Approaching his 18th birthday, Hamza, a merchant sailor from
Syria, resigned himself to the fate awaiting him when he reached
adulthood: A year and a half of mandatory military service.Then last year, the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad
erupted with demonstrations calling for change. Troops dispatched by
Syria’s autocratic regime shot protesters and shelled opposition towns,
killing thousands of civilians. That altered the plan for Hamza, and for a growing number of young
Syrians who are dodging the draft out of fear that military service will
force them to kill their countrymen -- or get killed themselves."I couldn’t go because the army
is supposed to protect people, but all this army does is protect Assad,”
said Hamza, now a wispy-bearded 19-year-old with thick biceps from his
work at sea. He fled Syria this year to Tripoli, a city on Lebanon’s
Mediterranean coast. Unable to work, he lives in hiding in a small
apartment here with six other draft-dodgers.Young Syrians have long avoided the draft by traveling abroad, cooking
up medical excuses or using connections and bribes to get their names
off the rolls. But anti-regime activists in and outside Syria say the
number has shot up during the 15-month conflict that the U.N. says has
killed more than 9,000 people.Some hide out in opposition areas in Syria, avoiding checkpoints where
they could be jailed or conscripted. Others flee the country, opting, at
least for now, for an impoverished existence far from their families.The extent of all this is hard to gauge since the Syrian government does
not comment on its military. But in a hint that the army is under
strain, Assad issued an amnesty this month: He gave draft-dodgers inside
the country 90 days to report for duty without punishment, and 120 days
to those abroad.The government has not said how many have accepted the offer.
So far, the drop in conscripts has not noticeably lessened the state’s
advantage over the opposition Free Syrian Army, largely because draftees
are less committed than professional soldiers."The guys they call up now are not the guys who are going to stick by
them,” said Joseph Holliday, an analyst at the Institute for the Study
of War who is studying the Syrian army. "Anyone they can get to fight
for them loyally is already taking part.”Others warn that efforts to replace draft-dodgers with regime loyalists
will exacerbate sectarian strife. The opposition is mostly Sunni Muslim,
while Assad’s regime and security forces give outsized power to Assad’s
sect, the Alawites.Both sides use sectarian appeals to rally their forces, raising the risk
that Syria’s violence could mirror that which has torn apart its
neighbors Lebanon and Iraq in recent decades."This revolution, which is turning into a civil war along sectarian
lines, is only going to become more sectarian as time goes on,” said
Syria expert Joshua Landis at the University of Oklahoma.The slaughter of more than 100 people two weeks ago in the Sunni area of
al-Houla raised the specter of sectarian massacres, with local
activists accusing Alawite thugs of killing villagers at close range
after heavy government shelling. The U.N. condemned the killings but did
not overtly blame the regime. Draft-dodgers particularly hope to avoid getting caught up in this type of violence."Even if you support the government, you know the army is killing
people, so given the choice to go or not, you won't go,” said Rami
Jarrah, who has four draft-dodgers in his office at the Activists News
Association in Cairo. Standard military service is 18 months for a man over 18 who is not an
only son. Only sons don’t serve. University and technical school
students can delay their service and do slightly less time. Syrians born abroad can pay $500 not to serve, and those with residency
in other countries can pay $4,000 to $5,000, depending on their
location.But healthy, Syrian-born men living at home have no way out. Such was the fate of one of Jarrah’s colleagues, a 24-year-old from
Banias, who graduated from university just before the uprising began. He
bribed the draft office for another short-term student exemption but
was told last October that he had to serve.
"They said there was no way out of it because of what is going on, so I
left the country,” he said, declining to give his name to protect his
family in Syria. Others, like Hamza, agreed to have only their first
names published. Like many draft-dodgers, he said his older relatives had served and that he would have too in normal times."But now the army is killing its own people, so you have to refuse to go,” he said.Most draft-dodger exiles say they won’t return to Syria until the regime
falls, and many won’t renew expired passports, fearing their embassies
will confiscate them until they report for duty.This leaves them stranded abroad, sometimes as risk of arrest and deportation.Maher, a roommate of Hamza, dragged his four-year university program out
to eight years to avoid the military, but was told last year when he
tried to renew his passport that he had to enlist. Weeks later, he fled
to Lebanon, afraid the military would make him kill other Syrians."How can an army that was built to fight Israel and liberate the Golan
Heights be the same one that is now killing its own people?” said Maher,
27. Lebanon has close ties to Syria, and many Syrian dissidents fear
harassment or arrest. The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon said recently it was
"deeply troubled by reports of disappearances, arrests and intimidation
of Syrians in Lebanon undertaken by the Syrian regime and its
supporters.”"Refugees, dissenters, and deserters who renounce violence should be protected,” it said. Even some Syrians who can legally avoid the draft now refuse to. Maher’s friend Abdul Rahman Qassem, 21, lived for years in the United
Arab Emirates and planned to establish residency there and buy his way
out."That was before the revolution,” he said. "But when it started, I
stopped trying because I knew the money would go to the regime, so I
wouldn't pay.”Not all draft dodgers are active in the anti-Assad struggle, but many
said they now spend most of their time trying to help the opposition in
Syria."If I had a way to do it, I would join the Free Syrian Army,” Qassem
said. "At least that way I'd feel I'm serving my country.”
