Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

fundamentalism, was a long-term opponent of Syria’s secular Baathist state. At the
beginning of 1982, it had an estimated population of about three hundred thousand people.
At the time, relations between the city and the government of President Hafiz al-Asad
(1930–2000) were poor. The religious opponents of Asad, the Muslim Brotherhood,
directed by charismatic leader Abu Bakr, found themselves besieged by government forces
in Hama in February 1982. Bakr gave the order for his forces to break out of the city, thus
giving way to a general uprising and jihad (holy war) against Asad’s rule. Muslim
Brotherhood forces held the city for about ten days, during which time they killed the
governor and several hundred other city officials. Twelve thousand government troops
assaulted Brethren strongholds with artillery and tanks; helicopters attacked the city, conducting
sweeps and placing soldiers in strategic areas. Hama was shelled for three consecutive
weeks, destroying much of the city. Upon their entry into what was left of the city,
government troops then engaged in an orgy of pillage. Up to thirty thousand townsfolk,
representing one-tenth of the population, were killed in the campaign. The central issues
were twofold: first, to strengthen Asad’s rule in a region known for its opposition; and second,
to remove the Sunni fundamentalist influence over Syrian life. The government saw
that Hama would have to be a last-ditch battle for the future of the country, in which only
one side could win. Moreover, as the major supporters of the government were from the
minority Alawite sect (a breakaway sect from Shiism, known for their own rigidly
doctrinaire approach to Islam), the struggle also assumed the form of an internal religious
faction fight for dominance. Given this, it could be said that a case of genocide could be
made, under the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide, for what transpired in Hama on the grounds of Asad’s determination to
destroy Hama’s population for religious reasons, though it was as much a political struggle,
or even a rivalry between urban and rural lifestyles, that got out of hand. Hama
became a symbol throughout the Middle East for brutal repression by the modern state,
and, in serving as an object lesson, it coerced the Muslim Brotherhood and gave the
secular state a new lease on life in Syria.
Hamidian Massacres. A series of major massacres committed by the Ottoman government
under the direction of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842–1918; reigned 1876–1909)
against the Armenian community of the Ottoman Empire between 1894 and 1896. The
massacres were perpetrated in mid-1894 in the region of Sasun, in southern Armenia;
they spread throughout 1895 and showed that the Sultan’s government had intensified
the nature of anti-Armenian persecution in a dramatic way. The main explanation for the
massacres lay in the Sultan’s desire to staunch the growth of Armenian nationalism and
any calls for reform that could give the Armenians a greater say in imperial affairs. The
massacres were thus genocidal in effect (particularly in certain regions of Armenia), but
were not genocidal in intent—the preference being to intimidate and terrorize the
Armenian population rather than destroy it. Estimates of those killed range widely, from
anywhere between one hundred thousand and three hundred thousand, with tens of
thousands more maimed or homeless. Most of those killed were men; the killings took
place in open areas, in full sight of the community. Vast numbers of Armenians fled the
country, and thousands of others were forcibly converted to Islam. In view of the ferocity
of the massacres, Abdul Hamid II was nicknamed the “Red Sultan,” or “Bloody Abdul,”
and the massacres were named for him as a way of distinguishing these actions from the
later (and much more extensive) genocide of 1915–1923.
HAMIDIAN MASSACRES
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