A Party Affair

In long-turbulent Syria, no one has yet been able to topple the ruling Baath (Renaissance) Party. To be sure, there has been a dizzying chain of uprisings within the governing hierarchy itself, but they always left the top man intact: Strongman Amin Hafez, 43. Last week the party went through its 15th major reshuffle since seizing power in 1963. Only this time, Hafez himself was shuffled right out.

The coup grew out of a split between the party's leftist moderates, led by Hafez, and a powerful, pro-Peking group of officers led by General Salah Jadid. Where Hafez sought closer ties with Egypt, Jadid demanded a complete break. Where Hafez pledged Syria to a nonintervention agreement with other Arab nations, Jadid wanted Syria free to meddle where it might. As for Hafez' Russian-style socialism, Jadid insisted on a far stricter Red Chinese version. Last December their feud exploded into the open when Hafez discovered a Jadid plot to overthrow him. Hafez chased his rival underground, forced pro-Jadid Premier Youssef Zayyen to resign, and replaced him with his own man. Jadid kept consolidating his power, however, and last week he struck back.

Early one morning pro-Jadid troops and armored units rolled up Damascus' fashionable Abu Rummana Street, and began blasting away at Hafez' home and the tough desert troops guarding it. For hours the battle raged--interrupted only by one brief pause when the rebels permitted Hafez' wife and a wounded daughter to escape. Outmanned and outgunned, the defenders were finally whittled down to three men, who came out with hands up and holding a white flag. They were gunned down in their tracks, and a placard hung on the front of the demolished home: "This is the fate of all traitors." According to some reports, Hafez was captured and put under arrest; other reports claimed he was elsewhere during the shooting and managed to escape. Either way, the rebellion soon spread throughout Syria, taking a toll variously estimated at 150 to 300 dead.

An important pro-Hafez army garrison in the north was still holding out at week's end, but nevertheless the rebels went on the air to call themselves "the provisional command of the Baath Party," and termed the coup a party affair to "correct" a situation that "threatened to impose a dictatorial regime on the country." As their chief of state, they named Noureddin Attassi, a Jadid-style leftist and Hafez' onetime second-incommand. As Premier, they appointed --once again--Youssef Zayyen.

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