Mass Call-up in Suweida

Shadi Azzam

More than 6,000 reservists were called up by the Syrian army in the southern province of Suweida in August, according to activists from Local Coordination Committees, LCC.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, LCC activists said the estimated total was in line with figures leaked from recruitment offices. The call-up mainly targeted reservists from the infantry, special forces, Republican Guard and law-enforcement units.

Damascus Bureau was unable to verify this information.

Most of Suweida’s population belongs to the Druze faith.

The LCC sources said most of the reservists who were called up fled either to other provinces or abroad.

“Conscription orders were issued by four recruitment departments in Suweida, but very few people complied with them,” a journalist from the city of Shahba said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I personally don’t know anyone who did.”

Syrian security forces recently launched a similar call-up drive for reservists in the northeastern city of Qamishli, which has a majority Kurdish population, according to local activists.

The call-up in Suweida made no distinction between regime loyalists and opponents. The only reservists not called up are members of the “shabbiha”, an unofficial force, and of the Popular Committees, which are local militias created by the regime.

“In my small village of Rimat Hazem, they have called up 80 young men in the past couple of days. One can only imagine what the situation is like in larger towns,” journalist Maher Sharafeddine wrote in August on the online opposition forum All4Syria.

Sharafeddine’s village has a population of under 1,000.

Military service in Syria is compulsory for men when they turn 18, or when they finish university. After 18 months’ active service, soldiers become members of the reserve until they reach the age of 42. In March 2011, President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree reducing the period of mandatory military service from 21 months to 18.

The regular armed forces are estimated to number between 222,000 and 300,000. Many have deserted to the opposition Free Syrian Army. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 6,500 members of the security forces had been killed as of the end of August 2012.

In contrast to earlier external conflicts, such as the October 1973 war to regain the Golan Heights from Israeli occupation, this call-up is intended to help the regime combat its armed opponents. Given that the country is now politically divided, many people are now sceptical about the goals for which soldiers and other members of the security forces are expected to give their lives.

“Hundreds of people from Suweida are dying because they’re serving in the army, police and security forces in [other] Syrian provinces,” an opposition activist said, on condition of anonymity. “I’m not saying they have all been killed by the regime for refusing orders to shoot at civilians, or for defecting. There are also soldiers who have been killed while participating in shedding Syrian blood… the truth has been hidden from them. It’s just the same for soldiers from other provinces who are involved in killing Syrians.”

Several LCCs and opposition groups have appealed to reservists not to join up for active service.

“To preserve your own lives and keep your hands untainted by the blood of our Syrian people, we urge you not to join Assad’s army…. You will either become murderers or you will be killed,” said a statement issued by the League of Suweida’s Free Émigrés, posted on Facebook. “A battle against our own Syrian people is not ours.”

Many people whose sons or other relatives have received call-up papers express similar views.

As one resident of the village of Al-Mazra’a, who is no opposition supporter, put it, “I didn’t raise my kids in order to send them off to die for anyone’s sake.”