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March 25, 2011       Share:    

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/syria-pledges-to-consider-greater-freedoms-after-week-of-unrest-violence-in-southern-city/2011/03/24/ABfr1oNB_stor

Why Did Syrian Protests Begin in Daraa?

(AP-Washington Post) Syria's socialist government launched a massive state-run wheat growing project in the 1990s and began pumping large amounts of water from the aquifers around Daraa, leaving private pasture and farmland increasingly parched. The rising tension in Daraa in southern Syria is in marked contrast to the prosperous cities of Damascus and Aleppo, where the wealthy Sunni merchant classes have loaned their political support to Assad's minority Alawite government in exchange for relatively generous amounts of personal and economic freedom.

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