Before These Memoirs - Part 2: Field Marshal Amer's Expulsion from Damascus and the Loyalist Stand of Aleppo and Latakia

1. The dissolution of political parties.

2. And the army's non-interference in politics.

They accepted these two conditions "on the country's behalf," without the approval of the constitutional government that represented the country and charted its policy. The Chamber of Deputies had passed a unanimous resolution to establish a federal union between Egypt and Syria, but it was the officers who pushed for a full merger union and forced it upon the President and the government.

The government, that of Mr. Sabri al-Asali and the National Bloc, found no choice but to rush, reluctantly, to the front of the procession, so as not to miss the train, as later became clear from its own members' statements.

The Chamber of Deputies approved this merger union.

It was only natural that President Abdel Nasser would set about uprooting partisanship from the army, just as he worked to abolish political parties altogether. He took some officers as ministers, sent others as ambassadors, transferred others to units in the Southern Region, and brought a number of Egyptian officers into Syria. The state paid those transferred from either region generous additional salaries, so they sought after these benefits.

Some of the politically-minded officers transferred to Egypt were not at ease in their new posts there, for they had grown used to a kind of soldiering different from what they found there. In Syria, before the union, they had been accustomed to imposing governments and toppling them, whether through the political blocs they set up as their front, or directly, by brandishing the specter of a coup, at which they had grown skilled.

No government could be formed without wondering how far these political officers would tolerate its existence. When Maarouf al-Dawalibi formed his ministry in 1951 in a manner that displeased Colonel Adib al-Shishakli, this officer pounced on civilian rule before even twenty-four hours had passed since al-Dawalibi's cabinet was formed, seized power, and arrested a large number of politicians, myself among that caravan. My late friend General Afif al-Bizri pressed me hard to "purge the People's Party of its reactionary elements," so that close cooperation might arise between what remained of the party and the "ruling military coalition." What he wanted, deep down, was the destruction of the People's Party itself, which he regarded as a "reactionary party." This troubled state of affairs did not arise solely from the error of the politically-minded officers; it was also the error of political formations that had turned themselves into mounts and mouthpieces for the officers' wishes.

No one denies that these officers' leanings were clearly leftist. And yet some politicians walked in their train, hiding within their procession and carrying out whatever was suggested to them.

It is enough for me to name Sabri al-Asali, Khalid al-Azm, Ma'mun al-Kuzbari, Abdel Baqi Nizam al-Din, Fakher al-Kayali, and As'ad Harun, all of them men of the right, for whom no genuine socialism could ever be conceivable except a false, pretended one. Yet they cooperated, within the framework of the National Bloc, with Akram al-Hourani, Salah al-Bitar, Khalid Bakdash, Afif al-Bizri, and Amin al-Nafouri.

After the union was established, the politically-minded officers lost these "political" privileges. Abdel Nasser bound them to strict military doctrine: order, discipline, staying clear of politics, and preparing the army for the purpose for which it had been raised.

Those transferred to Egypt found an Egyptian army (the Second Army) as far removed from politics as could be, and holding as firmly as possible to strict obedience and harsh training. Adapting to it proved difficult for them, and they began to grumble and to incite against the union from its very foundation.

They ought to have known that when they had led, to their credit, the procession toward a full merger union, rather than the federation the Chamber of Deputies had approved, they had accepted that Damascus would be like Cairo, Aleppo like Alexandria, Homs like Tanta, Hama like Aswan, and Minya like Latakia. That is, an officer transferred to a division stationed in the other region was no different from one whose interests required his transfer from Homs to Hama.

So all those who resented the army's removal from politics, achieved by removing its politically-minded elements from the armed forces, were the very ones who had accepted this arrangement beforehand. But when "the sharp razor reached their own chins" and they found themselves mere officers, as the constitution required, injured pride overtook them, and they set about vilifying the union, until they finally pounced upon it in the darkness of a pitch-black night.

This decline within the army worried its senior commanders, and General Zahreddine, commander of the army during the secession period, gave voice to this painful reality, holding that many army officers were well aware of the dangers of dragging the country's army into politics. He wrote: "I say frankly that what destroyed the Syrian army, and destroyed the country's stability and prosperity, was the army's interference in matters of government, and then the interference of junior officers in matters of command."[1]

Among what he said about the ugliness of the situation within the army was that two officers commanding certain units, whom he named, told him: "Sir, we would be betraying our own honor if we betrayed you" (p. 357), and yet these same two officers were at the forefront of the 13 January 1963 uprising he had to move against (p. 360).

This commander did not hesitate to write that "there were, both inside and outside the army, armed gangs" (p. 365).

This statement bears out the fears of the sincere, that the poison of politics had crept into the ranks of the armed forces, and it is the statement of the very highest-ranking officer of that period. God Almighty, the truest of speakers, has said: "and a witness of her own household testified."

This alone is enough to answer what the separatists claim, that the union era worked to "liquidate the army." It liquidated no one; rather, it worked to make it an army that knew its duties, abided by the rules of military discipline, and did not overstep the limits the constitution drew for it. The Code of Military Punishments contains a provision forbidding politics to military men, a provision that, by the irony of fate, remains written into the body of that very law to this day.

Communiqué No. 3, broadcast on the first day of the secession, stated that "the Arab Revolutionary Command is fully confident that the shepherding people will preserve their Egyptian brothers completely, and will treat them in the best manner a brother treats his brother."

There is nothing strange in this statement, for it is not the Syrians' custom to harm their guest and brother, and indeed we heard honorable stories of Egyptians being hosted and cared for in the homes of their Syrian friends.

Yet General Kamal Hassan Ali, who was then a major in the army seconded to service in Syria, wrote in his memoirs, after he had stepped down as Egypt's Prime Minister, the following:

"I thanked God for reaching Egypt forty-eight hours after the secession, and for my own and my children's escape from the ordeal of detention and arrest. Though I felt deep sorrow for the large number of fellow officers whom they kept behind in Syria as hostages, who remained there for close to a month, and who were not treated honorably by the separatist elements."[2]

Communiqué No. 4 ordered the closure of airports and ports.

Communiqué No. 7 banned "demonstrations and gatherings."

Communiqué No. 8 threatened "the outcast and the mercenaries," to prevent any exploitation of the revolutionary movement. Then came the famous Communiqué No. 9. What did it say?

It read as follows:

"The Arab Revolutionary Command of the Armed Forces has presented the army's affairs and its aims to His Excellency the Field Marshal, Vice President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who has understood the army's affairs as they truly stand and has taken the appropriate measures to resolve them in the interest of the unity and strength of the armed forces and the United Arab Republic. Military affairs have returned to their natural course, relying on confidence in the wisdom of the Commander-in-Chief of the army and armed forces (Abdel Hakim Amer) and the commander of the First Army (Jamal al-Faisal), a Syrian national, both of whom are achieving the aims of the armed forces and the United Arab Republic."

Reading this communiqué makes it clear that the mutineers had nothing but purely military demands, which they themselves had a stake in. Once they had put these demands to the Field Marshal, and he promised to study or adopt them, they proved themselves insincere in all their other claims.

President Abdel Nasser laid before us the substance of the negotiations the mutineers had conducted with the Field Marshal at his command headquarters in Damascus, as the Field Marshal himself had reported them and asked him to approve or consider: the withdrawal of Egyptian officers from Syria, the issuing of a statement that those behind the movement would not be discharged, and a commitment not to try them as mutineers. But the President categorically refused these demands, saying he rejected the very principle of negotiating with mutineers, just as he rejected half-measures on principle. He went on to tell us: "It is not possible to yield so much as a hair's breadth from the rules of military discipline, or else I would find myself forced to negotiate with a new mutineer every day.

This would push the army outside the bounds of military obedience and drag it into the dangerous, murky labyrinths of politics."

Among the Syrian ministers there were some who, timidly, suggested accepting this agreement, but the President was categorical in his refusal. When we asked him, "And what will become of the Field Marshal's fate, Mr. President, if you decide to refuse?" he answered firmly: "He must face his own fate."

We felt as though he were laying the responsibility for this deteriorating situation upon the Field Marshal himself. When the Field Marshal informed the mutinying officers that their demands were refused, they seized the Command headquarters and took him and the Syrian ministers who were with him prisoner, and broadcast their Communiqué No. 10 that afternoon, which cut off all contact with Cairo. Abdel Nasser said, "The tough ones have entered the Command headquarters," speaking in a state of indescribable pain. This communiqué read: "The Field Marshal has broken his word. We therefore declare our Communiqué No. 9 null and void."

The mutineers, fearing that demonstrations against them might spread, imposed a nighttime curfew in their Communiqué No. 11.

But anxiety continued to grip us, as we sat with the President, over the fate of the Field Marshal and our fellow military ministers, until we learned they had reached Cairo aboard a military aircraft. The mutineers broadcast their Communiqué No. 12, which said:

"Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer left the country at five-twenty, returning to Cairo."

The truth of the matter is that the Field Marshal, the ministers, and General Jamal al-Faisal were forcibly taken to the airport and compelled to board the plane and leave Syria.

The forces of Aleppo, under Hikmat al-Dayeh, and the forces of Latakia, under Kazem Zaytouneh, remained loyal to the United Arab Republic. As for Homs, its position remained unclear. We listened to military anthems and telegrams of allegiance from Aleppo Radio, and we felt great pride in the noble stand the two cities had taken for the union. The sweetest thing we heard was the roar of demonstrations in the two valiant cities, rising on the airwaves, telling whoever wished to hear that Syria remained unionist, despite the separatists. The President was reassured when he received Colonel Kazem Zaytouneh's telegram of support, in which he said he placed himself and his forces under the President's command. The President found in the stance of Aleppo and Latakia a thread of light in a pitch-black darkness, and reckoned that a government presence in both, to resist the mutineers, might put an end to the mutiny altogether.

He made his decision and formed a delegation to fly to Syria at once, headed by Vice President Kamal El-Din Hussein, and composed of myself, Fakher al-Kayali, and Thabet al-Arees, all of us sons of Aleppo, to lead the resistance.

It was eight o'clock in the evening.

We asked the President's leave to go to our homes and fetch a bag of clothes, and returned less than an hour later to bid the President farewell. But at that very moment Israeli radio broadcast news that Officer George Mahassel had seized the Aleppo radio station and arrested Hikmat al-Dayeh, the commander of the city garrison, and within minutes Aleppo's own station broadcast confirmation of the news.

The President therefore decided we would not travel, since it was no longer practically possible. He informed us that a force of paratroopers had been sent to Latakia at the request of its commander Zaytouneh, but he then told us that contact with Latakia had been cut off, and so he ordered its commander, Jalal Huraidi, to surrender without resistance, explaining this order by saying "he did not want the paratroopers' landing to be portrayed as an Egyptian invasion of Syria."

I confess that I supported the President's decision, for I felt that the break had already occurred, that every unit of the army, as was its habit in every coup, had begun competing to declare its allegiance, and that Syrian radio continued broadcasting without pause the voices of demonstrators supporting the new order. So why should a hopeless fight break out between Egyptians and Syrians, on Syrian soil? And yet some ministers opposed this decision, which was in any case already made, and no purpose remained in debating it.

Their view was that Syria remained part of the republic, and that it was the government's duty to discipline the mutineers. Among the most fervent advocates of sending military forces from Egypt to discipline the mutineers were Mr. Thabet al-Arees and Dr. Amjad al-Tarabulsi. The former asked the President: "What would Your Excellency do if Aswan declared its own mutiny and demanded secession from the state? Damascus is like Aswan. Aleppo is like Minya."

When we left the session, Thabet al-Arees rode in my car, and I wished to explain to him the reasoning behind my opposition, in contrast to his own fervor. He realized he had spoken too hastily, and asked me not to reveal the secret of this discussion.

I never did reveal it, until now, to the memory of history.

For no sooner had we returned than he accepted the post of ambassador for the "state" of secession.

After our return, my late friend Rashad Barmada, then director of the government's legal affairs department, told me that he had stood in one of Damascus's squares watching the demonstrators supporting the secession, and had been deeply pained by the sight of a man carrying a picture of President Abdel Nasser on a stick, with one of his own shoes tied to it. When Communiqué No. 9 was issued, he untied the shoe and began cheering for the President. Then, once it became clear to him and to the other demonstrators that the negotiations had failed, and Communiqué No. 10 was broadcast over the radio and loudspeakers, he retied the shoe to the picture once more.

This is a specimen of the popular hypocrisy I had witnessed many times before. When we bade the President farewell, each of us satisfied that the matter had ended, he asked us to keep to our offices as usual, to look into official business, and to make decisions as though nothing had happened.

---

Endnotes:

[1] In his book *My Memoirs of the Secession Period in Syria*, p. 357.

[2] The seventh installment of his memoirs, published in Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, issue of 10 April 1993.