STAKES IN THE SYRIAN INTERVENTION eby MAJIDA SALMAN® With the new Syrian military intervention in Lebanon, the civil war that has raged without interruption since March 1976 has again begun to shake the entire Arab world, Since altruism has never been a distinguishing characteristic of the policy of bourgeois states, it is clear enough that what is really involved in the efforts of various states to intervene in Lebanon - from the Syrian invasion to Giscard's "offer" of French troops, to the "green helmets" of the "peace-keeping" force of the Arab League - is the overall Arab and international dimension of the conflict. The sudden military interest in the Lebanese civil war on the part of the imperialist powers and the bourgeois Arab regimes (from the most blatantly reactionary, like Saudi Arabia, to the most demagogic, like Iraq and Libya) indicates that
the confessional aspect of the conflict (see INPRECOR, No.47/48, April 1, 1976) was only the outward appearance of a war that in reality raises the problem of the future of the Arab East as a whole. The international relationship of forces in the region, the maintenance of the well-being of imperialist capital, and the stability of the existing Arab regimes, especially that of the Boath party in Syria, are some of the questions that are posed. Syrian maneuvers and the first intervention It was around the Lebanese presidential election, held May 8, 1976, that the new initiatives prepared by the Syrians came to the fore. Since the clear military failure of the Christian right in Lebanon, the Syrian regime had become the most credible ally of Washington and the force most interested in restoring "order" in Lebanon - an "order" that would break and wipe out the military gains of the Palestinians and the Lebanese left and at the same time would move toward the strangulation of the armed Palestinian resistance, a job that had proved difficult to carry out in Lebanon. Elias Saricis, who "won" the election, was the candidate of the Christian right, U.S. Imperialism, and the Syrian Baathists. The decision of the Damascus regime to back Sarkis is not difficult to explain. He is one of the most unpopular personalities in the country; once designated president of a thoroughly destroyed Lebanese state all of whose institutions are broken up, he would be able to fulfill his functions only by calling upon a Syrian intervention, or at least by facilitating the exercise of Syrian influence in Lebanon, Moreover, Sarkis is the favorite of the most influential officers of the Lebanese secret service during the Chehab regime, and he is thus in the best position to reactivate the old Chehabist secret police, the discredited officers of which had sought asylum in Syria (where they underwent "refresher courses") after the Franjieh government came to power. The Syrian regime thus counted on being paid back for its hospitality and hence brought all its weight to bear to get its candidate elected. Raymond Eddé, a reactionary Christian leader who had adopted a moderate position during the war, was the candidate who opposed Sarkis. Although known for his hostility to the Palestinian presence and activity in Lebanon and favorable to repression against the Palestinians, Eddé was nonetheless the candidate supported by the Lebanese Communist party and the leadership of the Palestinian resistance, both of which frequently exhibit short memories. By greasing the palms of the parliament members on the one hand and by threatening them on the other, the Syrians succeeded in getting Sarkis elected president by the Chamber of Deputies, which has been totally paralyzed throughout the civil war. At first, the Lebanese left and the Palestinian resistance had been firmly opposed to the holding of these elections, which were imposed by the Syrian regime. But Yassir Arafat, who traveled to Damascus a few days before the date set for the elections and held long talks with Syrian President Hafez el-Assad, agreed to the election of Sarkis in exchange for a promise from the Syrian leaders not to interfere militarily against the Palestinians in Lebanon. The effect of this agreement was to reduce opposition to the elections considerably. Sarkis was elected thanks to the passivity of the Palestinians and their ally, the Army of Arab Lebanon, a passivity that had been demanded of them by the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Arafat, sure of the inability of any new Lebanese regime to "tame" the armed Palestinian camps, taken in by the promises of Assad, and, above all, little concerned about the problems of the masses and the Lebanese left, fell into the Syrian trap. The Syrians, of course, declined to keep their promises. Having scored some points on the internal Lebanese field, they prepared to execute the second stage of the plan: the definitive strangulation of the Palestinian resistance. The central position occupied by Lebanon in the framework of the "peaceful solution" to the Arab-Israeli conflict derives from the impact and effective military strength of the Palestinians concentrated there. The determination of the Syrian Baathist regime now being evidenced is the result not of a simple desire to gain a tight grip on the politics of a neighboring country, but rather of the extent to which the Syrian regime wants to achieve an overall settlement in the Arab East. The Syrians are well aware of the fact that the key to this "peace" lies in Lebanon, center of the Palestinian component of this Syro-American sponsored peace, Strengthened by their increased influence in Lebanon since the cease-fire of January 1976, the Syrians concluded an agreement with American imperialism: The Syrians would restore "order" in Lebanon, wiping out the victories of the Palestinian resistance and crushing its effective freedom of action. In return, the Americans would exert pressure on their Zionist ally in order to draw the Israeli state into a solution based on the establishment of a Palestinian mini-state in a federal Jordanian-Syrian-Palestinian framework, a mini-state subject to Syro-Jordanian domination. For this solution to be credible, it was necessary for the Syrians to demonstrate their ability to fulfill the requirements demanded by American imperialism. The first Syrian military intervention in Lebanon, initiated in April 1976, came in response to the U.S. exigencies. It was aimed at choking the resistance and at weakening the Lebanese left, against which the attacks were openly directed. The first Syrian failure On April 12 some 2,000 Syrian soldiers crossed the Lebanese border, rushing to the rescue of the militarily hard-pressed Christian right. Three days later, the Syrians were compelled to halt their advance because of the resistance they had met. Nevertheless, the troops remained in Lebanon, contrary to the Assad-Arafat
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LEBANON agreement, even after the presidential election on
May 8. The victim, as usual, of his own opportunist concessions to the bourgeois Arab regimes, Arafat realized that he had been tricked. A few days after the elections, the Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese left launched a successful military offensive against the Syrians and the Christian right. The determination of the Palestinian and Lebanese masses was decisive in this battle; it went far beyond the expectations of either the Palestinian and Lebanese leaders or the Syrian attackers. Bolstered by their military victories and by the scope taken on by the mobilization of the Palestinian
Arab masses within the Israeli borders and in the occupied territories, the Palestinion leodership was not prepared to make important concessions that would damage their own interests. They saw no reason to give in to Syria and accept the imposition in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon of the same conditions that prevail in the camps in Syria, where the resistance has no freedom of action. Hence, the Syrians resigned themselves to reconsidering their plan of attack. At the some time, the internal situation in Syria itself, which had become increasingly delicate for the Assad regime (in no small part because of the Lebanese crisis), was to become more and more important in the following stages of the "Lebanese" conflict. The internal Syrian crisis The military dictatorship established in 1970 as the result of a coup that brought the right wing of the Boath party (led by Assad) to power in Syria was not compelled to immediately confront serious problems that could have endangered its stability. The ferocious repression and the efficient action of the secret police triumphed over the "leff" wing of the Baath, led by Salah Jedid, who was ousted by the Assad coup. The Nasserite opposition, which was less dangerous, was eliminated through its assimilation into the coalition established by the new Baathist regime just after its victory. This coalition 28
Included the ruling Boath, the small Nasserite organizations, and the Syrian Communist party. The latter, whose influence in Syria is not negligible, renounced its opposition status in order to participate in a coalition in which the Baath is the leading force. The realIty was, however, that the Baath governed alone, the CP remaining on the scene only to applaud all the regime's initiatives and to curb any possible revolt against the regime, which was granted a "progressive" cover by this formal coalition. The civil war in Lebanon, however, with all its potential for generating major upsets throughout the region, has put an end to the apparent stability of the Syrian government and has laid bare the contradictions of a regime whose roftenness was already far advanced. The social malaise in Syria is a product of several factors, among them the economic changes and crises accompanied by the "liberalization" introduced by Assod SYRIAN UNIT PAUSES HORTLY AFTER CROSSING INTO LEBANON and the focilities accorded the bourgeoisie in the private sector, whose influence is increasingly manifest. This mounting bourgeois influence pressures Syria to seek a stable peace in the Arab East at the price of great concessions to israel, a situation that is viewed with bitterness by the Syrian masses, among whom anti-imperialist and Arab nationalist conceptions are deeply rooted. While the public sector has not yet been profoundly eroded, it is nonetheless true that the bourgeoisie in the private sector has enjoyed full prosperity ever since Assod opened the Syrian market to foreign investment. The resulting economic crisis borders on disaster. The rise in the cost of living appears limitless, the prices of some basic food products having increased fivefold during the past two years. The dangerous economic and social crisis is exacerbated by confessional gangrene. The regime is dominated by members of the Allouite Islamic sect (about 10 percent of the Syrian population), Assad among them. The Sunnis (adherents of "orthodox" Islam), who constitute the majority of the population,
have been the target of confessional agitation stimulated by far-right Sunni organizations.
All these latent contradictions were suddenly brought to the surface by the Lebanese crisis and the Syrian intervention.
The left opposition to the regime is essentially dominated by the partisans of Salah Jedid, while the Communist party continues to lend its support to the government, despite repression agoinst CP members. This opposition has important strength, even within the army and the Boath party itself, neither of which have been completely purged of supporters of the previous regime, but especially among students and Palestinian milieus. The scope of the potential opposition is indicated by the hundreds of arrests that have occurred during the past several weeks. The wing of the Baath party represented by Salah Jedid is now experiencing an important new rise in its influence among Syrian officers. Threatened by this situation, the Syrian authorities have but one powerful ally that can aid them in remaining in power: U.S. Imperialism. They will do everything possible to establish "peace" in the Arab East, and toward this end they will do everything they can to dominate the military situation in Lebanon. For Assad, it is an all or nothing game. Hence the second, and massive, Syrian military intervention, which began on June 1. The new intervention and the popular resistance During the last week of May, the Christion right in Lebanon found itself clearly overrun militarily. The forces of the Lebanese left and the Palestinian resistance controlled 80 percent of the country. The bourgeois Christian leaders saw only one way to alter this situation: intervention from the outside. Syria was the only available source. With this aim in view, the Christian leadership unleashed an offensive, ordering the bombarding of Muslim neighborhoods in an effort to provoke a Syrian intervention in the guise of ending the bloodshed." This worked. Twenty thousand Syrian soldiers, backed by hundreds of tanks, entered Lebanon. In the meantime, the Phalangists indicated their support to a proposal for a "round table" of all the Lebanese belligerents. The Syrian rulers also favored this proposal, for it enobled them to present themselves as arbiters and not as open defenders of Christian reaction, The so-called Islamo-progressive camp perceived the threats inherent in the Syrian advance very concretely. Faithful to their traditional behavior, the Palestinian leaders thought they could find a solution by appealing to the bourgeois Arab leoderships. Yassir Arafat's first reaction was to call upon the Arab League to exert pressure on Syria to withdraw. Thus, for three days the Syrian troops advanced in Lebanon without meeting any substantial resistance, The reformist Lebanese and Palestinian leaderships were not yet prepared to respond, for
SMOKE RISING OVER SERUT they were busy seeking to establish alliances with the Arab bourgeoisies (including the most reactionary of them). But these leaders ran into stony reactions from these bourgeoisies, which were prepared only to denounce the Syrian action verbally in order to mislead the masses in their own countries, who are strongly sensitive to the Palestinian question and are directly affected by upheavals in any of the Arab states. They refrained, however, from really moving against Syria. Thus, the reformist Palestinian and Lebanese leaders had only one way leff by which to safeguard their independence and even their very existence: organize armed resistance to the Syrian Invasion. At the same time, the Palestinian and Lebanese masses grew weary of waiting for orders from their commanders; they moved into action against the Syrian troops. The scope of the popular resistance prevented Syria from registering the rapid military victories that were essential. Dozens of Syrian tanks (made in the Soviet Union) were destroyed in southern Lebanon and in the mountains and hundreds of Syrian soldiers were taken prisoner. In face of this situation, the League of Arab States could not maintain silence, which would have been done had the Syrians achieved a quick victory. The reactions of the various states were determined by the existing inter-Arab political and economic rivalries. Egypt, under attack by Syria since the signing of the Sinai accords with Israel in 1975, decided to outbid Damascus in the domain of pro-Palestinian demagogy. Algeria likewise denounced Syria, but refrained from doing anything because of the delicate internal political situation prevailing on the eve of so-called free elections. The Baathist regime in Iraq, delighted to score some points against its Syrian rival, issued its usual denunciation of Damascus and massed troops on the Syrian border. Meanwhile, the whole gamut of Arab bourgeoisies came together under the patronage of the most reactionary Arab state: Saudi Arabia. It
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LEBANON was then decided to send the "green helmets, " to be composed of Algerian, Libyan, and Sudanese contingents. The stated purpose of the intervention was to reconcile Syria and the Palestinian resistance.
This decision has not been implemented. In fact, it has served as a cover for the Syrian intervention, Local commentators have noted that the arrival of what was supposed to be the first battalion of "green helmets" was in fact only the arrival of yet another Syrian battalion. The Arab regimes, extremely dynamic when it comes to raising slogans in support of the Palestinian resistance, refrain from action when it is a question of preventing a massacre. Even Libya, self-proclaimed stalwart of Arab nationalism during the past several years, supports the Syrian presence in Lebanon when the Libyan emissary is in Damascus and opposes it when this same emissary meets with the leaders of the resistance. What next? Faced with strong resistance in Lebanon, the Syrian leadership was compelled to halt its advance on June 12. But the halt will be temporary; it is designed to prepare for a more effective attack. A four-power summit in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) - including Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt - which was originally scheduled for June 17, has been postponed to June 23. Syria appears determined to relaunch its advance, and the other Arab regimes, while willing to extend complicity, prefer not to be sitting in a summit meeting with Syria while the attack is actually under way. In this extremely complex situation, the leaders of the PLO refuse to draw the lessons; they continue to seek a solution among the Arab bourgeoisies, hoping to benefit by playing on their internal controdictions. Meanwhile, the Lebanese and Palestinian masses are continwing their resistance. The reformist and Stalinist Lebanese leaderships are paying the price for their inveterate and criminal opportunism. Isolated from all the bourgeois forces among whom they had sought allies, they have not dared to even criticize Kemal Joumblat, the bourgeois reformist they support, even when Joumblat called on French troops to save the Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese left! While the future of the reactionary Syrian invasion parfially depends on the relationship of military forces in Lebanon, it depends more importantly on developments in Syria itself, where the regime is now experiencing its most difficult moments. Clashes have been reported nearly everywhere in the country, with army battalions in mutiny, refusing to go to Lebanon. Hikmat Shahabi, the chief of staff, has been arrested and imprisoned. Thus, the contradictions and repercussions of the civil war in Lebanon are shaking the entire Arab region. Once again, the absolute necessity of the Arab masses' uniting and organizing against their own bourgeoisies, which always unite whenever one of their number is threatened, is being demonstrated. D 30
SOUTH AFRICA cont'd from pg. 32 had been meeting with Kaunda (of Zambia), Nyerere (Tanzania), Machel (Mozambique), Seretse Khama (Botswana), Mobutu (Zaire), and Kenyatta (Kenya) to execute this plan. He is now scheduled to go to Bonn to meet with Helmut Schmidt and Henry Kissinger to work out the next steps in his dialogue with the African quislings. All was going well - until Soweto. The Soweto uprising is the clearest rejection yet of Vorster's Bantustan plan by the people themselves on a mass scale. Furthermore, the savage repression (using arms provided by the EEC) did not engender a mood of defeat. On the contrary, the revolt has spread. As of now, no fewer than eight locations in the Johannesburg area alone are involved. Some 600 miles away, the students at Zululand "Bantustan" College have joined the protest. More than a million oppressed are engaged in the biggest revolt since the Sharpeville events of 1960, perhaps the most general uprising in the history of the South African liberation movement. The most significant feature of these events is that despite losing battles, the oppressed non-European masses have not yet lost the war. In fact, they have not yet fought a full-scale war, but are moving toward it unbeaten in spirit. They remain unbroken as a class force of semi-transient workers and peasants, never allowed to become a settled proletariat or peasantry. The South African proletariat is cast in a mold peculiar to this state. This proletariat is now asserting itself, and it needs the support of its international class brothers and. sisters. The education issue and apartheid The struggle for non-racist education is an essential part of the struggle for full democratic rights, which can only be guaranteed by a total social revolution in South Africa. This explains the explosive nature of the Soweto protests and the subsequent events at Zululand University. The fight against "tribalization" and for a world language is a manifestation of a position of the non-European toilers virtually unique in Africa: against "black culture, " against "multiracialism, *against "idenfity" and "Africanism" and for non-racial internationalism. This is the backbone of the principle that inspired the Soweto struggle; years of political educafion lie behind this "spontaneous" outburst. This struggle is a continuation of the struggle against apartheid, a system with a long history on the African continent. For the last 100 years, the apartheid of the Imperialists has intensified the old system of racist education initiated when the Dutch colonial regime institutionalized segregated schools at the Cape in 1685. After the French Revolution, the German, Dutch, British, and Catholic missionaries extended this segregation into a network of strategically located labor-catching
mission stations run along strictly racial lines. As white settlement devoured the lands of the conquered KhoiKhoin and Bantu peoples in the nineteenth century and after, the Anglican and Catholic churches established as rigid a system of segregation as could be found anywhere. The principles were that white education was designed "to maintain their (the whites') unquestioned supremacy in this land" (Sir Langham Dale, head of Cape education, 1890) and "the education of the white child prepares him for life in a dominant society and the education of the black child for a subordinate society" (Education Commission, 1935). In 1951 the Eiselen Commission called for "Bantu education, " which was followed by the creation of a "Commission for Colored Education. " The program, which was to lead to the Soweto protest, was education for the natives as an independent race, in which their inherent racial qualities are taken into consideration. ...and to prepare natives more effectively for their future occupations. " Eiselen, then education secretary for the Nationalist government of Malan, declared that there would be a "mother tongue medium" (Bantu), the Africans being taught enough English simply "to follow oral or written instructions. The Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) toured throughout South Africa explaining how to fight the Bantu Education Bill as part of the struggle against racial representation and for the full franchise, including the right to make laws and form the government. The principle of the opposition was non-collaboration with the instruments of oppression. The weapon of struggle was the boycott of all institutions of racism, including the institutions of retribalization. Soweto was a continuation of this struggle, in which only the NEUM has a consistent history. The Boers, led by Vorster, are only a politically powerful minority in the South African ruling class, which is mainly British with a heavy role played by the imperialists of other countries of the EEC and the European Free Trade Association. The entire capitalist class of West Europe is involved, directly or indirectly, in the economic and political penetration of South Africa. The Boers are the bloody fist, the watchdog managers of a combined imperialist estate that Trotsky in 1935 labeled a "white dominion" for superexploitation of what he termed a slave colony for the blacks." The extensive scope of the international hinterland of the South African state accounts for the difficult task focing the South African proletariat, the non-European oppressed toilers. A worldwide boycott The importance of the franchise, which the Stalinists and African nationalists have always underplayed, was confirmed by the April decisions on Rhodesia and South
Africa taken by the EEC, Bonn, and Washington. While calling for "majority rule" in Rhodesia, they called only for "steps to end apartheid" in South Africa. There was no reference anywhere to the full franchise. For the capitalists of the West, apartheid must remain in
South Africa; the imperialists know full well that they cannot pull the "independence rope trick" in South Africa as they can in order to hang the second-class "associate members" of the EEC Lome Convention. They understand that the alternative to apartheid is another Vietnam and nothing less. Fundamentally, this explains the range and intensity of police terror in Soweto. Vorster must see to it that gold, uranium, and superprofits continue to flow into the EEC countries and the United States and that arms and capital continue to flow from these countries into South Africa (latest reports indicate that already before Soweto there was an outward drift of capital). It was expedient (and fraudulent) to impose a United Nations embargo on Rhodesia in order to bring the prodigal Smith regime back into the white imperialist fold. But a boycott is excluded for South Africa, as the West German government made very clear in its official statement on South Africa last May. At one time the white Communist party and its supporters in the ANC ( African National Congress) toyed with the idea of a boycott of Boer products (tins of fruit and other small items). Tied to the Anglicans and the liberals, they refused to consider a genuine boycott of imperialism in South Africa. The time has come for a campaign of international solidarity with the liberation struggle in South Africa. In line with the methods adopted by the toilers of Soweto and elsewhere in South Africa itself, this means implementation of the principle of non-collaboration with imperialism: a worldwide boycoft of South Africa. The scheduled arrival of Vorster in Frankfurt and of his minister in Bonn will be met by opposition from German students and other activists. This type of action is necessary everywhere. But this must be part of a total boycott. It is of little importance whether the imperialist goverments consent to such a boycott on one or another level (sports being the easiest). What is important is the solidarity of the working classes of North America and West Europe in industrial actions to halt ship and air traffic of goods and travelers to and from South AFrica; to demand the halting of financial exchanges with South Africa by bank workers; to demand the closing of all embassies in South Africa; to halt the sending of all arms to South Africa; to halt the flow of gold from South Africa, no matter how much it "hurts" the recipients; to bloc the flow of uranium to NATO arms stocks; to boycott anything South African in sports or art; to denounce and help Africa to break the EEC Lome Convention, which is the West European arm of an economic nutcracker across Africa, the other arm being the expanding South African Common Market up to the equator. It is correct for Zambia and other African states to be called upon to impose a total boycott on South Africa. It is equally correct for this boycott to now become a major and consistent demand of the labor movement in the imperialist countries. LET THE WORLD BOYCOTT OF SOUTH AFRICA BE THE FIRST WORDS ON THE GRAVES OF THE SOWETO
MARTYRS!
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Some of the thousands of students and parents who clashed with police in Soweto.
FOR A