1999 Latakia protests
Encyclopedia
1999 Latakia protests were violent protests and armed clashes, which erupted in Latakia
Latakia
Latakia, or Latakiyah , is the principal port city of Syria, as well as the capital of the Latakia Governorate. In addition to serving as a port, the city is a manufacturing center for surrounding agricultural towns and villages...

, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 following 1998 People's Assembly's Elections. The violent events were an explosion of a long-running feud between Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...

 and his younger brother Rifaat
Rifaat al-Assad
Rifaat al-Assad is the younger brother of the former President of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, and the uncle of the current President Bashar al-Assad, all of whom come from the minority Alawite Muslim sect. He was born in the village of Qardaha, near Lattakia in western Syria. He is perhaps best known...

. Two people were killed in fire exchanges of Syrian police and Rifaat's supporters during police crack-down on Rifaat's port compound in Latakia. According to opposition sources, denied by the government, the protests resulted in hundreds of dead and injured.

Attempted 1984 coup d'etat

When Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...

 suffered from heart problems in 1983, he established a six-member committee to run the country. Rifaat was not included, whereas the council consisted entirely of close Sunni Muslim loyalists to Hafez. This caused unease in the Alawi
Alawi
The Alawis, also known as Alawites, Nusayris and Ansaris are a prominent mystical and syncretic religious group centred in Syria who are a branch of Shia Islam.-Etymology:...

-dominated officer corps, and several high-ranking officers began rallying around Rifaat, while others remained loyal to Hafez's instructions. Rifaat's troops, then numbering more than 55,000 with tanks, artillery, aircraft and helicopters, began asserting control over Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

, with a clear attempt to succeed his brother. Tensions between forces loyal to Hafez and those loyal to Rifaat were extreme, but by early 1984 Hafez had recovered and assumed full control, at which point most officers rallied around him. In what at first seemed a compromise, Rifaat was made vice-president with responsibility for security affairs, but this proved a wholly nominal post. Rifaat was then sent abroad on "an open-ended working visit". His closest supporters and others who had failed to prove their loyalty to Hafez were purged from the army and Baath Party
Baath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...

 in the years that followed. Rifaat was thereafter confined to exile in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. He nominally retained the post of vice president until 1998, when he was stripped even of this. He had retained a large business empire both in Syria and abroad, partly through his son Sumer.

1998 People's Assembly elections

Elections to the People's Assembly in Syria were held on 30 November and 1 December 1998, at which the NPF, led by the ruling Ba'ath party, won the majority of seats. On 11 February 1999 a national referendum verified the Assembly's decision to nominate President Assad for a fifth term in office. It was also speculated that Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria for 29 years until his death in 2000. Al-Assad was elected in 2000, re-elected in 2007, unopposed each time.- Early Life :...

 to be promoted to vice-presidency, after already acquiring colonel army rank in January that year. In June Syrian authorities undertook a campaign by Bashar to counter corruption in public office, which resulted in several officials and businessmen detained. In October, after a nine month trial, former Syrian intelligence service director got a lengthy prison sentence for alleged corruption and embezzlement of public funds.

Protests

In September large scale arrests by security forces of some 1,000 people in Damascus and Latakia aimed on supporters and relatives of Rifaat al-Assad
Rifaat al-Assad
Rifaat al-Assad is the younger brother of the former President of Syria, Hafez al-Assad, and the uncle of the current President Bashar al-Assad, all of whom come from the minority Alawite Muslim sect. He was born in the village of Qardaha, near Lattakia in western Syria. He is perhaps best known...

.
In October, subsequent closures of Rifaat's interests provoked several days of violent clushes between Rifaat's supporters and security forces. The official version was that Rifaat had ignored a series of decrees from the Syrian Transport Ministry, ordering a demolition of his 'jetty' and an accompanying complex that had been established on 11,410 sq. meters of public land.

When the police was sent to enforce the closure of the compound, they encountered small-arms fire and retreated. The security forces then attacked and occupied the port, resulting in two people killed. Opposition reports of those events, rejected by the Syrian Government, indicated that hundreds of people were killed of injured.

After the events, the Information Minister, Muhammad Salman, warned that if Rifaat returns to Syria he would face criminal charges. It was never explained why the 'illegal' port of Rifaat had been tolerated for four years (1995-1999), before the crack-down. The 1999 crackdown in Lattakia destroyed much of Rifaat's remaining business network in Syria; large numbers of Rifaat's supporters were arrested. This was seen as tied to the issue of succession, with Rifaat having begun to position himself to succeed the ailing Hafez
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...

, who in his turn sought to eliminate all potential competition for his designated successor, his son Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad
Bashar al-Assad is the President of Syria and Regional Secretary of the Ba'ath Party. His father Hafez al-Assad ruled Syria for 29 years until his death in 2000. Al-Assad was elected in 2000, re-elected in 2007, unopposed each time.- Early Life :...

.

Rifaat's reaction to Bashar's presidency succession

In France, Rifaat has loudly protested the succession of Bashar al-Assad to the post of president, claiming that he himself embodies the "only constitutional legality" (as vice president, alleging his dismissal was unconstitutional). He has made threatening remarks about planning to return to Syria at a time of his choosing to assume "his responsibilities and fulfill the will of the people", and that while he will rule benevolently and democratically, he will do so with "the power of the people and the army" behind him.

See also

  • Human rights in Syria
    Human rights in Syria
    Human rights in Syria have been described as "poor". Since 1963, emergency rule has remained in effect which gives security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention....

  • Hama massacre
    Hama massacre
    The Hama massacre occurred in February 1982, when the Syrian army, under the orders of the president of Syria Hafez al-Assad, conducted a scorched earth policy against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against the regime of al-Assad...

  • 2011 Syrian protests
  • List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
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