Marching in Hama

Anthony Shadid has an article in The New York Times about Syria:

In what may mark a decisive turn in nearly four months of unrest, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the central city of Hama for what activists called the country’s biggest demonstration so far, returning the city that bore the brunt of a ferocious government crackdown a generation ago to the forefront of rebellion.
Estimates of the crowd were difficult to verify, and activists have sometimes exaggerated the turnout in protests challenging more than four decades of rule by the Assad family. But the scenes of protesters pouring into a central square in the city, captured by activists and circulated on the Internet and Arab satellite channels, seemed to signal a new stage in an uprising that has so far only aspired to rival the mass protests that ousted authoritarian leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.
“Leave! Leave!” protesters chanted to a hip-hop beat.
After weeks of protests and crackdown, the uprising in Syria appears to have taken a compelling, if ambiguous turn. Diplomats speak of a stalemate, as neither protesters nor officials seem capable of mustering the strength to end the struggle on their terms. But new dynamics have emerged, as the opposition gathered in a rare meeting in Damascus this week, government officials have promised reform and protesters, in Hama in particular, have demonstrated a resilience that may prove impossible to break.
“It’s a challenge,” said a nurse and activist in the city, who gave his name as Abu Abdo. “Hama is swelling the tide of protests for the rest of Syria.” The military and security forces withdrew last month from the city, where a government crackdown in 1982 made its name synonymous with the brutality of the Syrian leadership. Since then, protests have gathered momentum. Each night, youths have converged on Aasi Square, which they have renamed Freedom Square. On successive Fridays, crowds have grown bigger, surpassing ten thousand last week, diplomats say.
Friday’s scenes were even more festive; one resident compared it to a carnival. Speakers climbed on cars and delivered speeches, slogans, and songs, they said. Others distributed water, falafel sandwiches, and bananas to the crowds on a hot summer day. “We didn’t even see a policeman,” said a 35-year-old opposition leader there who gave his first name as Mazen. “If the government pulls out all its security men from the streets on Friday, I can say that all cities will have as big demonstrations as Hama.”
Residents said protesters joined the rally Friday from the countryside, unimpeded by checkpoints that had existed only weeks before. In Hama itself, even the traffic policemen were gone. They said that after the rally, protesters picked up trash and cleaned the square, a scene redolent of Tahrir Square in Cairo in February, where demonstrators spoke of a new notion of citizenship as an old authoritarian order crumbled.
“The numbers are so intense in Hama,” said Omar Idlibi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, which have sought to represent the protesters.
Diplomats, activists, and Syrian officials have differed on the government’s strategy in Hama: whether the departure points to a government attempt to avoid casualties or to a military and security forces that are exhausted and overstretched. Syrian officials have pointed to Hama as evidence that one of the region’s most repressive governments can tolerate peaceful dissent, and suggested it is part of a new government approach to embrace what a Syrian diplomat called “much-needed reform”.
“In the city of Hama, people have been demonstrating in public places for two weeks without any incident, because they expressed their political viewpoints peacefully,” Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, wrote in a letter this week to the Syrian-American community that was circulated by email.
Residents there, though, have spoken in more jubilant terms, celebrating the departure of the military and security forces as a victory. Though the military and security forces have withdrawn from other towns and cities only to return in force, the size of the crowds Friday suggested that a renewed crackdown could only come at a very high cost. Hama carries symbolic significance, too: in the culmination of a struggle between an armed Islamist opposition and the government in 1982, the military stormed Hama, the country’s fourth-largest city, killing ten thousand people or more.
“The regime showed more restraint there because of the sensitivities and the symbolism of Hama,” said Peter Harling, a Damascus-based analyst with the International Crisis Group. “There was a desire on the part of the regime to contain this.”
While officials have ceded territory to the protesters, their administration appears to still function in Hama; a pro-government rally was organized there last month. But the psychological impact of a security apparatus that vanished in days has reverberated through a predominantly Sunni Muslim city still scarred by the events of 1982. “Oh, youth of Damascus,” went a chant shouted this week by youthful protesters in Aasi Square, “we’re in Hama and we’ve toppled the regime.”
“This regime doesn’t want to create a problem in Hama,” said Omar al-Habbal, a 57-year-old civil engineer there. “They don’t want to blow up an explosive situation.”
Large crowds were also reported in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, from which the military withdrew to the outskirts last month. The military and security forces have also withdrawn from Abu Kamal, on the Iraqi border, and some Damascus suburbs. “As soon as the security forces pull out, the protests increase,” Mr. Idlibi said.
Syrian state television broadcast images of pro-government rallies in Damascus and Aleppo and, despite the scenes in Hama, the government still draws on substantial support, particularly among minorities, the middle class, and the business elite.
As in past weeks, violence erupted in several locales across the country, though the death toll was lower than past weeks. In Homs, a city to the south of Hama that has emerged as a nexus of the uprising. Mr. Idlibi said security forces killed three people, and residents said the military deployed armored vehicles into some neighborhoods. “You took our loaf of bread,” a resident there quoted protesters as chanting. “When we asked for it back, you fired at us instead.” Others shouted, “Leave!”
Syrian state television said that armed men in Homs fired on crowds and security forces, killing a civilian and a policeman. It also reported that armed men cut the road in a Damascus suburb and that in an exchange of fire with the gunmen, a civilian was killed. It was almost impossible to reconcile the discrepancy in the different accounts.
Throughout the uprising, the Syrian government has blamed most of the deaths on an armed uprising, and, indeed, diplomats have said there is evidence of armed opponents across Syria. But those diplomats and the protesters themselves contend that a clear majority of the demonstrations have remained peaceful and largely spontaneous.
Mr. Idlibi said security forces also killed three people in Idlib, a restive province in northwestern Syria, two in the capital’s suburbs and one in Latakia, on the coast.

Rico says remember when Latakia was known for tobacco?