The wall of silence is cracking. "Deraa is Syria," "We sacrifice ourselves for Deraa," "God, Syria, and freedom is everything" ... The slogans continue to resonate in Dera in the region Harouan (South) where the dispute appears to show no signs of weakness despite the violent repression of the Syrian authorities that killed more than 100 deaths in one week.
Believing themselves immune from any challenge, the regime in Damascus is seen now faced with the uprising of youth galvanized by the revolutionary wave that swept the Arab world. March 18, protesters defied the military and much feared secret services (the "Mukhabarat") by setting fire to public buildings Deraa, city yet acquired the ruling Baath Party.Since then the movement has spread to Hama, Damascus, Latakia, Banias or Hassakeh. A month ago, yet the head of state Bashar al-Assad assured in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that his country is guarded against any form of rebellion. "We're out of it, certified it by speaking of the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt. The Syrians do not rebel. It's a matter of ideology." A sealed system to challenge ideology Actually, people had resigned to decades of silence imposed an iron hand by the Baath party in power since 1963 which has made Syria one of States most of the locked region."The Syrian system does not accept the challenge, said Thursday on France Info radio waves Gilles Kepel, head of the chair Middle East-Mediterranean Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Paris. It has to one side a president who is young, friendly, loves to talk with intellectuals and academics, and, on the other, the resilience of a system of power inherited from the father [Hafez al-Assad] is absolutely ruthless. " The last Syrian rebellion began in 1982 in Hama, the fourth largest city. The then president, Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, had ordered the army to crush the uprising, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 dead.During the 1980s, nearly 70,000 people were missing. Since the establishment of a state of emergency in 1963, protests are banned, intellectuals and political opponents routinely jailed. Nearly 4,500 political prisoners are currently in Syrian jails, according to the Foundation for Defense of Human Rights in Syria. "Young people are expecting a 180 degree turn" Faced with pressure from the street, President Al-Assad, who has not yet announced publicly, was shown on Thursday, more inclined to make concessions.Through the voice of his advisor Boussaïna Shaaban, the strong man of Damascus announced consider canceling the state of emergency and set up mechanisms "effective" to fight against corruption. Inadequate gestures of openness, according Ajlani Mohammed, director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Paris and an expert on Syria. "Youth has waited too long, says he told FRANCE 24. She wanted the president to go further, faster in the reforms, he dismisses all the caciques who enriched themselves at the time of his father. It has been ten years since the public expects.Young people were expecting a 180 degree turn. "Arrived at the head of the country to the death of his father in 2000, Bashar al-Assad succeeded in imposing on the nomenklatura political-military importance of economic reforms, opening up Syria the market economy. But this rapid liberalization has mainly had the effect of widening social inequalities and enhancing the close of the al-Assad. Syria has "not yet slipped into the red zone," said Mohammed Ajlani, but time is short. "If al-Assad is taking bold economic and social decisions, a way out of crisis then offer himself to him who will go through compromise and negotiation.If the power of new represses any movement in the blood, it will not work much longer. "