Last week U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford visited Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city. Demonstrations in Hama against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime have been growing for weeks amid larger protests that have gripped the country since March of this year.
Hama has a significant place in the modern history of the Middle East. It was there in February 1982 that the regime of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, crushed an antigovernment insurgency with artillery, tanks, and mass executions. As many as 30,000 civilians are believed to have been killed.
Ford’s visit to Hama, along with the French Ambassador Eric Chevallier, was clearly meant to signal solidarity with demonstrators exercising political speech, and to warn the regime against a repeat of the 1982 crackdown. A video showed that “protesters holding olive branches tossed roses onto the American ambassador’s car in Hama’s central Aasi Square.”
Access the full story >>
