The Assad Family's Darkest Moment

The Hama City Atrocity and the World's Indifference

The Syrian people are exuberant about the end of the Bashar al-Assad regime. But there is one atrocity by this notorious family that has been described as “one of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world.”

That is the 1982 encirclement, starvation and mass execution of the residents of the Syrian city of Hama. This atrocity was committed by Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad.

Last Friday, residents of Hama tore down the statue of Hafez al-Assad while the city fell to rebels. While much of the world just saw it as another Syrian city falling, its significance to the people of Hama was immense.

To this day, the name Hama stirs trepidation and rage among the country’s citizens. And it should be listed among one of the al-Assad family’s worst crimes while the deposed leader now apparently enjoys refuge in Russia.

Certainly, the al-Assad dictatorial family is notorious for carrying out many atrocities. In 2011 it’s estimated Bashar killed 500,000 and displaced half of the country’s 23 million. He also is believed to have killed as many as 1,400 by nerve gas in 2013.

But of all the family’s cruel acts, one of the most barbaric took place in Hama, Syria’s fourth largest city.

In 1982, Hafez was furious that dissent had been roiling his country. Various groups throughout the country were fighting his dictatorial Baath Party. He decided to set an example that would terrify the rest of the country. He chose Hama, which was one of several Syrian cities beset by rebels.

Hafez then used mass starvation and later extermination against Hama’s residents. Human rights groups conclude that the family committed outright murder of 40,000 citizens over a 27-day period. After the assault, another 17,000 were ruled “missing.”

The assault on Hama certainly was a family affair. Rifaat al-Assad, Hafez’s brother and Bashar’s uncle, led the encirclement of the city as the military commander. Rifaat celebrated the fact he was widely known as “the Butcher of Hama.”

Turkiye Today reported, “The Hama massacre in 1982 stands as one of the most horrific episodes of state violence in modern history, which claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people in a short span of time”

Naharnet, one of Lebanon’s leading news organizations stated the Hama eradication “was one of the darkest moments in the modern history of the Arab world.”

Mass starvation and imposed isolation were some of the weapons used against the city’s residents. According to Dana M. Moss, a professor at the University of Notre Dame who is an expert on authoritarian regimes, “Prior to the start of operations, Hafez al-Assad issued orders to seal off Hama from the outside world; effectively imposing a media blackout, total shut down of communications, electricity and food supplies to the city for months. “

As the Syrian Network for Human Rights stated during the 40^th anniversary of the massacre in 2022, “Syrian regime forces began with massive and indiscriminate preliminary bombardment of many neighborhoods using cannons and machine guns; after this, large numbers of troops stormed the city from several axes, and carried out field executions and random killings, as well as dozens of other violations involving looting and sexual violence.”

Then, for 27 consecutive days the Assad regime bombed the city including house-to-house assaults by some of Rifaat’s most vicious troops on unarmed men, women and children. Torture and sexual assault was commonplace.

Tellingly, the United Nation’s has been totally silent about the massacre. At the time of the mass killings, there were no Secretary General public statements of condemnation, no General Assembly votes and no Security Council hearings. Just silence.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights denounced the silence from the UN, declaring, “the United Nations’ shameful indifference to the massacre is an insult to the victims, helping to extend its traumatic impact.”

Fadel Abdul Ghany, Director of the human rights group said the indifference from the international community “is a genuine and damning embodiment of the culture of total impunity, and it is shameful that there is not even one UN document documenting the massacre and demanding that the fate of tens of thousands of victims be revealed and the perpetrators held accountable.”

Hafez, like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, were part of the brutal Baath party in the 1980’s. As the New Indian Express put it, “Hafez al-Assad, head of the Syrian Baath Party, imposed in the country a secretive, paranoid regime where even the slightest suspicion of dissent could land one in jail or worse.” https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2024/Dec/08/syrias-assad-the-president-who-led-a-bloody-crackdown

In 2011 the al-Assad government again deployed the Syrian Army into Hama to control anti-al-Assad protests on the eve of Ramadan. Some observers believed that Bashar wouldn’t launch an attack given the notorious assault launched by his father. But they did. The army’s shootings were called the "Ramadan Massacre. At least 100 in Hama.

The Washington Post contemporaneously reported on the attack, stating, “army troops led by tanks launched an assault on the city of 800,000 from four directions, firing cannon and machine guns indiscriminately at the unarmed residents manning street barricades. Video clips posted on YouTube showed the tanks blasting at the minarets of mosques in a city known for its Sunni conservatism, while snipers picked off people on the streets.”

To further the indignities against the people of Hama and underline the world’s indifference, in 2022 Bashar invited his Uncle Rifaat to rejoin his government. The Biden administration and the UN again remained silent.

According to France24, it was only Switzerland’s Attorney General who raised an objection to the Rifaat appointment, saying in 2022 he “was charging Rifaat al-Assad with "ordering homicides, acts of torture, cruel treatments and illegal detentions".

His alleged the al-Assad relative with "war crimes and crimes against humanity." The Attorney General said Rifaat committed these war crimes "in his capacity as commander of the defense brigades... and commander of operations in Hama", France 24 reported.

The al-Assad family are Alawites, an offshoot of the Shiite Muslim religion. Hence, the al-Assad family identified with and allied itself with the Iranian regime’s Mullahs. His fall has international repercussions for Iran and its “Axis of Resistance.”

In many ways al-Assad massacre in Hama mimicked the Nazi’s encirclement, starvation and then assault on the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, Poland during World War II.

For modern-day killings, the Hama massacre resembles the well-known barbarities in Rwanda, Darfur and of the Rohingyas in Myanmar. Yet no one knows about Hama.

For months, He starved his people and then launched a military assault against them.

The tragedy not only decimated the city of Hama but also left an indelible scar on Syria’s collective memory.

Will the world recognize the al-Assad family’s terror? Given the international community’s indifference, it’s quite unlikely.