Chapter 13, Part 4: The Labor Pains of Union: The Rush to Union

H. Then came the great surprise. I will let the Minister of Defense, Khalid al-Azm, tell us about it. He wrote the following in his memoirs:[1]

"On the morning of 12 January 1958 Brigadier Amin al-Nafuri came to my office and said to me, with a smile on his face whose meaning I did not grasp: The brothers met (he meant his colleagues, the heads of the branches, and the Chief of the Army Staff) and discussed the question of the federal union with Egypt, and they found that it would be better for the union to be based on complete unity. So they formed a delegation of officers headed by al-Bizri, and they left for Cairo after midnight to carry their decision to President Abdel Nasser.[2] Then he handed me a typed memorandum containing the officers' demands."

Al-Azm reproduced this memorandum word for word, and I take the following from it:

1. A single constitution declaring the establishment of the new United Arab Republic.

2. A single head of state.

3. A single legislative authority.

4. A single executive authority.

5. A single judicial authority.

6. A single flag and a single capital.

7. A supreme commander of the armed forces of the new Arab state (the President of the federal Republic).

8. A supreme defense council.

9. A general command of the armed forces.

The memorandum said:

".. The General Command declares, in the name of all the armed forces, that it is fully ready to bear all the defense duties that immediate union requires, and it regards itself from now on as bound to carry out all the orders and instructions given to it by the unified General Command, whatever may follow from carrying them out.

At the same time "every government or group that is slack in carrying out this union shall bear the danger and the consequence of its action before the whole Arab people and before the rising generations.."

This document bore the signature of the Commander in Chief of the Army and the Armed Forces, dated 11/1/1958.

Khalid al-Azm goes on: "After I had read this memorandum I said to Brigadier al-Nafuri: would it not have been more proper to inform the government of your decision and discuss the matter with it before you left for Cairo?"

I telephoned al-Asali (the Prime Minister), and he confirmed to me that he had received a copy of the memorandum. Two days earlier I had met the President of the Republic and told him that the Baathists were calling for unifying the presidency of the state and the ministries of foreign affairs and defense; then I sounded him out, and he said to me with visible irritation: No, no, nothing but what I propose, a federal union, no. No.

But when we met the next day with President al-Quwatli, we found he had changed his mind. He began praising union, said that he had spent 40 years working to achieve it and that he supported the idea of complete union at once.."[3]

Salah al-Bitar (the Foreign Minister) followed the military delegation on the basis of an oral decision of the Council of Ministers, to explore matters and see the minimum the Egyptian government would accept. But this decision did not include any authority to reach agreement with Egypt.

Mr. Akram al-Hourani speaks in his memoirs[4] about Salah al-Bitar, one of the three leaders of the Baath at this stage, as follows:

"So it appears that Mr. Salah played the part that completed al-Sarraj's part, behind the back of the party, of whose leadership he was a member, and behind the back of the government, in which he was Foreign Minister..

Salah al-Bitar drew the army officers, by deception and intimidation, into deciding the gravest matters, which were neither within their powers nor their competence."

President Abdel Nasser put the dots on the letters in his conversation with the Syrian delegation during the tripartite unity talks in Cairo in 1963 (published in a book by Dar al-Ahram, p. 56), when he confronted its members with the truth of their part in establishing the union, saying:

"The union, who made it? The officers made it before the government knew. Was it Shukri al-Quwatli who made it?" To this question Michel Aflaq answered that it was the party (that is, the Baath Party) that had worked for the union.. Mr. Akram al-Hourani replies in his memoirs (the same installment) "that what Michel Aflaq said about the party's role is contrary to the truth, because the party had approved federal union and not a full merger".

In Cairo a new text was agreed.

On 22 January 1958 a meeting of the Syrian Council of Ministers was held under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic, attended by the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and the Chief of the General Staff, Afif al-Bizri, and his four assistants, Amin al-Nafuri, Abd al-Hamid al-Sarraj, Ahmad Abd al-Karim and Mustafa Hamdun. These officers did not utter a word.. They were content to be present, to show their support and to put pressure on any minister who might be tempted to object or withhold his consent.

The President of the Republic opened the meeting with a speech stuffed with words of Arabism, the Arabs, glory and grandeur.

Then Salah al-Bitar followed him and read out the minutes of the talks held in Cairo, claiming that he had reached them, when the truth was that he had taken part in the last meeting held between Abdel Nasser and the Syrian officers, at which all agreed on a wording that said:

That agreement had been reached between His Excellency President Gamal Abdel Nasser and His Excellency the Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr. Salah al-Bitar, authorized by the Syrian government, to discuss the unification of the two Arab countries, Egypt and Syria.

And that the following had been agreed:

1. The form of the union: the system of government shall be presidential; executive authority shall be held by the head of state, assisted by ministers appointed by the President.

Legislative authority shall be held by a single legislative council, elected freely and directly by the people.

2. A meeting shall be held between the two presidents and representatives of the two governments to announce the establishment of the united state.

3. The two legislative councils shall meet at the same time in Damascus and Cairo to pass the following resolutions:

A. The establishment of the United Arab State.

B. The nomination of the head of state.

C. Authorizing the head of state to issue a provisional constitution.

4. A referendum of the people in Egypt and Syria on the resolutions passed by the legislative councils.

5. As soon as the results of the referendum are known, the President shall proclaim the provisional constitution and take up his executive authority.

After that comes the second stage, which includes drawing up a permanent constitution for the state, setting up the National Union to take the place of the parties, holding elections in accordance with the permanent constitution, and working to unify the state's services.

The wonder of wonders is that Khalid al-Azm should criticize "the army's interference in politics", when he used to bless this interference whenever one of its aims was to bring him into power. He admitted in those same memoirs that he held meetings with the heads of the army branches to decide state policy, and the deputy Khalid Bakdash used to attend them.

On 30 January President Shukri al-Quwatli, the Council of Ministers and a group of officers moved to Cairo, and from there on 1 February 1958 Sabri al-Asali broadcast the minutes of a meeting of the Syrian and Egyptian delegations over the airwaves.[5]

The Syrian Chamber of Deputies met on 5 February and heard the speech of the Speaker, Akram al-Hourani, and the speech of the President of the Republic, Shukri al-Quwatli; then a vote was held on the principles President al-Quwatli had read out, the Cairo principles.

Then the deputies present signed the declaration of union and of holding the referendum to elect the President of the Republic and grant him the power to issue the provisional constitution.[6]

Absent from this session with leave were the deputies Muhammad al-Mubarak and Ilyas Najjar. Absent without leave were the deputies Turki ibn Muhayd, Dahham al-Dandal (a former Baathist), Farzat al-Mamluk, Faisal al-Asali, Muhammad Sulayman al-Ahmad (the gifted poet Badawi al-Jabal), Nuri ibn Muhayd, Khalid Bakdash and Fa'iq Mannan.

Most of these deputies were fugitives from justice.

The approval was unanimous, with a standing ovation.

Rushdi al-Kikhya attended this session and approved what was put before it.. It was the only session he attended after submitting his resignation, a sign of how deeply he felt his responsibility and how firmly he held to the principles of unity. He did not wish to hold on to a resignation that had not been accepted. After that he went back to the quiet God had given him by nature.

What draws attention is Khalid Bakdash's absence from this session: he had left the country for one of the countries of the socialist bloc.

The referendum on establishing the union and electing the President of the Republic was held on 22 February, and its result was an overwhelming victory for the unionist current.

Akram al-Hourani, the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, gave President Shukri al-Quwatli the title "the First Arab Citizen", which pleased him greatly.

At once al-Quwatli sent President Abdel Nasser the following telegram:

"I see it as my duty to be the first citizen in the new state, nominating and congratulating His Excellency President Gamal Abdel Nasser as President of the United Arab Republic."

But al-Quwatli remained an important figure, visited at his home, as a mark of honor, by the kings and presidents who came to Damascus.

President Abdel Nasser arrived in Damascus that same day, and the government submitted its resignation to him.

On 5 March 1958 the President proclaimed the provisional constitution.

On 6 March he announced the decrees forming the government.

He chose me as Minister of Justice in the state of the union. I felt proud of this honor, and I was not unaware of the difficulties of working in this historic role.

And he decided to dissolve the parties, as had been agreed.[7]

So the People's Party, like the others, no longer had any legal existence. We kept faithfully to this dissolution. But personal ties were not broken. I stayed on excellent terms with Rushdi al-Kikhya, Nazim al-Qudsi, Maarouf al-Dawalibi, Ahmad Qanbar, Ali Bouzo, Rashad Jabri, Rashad Barmada and Ratib al-Husami. Some of them became members of the unified Chamber of Deputies.. some accepted posts in the state and served it with all competence and loyalty.. and some retired to a quiet life, content and well regarded. Most of them have since gone to the mercy of their Lord, God rest them.

We enjoyed this union, which came about by mutual consent and was a strong building block in the edifice of the Arab nation, and a crushing defeat for the advocates of regionalism.

And I believe that what Abdel Nasser achieved personally, in leading Egypt on the road to unity and routing the advocates of Pharaonism, will go down in history through its widest gate.

Endnotes:

[1] Vol. 3, Chapter Two, p. 123.

[2] These officers were: Afif al-Bizri, Mustafa Hamdun, Ahmad Abd al-Karim, Ahmad al-Hunaydi, Tu'mah al-Awatallah, Husayn Hidda, Abd al-Ghani Qannut, Muhammad al-Nasr, Yasin Farjani, Abd Allah Jasuma, Jadu Izz al-Din, Mustafa Ram Hamdani, Akram al-Dayri, Jamal al-Sufi, and Abd al-Hamid al-Sarraj, who joined them later (from Mahmoud Riad and Rashed al-Kaylani, p. 165).
Mr. Akram al-Hourani lists these officers as follows: Afif al-Bizri, Mustafa Hamdun, Abd al-Ghani Qannut, Akram al-Dayri, Husayn Hidda, Jamal al-Sufi, Bashir Sidq, Muhammad al-Nasr, Amin al-Hafiz, Ahmad al-Hunaydi, Tu'mah al-Awdatallah, Nur Allah al-Hajj Ibrahim, Yasin al-Farjani.
Memoirs "Sanawat al-Thalj wal-Nar" (Years of Snow and Fire), installment 22, al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, issue of 9/8/1997.

[3] It is worth reading the text of an interview between President Shukri al-Quwatli and the French historian Benoist-Méchin in his book Printemps arabe, p. 311, in which the President showed an astonishing enthusiasm for union and contempt for its opponents. Yet on the day of the secession he telephoned Ma'mun al-Kuzbari, the head of the secessionist regime, and congratulated him on that odious event.
See: the memoirs of Lieutenant General Abd al-Karim Zahr al-Din, p. 91.
Someone whose knowledge of the hidden side of affairs in those days I trust told me that President al-Quwatli was taken by surprise by the delegation's trip to Egypt. He sent a secret letter to the King of Saudi Arabia telling him that he was no longer able to halt the rush of events toward union.. as though apologizing to him for joining the night travelers in their march.

[4] Sanawat al-Thalj wal-Nar, installment 23, al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, issue of 11/8/1997. These memoirs were published in Egypt in 2000 in four volumes.

[5] See the declaration of union in Appendix No. 9.

[6] See the text of the speech of Akram Hourani, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, and the speech of the President of the Republic, Shukri al-Quwatli, in the minutes of the session of 5 February 1958.

[7] Akram al-Hourani says in his memoirs Sanawat al-Thalj wal-Nar (al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, issue of 9/8/97): "None of those meeting (the Baath Party) objected to dissolving the party in Syria to make the union easier.. All those meeting agreed to dissolve the party, without exception, Michel Aflaq at their head..".
See the study by Mr. Nabil Sadiq on "Egyptian Identity", published in the magazine Sabah al-Khayr on 23 May 2000.