The scene of the biggest protests yet and haunted by memories of a fierce crackdown a generation ago, Hama has emerged as a powerful challenge to President Bashar al-Assad. In just days, demonstrations and uncertain Government response to them have highlighted the potential scale of the dissent in the Syria, absence of the Government of a strategy to end and the difficulty of Mr. Assad faces in rejecting this dissent as disorders religious inspiration with foreign aid.
Hama is still far from the liberated territory the most fervent is said, with perhaps more hope that evidence. But a Government decision last month to withdraw his forces gave the streets of demonstrators, who tried to develop an alternative model to robust repression as a trademark of Baathist rule. Residents interviewed by phone said they began to work collectively to acts as small as a downtown square and as vast as the Organization of the defence of certain districts of cleaning.
More critical, the scenes of enormous, peaceful gatherings y Friday, with their voices of dissent in Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year, served as a critic convincing version of the Government of the events, who won in large segments of the Syrian society. Throughout the uprising nearly four months, the Government indicated to the death of hundreds of its forces, in particular in the event still violent disturbance of Jisr al-Shughour in the North, to argue that the agitation is the product of the Islamist radicals with support from abroad.
Hama was peaceful for weeks, but Monday, the security forces returned to its periphery, perform arrests. These forces has killed at least 11 Tuesday even more raids, said activists. Each incursion has executed opposition brandishing what an activist called a medieval arsenal: slope stones, sand and, in his account not confirmed, bows and arrows.
"There is no easy solution to Hama," Peter Harling, an analyst based in Damascus with the International Crisis Group, said in an interview.
"The regime has made considerable progress in terms of convincing people in Syria and abroad that there was a component army to the movement of protest and that its security forces focused much on this component", he added. "Almost two weeks later the regime gets embedded in the exact opposite, once again to his own business."
Since the insurgency broke out in mid-March, the Government has wavered between the severe repression and tentative reform. Hama has emerged as a microcosm of this transfer strategy which has confused even the supporters of the Government.
After protests in Hama on 3 June, when the 73 killed as security forces people and order hundreds, residents, say diplomats and officials an agreement was struck in which protests were authorized as long the property is not damaged. In the weeks that followed, events gathered momentum, culminating with scenes of Friday that suggest, at least in Hama, the opposition to the Government was far from being marginal.
Since then, the Government's strategy has moved again. The responsible Governor of Hama, Ahmad Khaled Abdulaziz, was fired Saturday. His replacement rumors is Walid Abaza, a former head of security policy would have a role in the events of February 1982, when a struggle between the Government and the Islamic armed opposition culminated in Hama. More than four weeks, the Government resumed the Central Syrian city, killing at least 10,000 people and parts of the old city of flattening. Hundreds of soldiers were also killed.
Although the security forces sometimes enter the city last month, they returned in force for the first time Monday, making dozens of arrests. Their intention, however, is uncertain. Unlike Daraa, southern Syria city where begins the uprising, the military remained on the outskirts of Hama. After accumulation reported over the weekend, some activists said dozens of tanks have even withdrawn, in another sign of confusion.
Hwaida Saad in Beirut has contributed reporting.
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