CAIRO: The authorities in Syria have no intention of giving ground in the face of massive anti-regime protests and will continue repression despite pledges of reform, analysts say.

“From the very beginning the Syrian regime in place since 1963 has been using a dual strategy of political management and security management. On the one hand it promises reforms, and at the same time it imposes a security crackdown,” said Caroline Donati, author of the book “The Syrian Exception.”
Activists said 120 people were killed Friday and Saturday as security forces cracked down on protesters and mourners.

The crackdown followed pledges of reform by President Bashar Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez when he died in 2000.
“There is no ambiguity, and the system has always worked well for the regime: it agrees to give ground, but in the end yields nothing,” said Donati.

Since coming to power, Syria’s Baathist rulers have pursued a policy of ruthless oppression against opponents, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, the influential movement that was crushed in its stronghold of Hama in 1982, in a crackdown that caused 20,000 deaths.

In July 2008, the authorities acknowledged a police crackdown on unrest at Saydnaya prison north of Damascus, accusing inmates convicted of “terrorism and extremism” of provoking the violence that one international rights group said resulted in at least 25 deaths.
In foreign policy, the regime has bent to the winds when necessary, believing that time is on its side. In the past, it has seen that policy pay dividends.
Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it took Damascus only two years to reassert its dominance over its tiny western neighbor.

Even after being internationally ostracized for its alleged involvement in the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Assad’s government later again found favor with the United States, which dispatched an ambassador to Damascus.

“The dual strategy has a domestic objective: it targets the bourgeoisie and intellectuals who are afraid of a leap into the unknown, and who can justify their hesitation by saying the regime wants dialogue,” Donati said.
Even though the protest movement is now growing in numbers and geographically, “it does not have a national dimension at the sociological level, and the authorities’ objective is to divide it and prevent it from growing,” she added.

Bassma Kodmani, a Syrian-born researcher and director of the Arab Reform Initiative based in Paris and Beirut, said: “The recent announcement of emergency rule being lifted had a two-fold objective: to respond to demands and at the same time show that there was no longer any reason for protests.”

“The announcement was designed to completely stop the movement, and when it did not stop it became necessary for the authorities to use force,” Kodmani said.
“There is a total strategy of surveillance and repression by the authorities, and the entire system was mobilized, even prepared to arm civilians” to confront protesters, she added.

The Syrian security services launched a wave of arrests targeting anti-regime militants Sunday, as thousands of people prepared for yet another day of funerals, activists said.
Wissam Tarif, executive director of Insan human rights group, said that at their last update Friday there were 221 “forcefully disappeared people” in Syria.

“President Bashar Assad delivers speeches because he has no other way of trying to appease the people, but he has no intention of making concessions. He knows if he starts making them he is through,” said Ignatius Leverrier, a former French diplomat with long experience in Syria.

“We are moving toward greater repression, and it is possible that in this case some within the regime will realize they are heading into a wall, and that the road ahead is a dead end,” he added.
For the time being, the state-run press is behind the regime, and justifies the repression.

The Tishrin daily said Sunday: “It is clear that the protesters are seeking to put an end to the Arab resistance and its leader, Syria.”
“Most of you have good intentions, but some have sold themselves to foreigners and are trying to finish with Syria, dividing its people and sowing dissension,” it said, addressing protesters directly.