu ermöglichen. Es genehmigte eine Gesetzesänderung, die
das Mindestalter des Präsidenten von 40 auf 34 Jahre heruntersetzt. Bashar nahm
erst in letzter Zeit eine offiziellere Stellung in Assads Politik ein.
Die syrische Bevölkerung ist geschockt von dem Tod Assads. Viele hielten ihn
bereits für unsterblich und dachten nicht daran, jemals einen anderen
Präsidenten zu erleben. Bashar wird das charismatische Loch, das sein Vater
hinterlässt wohl nur schwer ausfüllen können.
Israel reagierte als erstes Land auf die Nachricht von Assads Tod.
Premierminister Barak äusserte sein Verständnis für die Trauer des syrischen
Volkes und betonte, daß man auch in Zukunft am Frieden mit Syrien arbeiten
wolle. Gleichzeitig wurden jedoch die Streitkräfte in erhöhte Bereitschaft
gesetzt, da Israel durch das Machtvakuum unruhige Zeiten fürchtet. Trotz einiger
Manöver der syrischen Armee in der letzten Nacht, werden jedoch die Truppen an
der libanesischen Grenze und im Golan nicht verstärkt.
An der Beerdigung nächsten Dienstag wird die amerikanische Aussenministerin
Madeleine Albright für die USA teilnehmen. Präsident Clinton lehnte es ab, der
Beerdigung beizuwohnen, da sich Assad geweigert hatte, ein Friedensabkommen mit
Israel einzugehen und Syrien ausserdem auf der Liste der Staaten stehe, die
Terrorismus unterstützen.
Ein Kommentar von Uri Avnery /
11.6.00
The Death of the Lion
Like Rabin, Ehud Barak is a man of logic. And, like Rabin, he lacks
political intuition. Unlike Clinton, unlike Begin.
Immediately after the death of Assad, he could have appeared live on
television, paid his respects to a great opponent, in spite of
differences of opinion and conveyed his good wishes to his successor.
That would not have cost him anything, even in domestic terms, and would
have been a good investment for the future.
Instead, some blurred message was published in the name of "a source in
the Prime Minister's office", as if it concerned another tiresome
quarrel between Shass and Meretz.
Even Shimon Peres, who holds the patent of the "New Middle East", missed
the opportunity. In a TV interview, he denounced the dead president and
showered him with criticism. Suddenly he forgot that he is now an
International Statesman and turned into another shallow TV commentator.
Like most of the other commentators, he lacks elementary knowledge of
Syrian affairs. (After all these years, he mispronounces the name of
Assad," "lion" in Arabic, calling him Assaad.)
The basic problem of Syria is its divisiveness. Ancient enmities exist
between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north, as well as
between the other towns, who are separated from each other by wide,
nearly empty spaces. Religion is splitting the nation between Sunnis,
Alawites (perhaps Muslims, perhaps not), Druses, Greek-Orthodox and
others. The Syrians know that they need an authoritative leader to hold
the lot together.
The Bible tells us that the Israelites, at the time a loose federation of
tribes, decided to have a king. Because of the animosity between the
larger tribes, they chose a man from the smallest family of the smallest
tribe: Saul. The Syrians chose a man from a remote village belonging to
a small minority: Assad. He preserved the unity of Syria with great
success and brutality. Now they hope that his son, too, will succeed in
this task, if by less brutal means..
Syria is torn between a glorious past and a pitiful present. In the past,
al-Sham (Greater Syria) was the dominant factor in the Arab world. The
dream of a Great Syria influences its policy even today, in spite of the
pan-Arab ideology of the ruling Ba'ath party. In Syrian eyes, Lebanon is
not abroad, but a part of Syria torn from it by foreign colonial
masters. The same goes for Palestine - and therefore Assad never forgave
Arafat, who had the impertinence of refusing Syrian guardianship and
orders. All Palestinian leaders, including Arafat, have seen Syrian
prisons from the inside.
Unlike divided Syria, which - after years of political anarchy preferred a
unifying dictatorship, divided Lebanon always hovers on the brink of
civil war. Except some unrealistic intellectuals, all Lebanese know that
if the Syrian army would leave Lebanon, the traditional mutual massacre
would start all over again. Therefore, Lebanon will remain a Syrian
protektorat.
One of our blubbering politicians, beloved by television, said that if
Barak had made peace with Assad, the agreement would now have been torn
to pieces. That is utter nonsense. Mubarrak upholds the peace of Sadat,
Abdallah upholds the peace of Hussein, Muhammad of Morocco upholds the
relationship created by his father Hassan. If Assad Sr. had signed a
peace agreement, it would have been easy for Assad Jr. to implement it.
Now this will be difficult to achieve. Because of the grotesque quarrel
about ten meters on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, a historic
opportunity has been missed - much to the delight of the Golan settlers.
The competition between Assad and Arafat, strong opponents of equal age,
has now come to an end, and likewise the competition between the "Syrian
track" and the "Palestinian track". Arafat has been freed from the
threat of the "refusal organizations", some of them terrorist, who were
used by Assad in order to prevent Arafat from making peace before him.
Arafat can act now for purely Palestinian interests. This is an
opportunity for Barak to make an honorable peace with the Palestinians.
If he persists in his efforts to dictate impossible terms, he will miss
this one, too.
Please remember: After the death of the Lion of Damascus, Yasser Arafat is
now the senior statesman in the Arab world and the whole region. He was
already a leader of world-wide standing when Bashar al-Assad was born.
His word will carry now additional weight in all Arab councils.
haGalil onLine 11-06-2000 |