David Kenner in Foreign Policy just brought them down to an all time low (7000 killed) to hike up the reported numbers of 2011-12' Syrian deaths (7000+)...
"... This February also marks the 30th anniversary of the Hama Massacre, when President Hafez al-Assad initiated a brutal crackdown in the western Syrian city in order to put down a rebellion. Since then, Syrians, historians and policymakers have wondered how a regime could be allowed to virtually destroy a city while the international community sat and watched.
The low-end casualty estimates for Hama stand at around 7,000 people. According to the VDC, a total of 7,054 Syrians have been killed in the past year. Three decades later, it seems, we have our answer."
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The book "Asad of Syria" by Patrick Seale was published in year 1988. Patrick Seale himself was in Syria doing the research for his book during the 1980s, and the book is generally regarded as well informed. And in the book he says about the government's 1982 attack on the rebels in Hama city:
"How many lives were lost in Hama must remain a matter of conjecture, with government sympathizers estimating a mere 3,000 and critics as many as 20,000 and more. Complicating an accurate count was the fact that many women and children fled the cordon of troops ringing the city and were at first presumed to be among the casualties." Page 334, viewable at http://books.google.com/books?id=Z_rlPwgezoUC&pg=PA334#v=onepage&q&f=false
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