Syrian opposition meeting in Istanbul marred by dissent #Syria

Afp 27/03/12

Syria
Haitham al-Maleh, (Photo: Reuters).

The Syrian National Council (SNC) main opposition group unveiled a proposal to lay the foundations of a new Syria to some 400 opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime’s crackdown on dissenters has claimed almost 10,000 lives in a year, according to monitors. The participants met behind closed doors at a hotel outside Istanbul.

The SNC text highlighted human rights and respect for minorities — an important concept in a country with multiple ethnic and religious factions living in fear of a civil war.

One of the main objectives of the meeting was to put up a united front prior to Sunday, when the second international conference of the “Friends of Syria” takes place, bringing together most Western and Arabic countries. “We are holding this meeting as a preparation for the next conference,” said Halit Hoca of the SNC.

But unity proved elusive.

The National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, which groups Arab nationalist parties, Kurds and socialists, shunned the gathering. Also absent also were a small group of intellectuals, including the prominent Michel Kilo.

Dissent broke out among participants from the start of the meeting with human rights activist Haitham al-Maleh withdrawing from the talks and accusing the SNC of not respecting others and imposing its will.
“I think most (members of the SNC) do not want to cooperate with others,” al-Maleh told journalists. “I want to see that they really want to practice democracy, but until now they are behaving line the Ba’ath party” of Assad, he said.

Al-Maleh, one of the main figures in the anti-regime movement, was one of the eight executive committee members of the SNC before he resigned on March 14, along with two others, Kamal al-Labwani and Catherine al-Telli.

The Kurdish National Council, the main group representing Syria’s four million Kurds, also walked out of the meeting. “We need a specific solution for the Kurdish matter in this paper… They (SNC) said maybe we will discuss this later,” said Talal Ibrahim Pach al-Milli.

Ammar Qurabi, leader of the liberal National Movement for Change, said he would not sign the declaration on the future of Syria as he found too “general.” “We staged the revolution against the regime because it didn’t allow us to speak freely, but now in this conference for the opposition I couldn’t speak freely,” he said.

The SNC’s executive committee member Bassma Qodmani called on the opposition factions not to sacrifice their “absolutely crucial objective” for organisational concerns that he said were “secondary.”

The 10 members of the executive committee of the SNC and leaders of various opposition factions outside the SNC will meet Wednesday to continue discussions on reorganising the opposition, said Ahmad Kamel from the SNC press office.

Turkey has become a safe haven for Syrian opponents since the anti-regime protests broke out last year, leading to the deaths of at least 9,100 people according to monitors.

Source: english.ahram.org.eg

How to advance #Syria’s transition

By Anne Applebaum, Published: March 1


“We are not pretending that the human rights situation in Syria is perfect. . . . We are aware that there is a regression in the quality of services usually provided by the government to the population by the regions facing violence.”

— Fayssal al-Hamwi, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations,in Geneva on Feb. 28

On Sunday, Syrians “voted” in a constitutional referendum that reflected “ citizens’ keenness on moving forward with the reform process ,” in the words of the government’s news agency. On the same day, 17  people were killed in Homs by the government’s military forces, while the International Red Cross tried, and failed, to negotiate safe passage for the wounded out of the city. The Syrian regime now has two faces: the pseudo-democratic one it turns to the outside world, and the vicious one it turns on its own people.

Although that contrast is clear, a Western military coalition of the willing isn’t going to emerge quickly on behalf of Syria, as it did for Libya. Syria’s ethnic divisions resemble those in Iraq, its ruling clique is sustained by Iran, its opposition is chaotic and some of its population is so scared of what might come next that they may be inclined to support the regime. The Syrian army has better weapons than the Libyan army (which itself collapsed only in the nick of time, just before NATO’s ammunition ran out), and Western publics are war-weary. But before we throw up our hands and let the Saudis send jihadists to “help” the Syrian rebels (like they once “helped” the Afghan mujaheddin), we have several more cards to play.

One involves taking Syria’s human rights rhetoric seriously — and turning it against the regime. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations and others have collected, compiled and published evidence of the regime’s abuses, including the names and positions of Syrian officers who ordered soldiers to fire on unarmed demonstrators; accounts of torture and arbitrary detention; descriptions of rape, abuse and murder of children; and evidence of the mass slaughter of regime opponents over many years.

It’s time to refer this material to the United Nations, the Arab League, the International Criminal Court (not a body I like, but since it exists we should use it); to hand it publicly to Syrian officials; to read it in Arabic on the radio; to use it in statements and at news conferences. A single speech by the American president or the British prime minister that named the criminal Syrian army officers could have an enormous impact, once it has been beamed back into Syria via radio, satellite TV, the Internet and word of mouth.

Western leaders have refrained from this kind of language because, as Hillary Clinton put it this week, using labels like “war criminal” to describe Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, can “limit options to persuade leaders to step down from power.” She is right — which is why rhetoric aimed at delegitimizing the regime should be accompanied by immediate and strenuous efforts to not only unify the opposition but also to get its disparate members talking about the post-Assad future. Syrian rebels need to start talking about transitional justice: how, exactly, former regime allies will be treated, how real criminals will be distinguished from mere collaborators, how victims will be compensated and how the minority rule of a dictatorial clan can be ended without bloodshed.

This isn’t an impossible dream: South Africa managed to avoid civil war, in an analogous (though hardly identical) situation. Violence there was avoided in part because the outgoing minority participated in the transition. If some of the Alawite elite can be persuaded to do the same, Syria stands a chance of avoiding civil war. There isn’t anybody to talk to in Assad’s immediate circle; all have blood on their hands. But if the Syrian rebels can reassure others in Damascus, Ala­wites as well as Christians, that they won’t become the targets of a campaign of revenge, then they stand a better chance of persuading more people to switch sides. The crucial moment of the revolution — when the regime’s supporters begin to sympathize with their opponents — may be fast approaching.

One way or another, this conflict will end. Assad will fall — or he will remain in power thanks to a bloodbath, followed by another era of sullen repression. Either way, one of the best things the West can do is help Syrian rebels and the Syrian diaspora think about what might come next. It seems ridiculous to focus on the future in the middle of a crisis. But in this case, that might be the only way the crisis can be resolved.

Anne Applebaum is director of political studies at the London-based Legatum Institute and writes a monthly column for The Post. Her e-mail is applebaumletters@washpost.com.

Source: Washington Post

#Syria’n activists: 64 bodies found near Homs in one of the worst mass killings

Rodrigo Abd/AP - A boy stands in front of a shop destroyed by Syrian army shelling in the center of Idlib on Monday.

By Liz Sly, Published: February 28

BEIRUT — The bodies of dozens of men were found dumped on wasteland on the outskirts of the stricken city of Homs on Monday in what appeared to be one of the worst instances of mass killing since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began last March.

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, said that the bodies of 64 men were taken to the National Hospital in Homs and that an unknown number of women and children who had been with them are missing. Activists said they thought that the men had been trying to flee the violence with their families when they were stopped and gunned down by security forces.

 

The details available were murky, however, and the bodies had not been identified, making it difficult to establish exactly how or why the men died.

The discovery came as Syria’s state media announced that a big majority of Syrians had voted to approve a new constitution that would allow Assad to remain in power until 2028. U.S. and European leaders have condemned the exercise as meaningless, since it seemed designed primarily to ensure Assad’s survival rather than to implement genuine reforms.

The apparent mass killing in Homs spoke to the rising ferocity of the violence engulfing many parts of Syria as the government seeks to quell the revolt and the once-peaceful protest movement increasingly resorts to arms to resist the onslaught, stirring fears of a civil war that could ignite a wider regional conflict.

The deaths were among 124 reported across Syria on Monday as the government’s efforts to crush the nearly year-long uprising showed no sign of letting up.

They included an additional 25 victims of continued shelling of the Bab Amr neighborhood in Homs, which has been subjected to daily bombardments by tank and artillery fire in a massive offensive that began Feb. 3.

The assault is aimed at crushing anti-government resistance in what had emerged as one of the biggest strongholds of the loosely organized Free Syrian Army rebel movement.

The official news agency SANA reported the funerals on Monday of 16 soldiers and policemen killed in the violence nationwide.

Homs has also become a flash point for sectarian tensions, which have escalated as the regime, dominated by members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, has sustained its efforts to quell a revolt embraced by the country’s mostly Sunni majority. There have been recent instances of sectarian killings in the city, and some activists said they could not rule out a sectarian dimension to this apparent massacre.

Trying to flee

Activists contacted in Homs said they thought the men were killed mainly because they were originally from Bab Amr. Fighting had displaced them weeks ago to outlying areas of the city, which they sought to flee overnight Sunday when those areas came under heavy attack.

Abu Emad, who spoke from Homs via Skype, said the men were among a large group of families that were leaving those areas when their vehicles were stopped at a checkpoint close to the main highway leading to Damascus.

The families were herded onto four buses, he said, citing the accounts of survivors, and were told they were being taken to a safe place. After a short distance, the elderly passengers were ordered off the buses, and the rest were driven away. On Monday morning, local residents discovered the bodies of the men; the whereabouts of the women and children who were with them are unknown, Emad said.

“They killed all the young men,” he said. “Maybe there are more — we still don’t know.”

The human rights group Avaaz gave a similar account of the incident but put the number of bodies found at 62. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 68 bodies had been taken to the National Hospital. Some of the victims had been shot, and others were bayonetted to death, said the Observatory’s spokesman, Rami Abdulrahman. He said it was not clear who the men were or why they were killed.

The accounts could not be independently confirmed; nor could the reports of killings elsewhere in the country, because journalists are not being granted visas to work in Syria.

Among those trapped in besieged Bab Amr are two foreign journalists who had entered the country illegally and were injured last week in a rocket attack that killed American journalist Marie Colvin, who was working for the British Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

According to the Associated Press, Poland’s foreign ministry has started an effort to negotiate safe passage out of the area for the two injured journalists, Edith Bouvier of the French newspaper Le Figaro and British photographer Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times, as well as the bodies of the two who were killed. Poland undertook to represent U.S. interests in Syria after the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Damascus this month.

A new constitution

SANA reported that 89.4 percent of voters in Sunday’s referendum endorsed the constitution, which was unveiled less than two weeks before the balloting amid Russian pressure on Assad to head off escalating Western efforts to force his departure.

The interior minister, Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar, was quoted as saying that 8,376,447 citizens, or 57.4 percent of eligible voters, voted in the referendum.The turnout was “good,” Shaar said, “despite the threats and intimidation by armed terrorist groups in some areas and the accompanying distortion and instigation campaigns by media.”

But with foreign journalists and outside observers barred from witnessing the polling, the opposition boycotting and violence raging across many parts of the country, the validity of the vote or the result was impossible to verify.

Though the new constitution introduces term limits and allows multiple political parties to compete in elections, it concentrates so much power in the presidency that Assad would effectively be able to remain in office 16 more years.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nonetheless hailed the outcome as a “movement toward democracy,” and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reiterated his opposition to any military intervention in Syria.

“I strongly hope that the United States and other nations will learn from the sad experience and won’t try to resort to a forceful scenario in Syria,” Putin wrote in a foreign policy manifesto published in Russian newspapers.

The comments followed an effort on Friday to rally support for Assad’s ouster by a new, U.S.-backed Friends of Syria group, which was set up as a forum to support the Syrian opposition after Russia and China closed the door on U.N. action by vetoing a Security Council resolution.

Although the group, including European and Arab nations and the United States, affirmed its support for Assad’s ouster, it stopped short of offering aid to the divided and ill-defined Syrian opposition.

Also Monday, a new group called the Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant said it was behind a double suicide bombing in Aleppo this month and a Jan. 6 bombing in Damascus that killed dozens.

In a videotaped message posted on a jihadi Web site that recounted details of the attacks, the group vowed to avenge the killings of Syrians by government forces wherever they occur and said that only armed revolt would bring down the Assad regime. It was the first claim of responsibility for the bombings, and though it could not be verified, the group’s video comes amid growing concerns that al-Qaeda-linked groups are attempting to infiltrate the Syrian uprising.

Source: Washington Post

Activist group: 144 dead in #Syria fighting

By Ben Hubbard Associated Press 
Posted:   02/27/2012 11:15:29 PM MST
Updated:   02/27/2012 11:16:17 PM MST
BEIRUT — A Syrian activist group reported Monday that 144 people have been killed across the country, scores of them in the embattled opposition stronghold of Homs by security forces as they tried to flee. A team from the Syrian arm of the Red Cross delivered aid to one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods after days of trying to reach the area.

The activist group did not say whether all 144 died on Monday or were killed over the past few days. Many of the casualties were believed to be from the rebel-controlled Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, which the Syrian Arab Red Crescent entered late Monday. Also in the neighborhood are two wounded foreign journalists along with the bodies of two of their colleagues who were killed last week.

European and American diplomats and aid workers have been trying desperately to find a way to evacuate them, but Red Cross spokeswoman Carla Haddad said late Monday that the Red Crescent had not managed to get them out. She did not know whether the group had stopped trying for the evening.

Homs has emerged as the center of the 11-month-old uprising seeking to oust authoritarian President Bashar Assad and has borne the brunt of his regime’s bloody crackdown on dissent. Parts of the city have been surrounded for weeks, making it impossible for rescue workers to reach the wounded and for families to bring their dead and injured to the hospital.

Reports by numerous activists that more than 60 bodies were brought to the hospital, all of whom appeared to have died in one incident, reflect the spreading carnage.

The high death toll reported by the Local Coordination Committees activist group is sure to add to the growing international pressure on Assad to give up power. But so far, his regime has shown no signs that it is ready to leave peacefully.

Syrian officials announced the results of a referendum on a new constitution held Sunday that Syrian authorities lauded as a step toward political reform.

The referendum allows at least in theory for opening the country’s political system. It approves a new constitution, which allows for a multiparty system in Syria, which has been ruled by the Baath party since it took power in a coup in 1963. Assad’s father, Hafez, took power in another coup in 1970.

It also imposes a limit of two seven-year terms on the president, meaning Assad could remain legally in power through 2028.

The U.S. and its allies dismissed the vote as a “farce” meant to justify the regime’s bloody crackdown on dissent. Syria’s main opposition groups boycotted the vote, and violence elsewhere prevented polling.

Syrian state TV said 89 percent of eligible voters approved the new document, while nine percent rejected it. It put turnout at 57 percent of Syria’s 14.9 million eligible voters.

Representatives of more than 60 countries met in Tunisia last week to forge a unified strategy to push Assad from power and began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the regime falls. On Monday, the European Union imposed new sanctions.

Syria has been able to count on allies China and Russia to protect it from condemnation by the U.N. Security Council. Both staunchly opposed any interference in Syria’s affairs.

Source: dailycamera.com

Death toll mounts as Assad sends elite Syrian troops to embattled Homs #Syria

Syrians attend a mass funeral for more than a dozen of people, whom anti-government protesters said were killed during clashes with Syrian forces in Homs. (Reuters)

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

By Al Arabiya with Agencies
 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent units of an elite armored division into Homs on Tuesday as rebel-held districts came under the heaviest bombardment of a three-week-old offensive, opposition sources in the city said. Syrian forces killed as many as 138 people on Monday, Al Arabiya reported citing activists.

Opposition sources told Reuters that tanks and troops of the Fourth Division, which is commanded by Assad’s brother Maher moved overnight into main streets around the besieged southern area of Baba Amro. The tanks had “Fourth Division Monsters” painted on them, they said.

There was no independent confirmation of the deployment. Syrian authorities tightly restrict media access to the country.

The outside world has proved powerless to halt the killing in Syria, where repression of initially peaceful protests has spawned an armed insurrection by army deserters and others.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent did manage to enter the besieged Baba Amro district of Homs and evacuate three people on Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. Foreign reporters trapped in the area were not evacuated and the bodies of two journalists killed there had not been recovered, it said, according to Reuters.

President Bashar al-Assad’s government announced that voters had overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a referendum derided as a sham by his critics at home and abroad.

While foreign powers argued over whether to arm the rebels, the Syrian Interior Ministry on Monday said the reformed constitution, which could keep Assad in power until 2028, had received 89.4 percent approval from more than 8 million voters.

Syrian dissidents and Western leaders dismissed as a farce Sunday’s vote, conducted in the midst of the country’s bloodiest turmoil in decades, although Assad says the new constitution will lead to multi-party elections within three months.

Voting turnout

Officials put national voter turnout at close to 60 percent, but diplomats who toured polling stations in Damascus saw only a handful of voters at each location.

Assad says he is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorist groups” and his main allies — Russia, China and Iran — fiercely oppose any outside intervention intended to add him to the list of Arab autocrats unseated by popular revolts in the past year.

But Qatar joined Saudi Arabia in advocating arming the Syrian rebels, given that Russia and China have twice used their vetoes to block any action by the U.N. Security Council.

“I think we should do whatever is necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said in Oslo.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe criticized the U.N. Security Council’s “impotence” on Syria, shown by the Russian and Chinese vetoes, and accused the Syrian authorities of “massacres” and “odious crimes.”

In a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Juppe said the time was ripe for referring Syria to the International Criminal Court and warned Assad he would be brought to justice.

“The day will come when the Syrian civilian and military authorities, first among them President Assad himself, must respond before justice for their acts. In the face of such crimes, there can be no impunity,” Juppe told the 47-member Geneva forum, which will hold an emergency debate on Syria on Tuesday.

Shells and rockets crashed into districts of Homs that have already endured weeks of bombardment as Assad’s forces try to stamp out an almost year-long revolt against his 11-year rule.

Source: english.alarabiya.net

#Syria vote labelled a ‘sham’

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma vote (Reuters)

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 5:55a.m.

By Zeina Karam and Bassem Mroue

Syria’s authoritarian regime held a referendum on a new constitution Sunday, a gesture by embattled President Bashar Assad to placate those seeking his ouster. But the opposition deemed it an empty gesture and the West immediately dismissed the vote as a “sham”.

Even as some cast ballots for what the government has tried to portray as reform, the military kept up shelling of the opposition stronghold of Homs, which has been under attack for more than three weeks after rebels took control of some neighbourhoods there. Activists and residents report that hundreds have been killed in Homs in the past few weeks, including two Western journalists.

The Red Cross spokesman said the humanitarian group had been unable to enter the besieged Homs neighbourhood of Baba Amr since Friday, describing the humanitarian needs there as “very urgent”.

Activist groups said at least 29 people were killed on Sunday, mostly in Homs. At least 89 were reported killed on Saturday alone, one day before the referendum. Activists estimate close to 7,500 people have been killed in the 11 months since the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent began.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Sunday’s vote “a cynical ploy”.

“It’s a phony referendum, and it is going to be used by Assad to justify what he’s doing to other Syrian citizens,” she said in an interview with CBS News in Rabat, Morocco.

Speaking to reporters in Rabat, Clinton called on Syrians in business and the military who still support Assad to turn against him.

“The longer you support the regime’s campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honour,” she said. “If you refuse, however, to prop up the regime or take part in attacks … your countrymen and women will hail you as heroes.”

Other countries also lambasted the vote.

“The referendum in Syria is nothing more than a farce,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said. “Sham votes cannot be a contribution to a resolution of the crisis. Assad must finally end the violence and clear the way for a political transition.”

US, European and Arab officials met Friday at a major international conference on the Syrian crisis in Tunisia, trying to forge a unified strategy to push Assad from power. They began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the regime falls.

“It is time for that regime to move on,” President Barack Obama said Friday of Assad’s rule.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported intense clashes between troops and army defectors in the villages of Dael and Hirak in the province of Daraa, where the uprising started. The group also said explosions were heard in the village of Khirbet Ghazaleh and Naima as well as the provincial capital, Daraa.

The Observatory and other activist groups reported violence in several areas including Idlib, Homs and the eastern province of Deir el-Zour.

The two main umbrella opposition groups, the Syrian National Council and the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, have called for a boycott. Other groups have called for a general strike.

“I am boycotting the vote,” Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso told The Associated Press by phone. He added that previous “reforms” have made little difference. Assad’s government revoked the country’s official state of emergency in April, but the crackdown on dissent has only intensified.

The referendum on the new constitution allows at least in theory for opening the country’s political system. It would create a multiparty system in Syria, which has been ruled by the Baath party since it took power in a coup in 1963. Assad’s father, Hafez, took power in another coup in 1970.

It also imposes a limit of two seven-year terms on the president, though Syrian legal expert Omran Zoubi said Assad’s time in office so far wouldn’t count. That means he could serve two more terms after his current one ends 2014, keeping him in office until 2028.

Such changes would be unthinkable a year ago, but since Assad’s security forces have killed thousands in their effort to end the uprising, most opposition groups say they’ll accept nothing short of his ouster.

In the capital Damascus, a regime stronghold where many in the business class and religious minorities support Assad, the Information Ministry took foreign reporters to visit polling stations. Many said they were eager to vote.

“This is a good constitution. It calls for party pluralism and the president can only hold the post for two terms. These did not exist in the past,” said civil servant Mohammed Diab, 40, who waited with four others to vote in the posh Abu Rummaneh neighborhood.

Jaafar Naami, 28, who works for a private insurance company, said: “I am here to say yes for the new constitution. This is not the time to say no. People should unite.”

The state news agency SANA said Assad and his wife, Asma, voted at the capital’s state broadcasting headquarters.

Fewer voters turned out in the areas of Rukneddine and Barzeh, where anti-government protesters have recently demonstrated.

In Barzeh, about 20 percent of shops were closed, apparently in compliance with the calls for a strike. Turnout was very low at a polling station in the area, with individuals trickling in to vote every few minutes.

One man said he had come to vote at a centre away from the district’s centre, where he said there was “pressure not to vote … intimidation and calls for public disobedience”. He did not give his name for fear of reprisal.

In Rukneddine, turnout in the morning was low, but picked up in the afternoon. Still, people cast ballots as they arrived with no need to stand in line.

A Syrian-American voter who only gave her first name, Diana, said after voting yes: “My friends attacked me for voting. They said, ‘Don’t you see people are dying?’ But for me, voting is my right. The president is on the right track. When someone hits you, you have to hit back.” She added: “Syria is under attack.”

Another woman refused to talk to the AP because it is an American agency. She attacked Obama over his call Friday for Assad’s regime to “move on”.

“Tell Obama I hope he dies, like he is killing Syrian people,” she said.

One woman emerged from the station and said she voted “no” without elaborating, and walked away quickly.

Posters around the capital Damascus urged people to cast ballots. “Don’t turn your back on voting,” one said.

Another - showing the red, black and white Syrian flag - touted the new constitution. “Syria’s constitution: Freedom of belief,” it said, referring to clauses protecting religious minorities.

Turnout is expected to be minimal in opposition strongholds such as Homs, the northwestern province Idlib and the southern region of Daraa where armed rebels frequently clash with security forces.

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hicham Hassan, said the group’s local chapter had not been able to reach the embattled Homs neighbourhood of Baba Amr since Friday, when it evacuated 27 people.

“Needs are very urgent,” he said. “It is absolutely crucial that we are able to enter in order to evacuate people and to bring in vital assistance.”

The repercussions of the Syrian conflict are rapidly spilling over borders. More than 80,000 Syrian refugees have sought refuge in neighbouring Jordan, officials there have said.

Turkey and Lebanon also are harbouring many Syrian refugees.

AP

Source: 3news.co.nz

Syrian tells NBC: ‘You hear the sounds of torture all the time’ #Syria
Yousef Dandash, who says he was imprisoned and tortured by Bashar Assad’s regime for six weeks, speaks to NBC News’ Richard Engel on Saturday.
By NBC News, msnbc.com and news services

BOYNUYOGUN, Turkey — An anti-Syrian government activist described weeks he spent in the regime’s torture chambers, saying he sometimes wished death would come and relieve him of the overwhelming pain.

“You hear the voices,” Yousef Dandash, a 25-year-old merchant from Jisr al-Shughour in Syria’s northern Idlib, told NBC News’ Richard Engel on Saturday. “You hear the sounds of men crying, real men shouting from the depth of their hearts.  You … pray that God takes you before you go back to the torture.”

Speaking at a refugee camp on the Turkish border with Syria, Dandash said he was detained for six weeks in March after tearing up a picture of President Bashar Assad in public.

“They took me to solitary confinement … with no access to a toilet,” he said.  “Every day there was beating and torture (and) electricity.”

He showed NBC News scars that he said were caused by prolonged bouts of torture.

His captors then took him to the capital Damascus, where he was put in a virtual underground city, Dandash said.

“There the torture and the beating started. I was blindfolded all the time and my hands tied behind my back,” he said.

Dandash managed to flee to Turkey after security forces took him back to a detention center in his town, where a judge decided to release him until his trial. His brother Ammar, who was a soldier, deserted and came with him across the border.

The growing numbers of Syrians fleeing to the country’s neighbors attest to the growing violence in Syria where Assad is trying to suppress a months-long rebellion. Some 10,000 refugees are now registered in tented refugee camps and the number is rising steadily.

On Sunday, voting was under way in the referendum on a new constitution in some parts of the country. Assad has said the poll will lead to a multi-party parliamentary election in three months, but his opponents see the vote as a joke given Syria’s turmoil.

The Syrian government, backed by Russia, China and Iran, and undeterred by Western and Arab pressure to halt the carnage, maintains it is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorist groups.”

Unwilling to intervene militarily and unable to get the U.N. Security Council to act amid Russian and Chinese opposition, Western powers have imposed their own sanctions on Syria and backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.

Dandash called the international stance on his country “weak” and “impotent” and called for the world to arm anti-Assad forces, not send humanitarian aid.

“We do not want food and water,” he said.  “We need rifles and ammunition.”

Source: MSN

Syrian constitutional referendum starts, but violence doesn’t stop #Syria

By the CNN Wire Staff
February 26, 2012 — Updated 1024 GMT (1824 HKT)
A Syrian woman wearing a scarf with pictures of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad casts her vote on a new constitution at a polling station in Damascus on February 26.

(CNN) — In what the government touts as a move toward reform, Syria’s constitutional referendum kicked off Sunday to widespread skepticism that the regime would stop slaughtering civilians.

The referendum on a draft constitution began in polling centers across the country Sunday morning, Syrian state-run TV reported.

But the unabated violence on the ground indicated nothing has changed in the nearly year-long onslaught by government forces.

At least 100 people were killed on the eve of the vote, almost half of them in Homs, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists.

And on Sunday morning, rockets fell once again on the besieged Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another opposition activist group. The LCC said at least 13 people were killed across Syria on Sunday — the vast majority in Homs.

Analysts and protesters ridicule the constitutional referendum as window dressing, the latest in a series of superficial measures intended to pacify President Bashar al-Assad’s critics.

Among the changes in the draft constitution is an article that states “the law shall regulate the provisions and procedures related to the formation of political parties.”

“Carrying out any political activity or forming any political parties or groupings on the basis of religious, sectarian, tribal, regional, class-based, professional, or on discrimination based on gender, origin, race or color may not be undertaken,” it continues.

The language suggests government permission is needed to form a party and excludes a number of people and groups from political activity, said Andrew Tabler, Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“It’s not going to change the fact that it’s a minority-dominated situation,” he said. “It will remain a presidential system with powers vested in the hands of the president.”

Tabler said the president — whose family has ruled Syria for four decades — is using this “tactic to get people to leave the streets.”

But former Syrian lawmaker George Jabbour said “clause 8 of the new draft of the constitution is the essential point” of the document. It “allows a multi-party system as opposed to the Baath Party being the leading party of the society and the state as stipulated in the current constitution.”

The Baath Party rules Syria.

Jabbour said “special committees will be formed to look into the licensing of new parties in line with the new constitution.”

As for presidential elections, they “will be competitive since there is no leading party anymore, and all the parties’ candidates are eligible provided their candidacy is endorsed by at least 35 members of parliament,” Jabbour said.

But reports of attempted vote fixing have already emerged.

According to Lt. Col. Mohamed Hamado of the opposition Free Syrian Army, civilians say that government authorities are pressuring them to vote for the referendum.

Amid the promises of change, the humanitarian crisis mounts.

On Saturday, the Red Cross failed to reach a deal with Syrian authorities and opposition members for a break in fighting so wounded people could be evacuated from Homs, an agency spokesman said.

“There has been no evacuation from Homs (Saturday). We simply could not reach any kind of agreement,” International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh said from Damascus.

He said the ICRC will continue trying to negotiate for access.

The ICRC has urged combatants to stop fighting for two hours each day to deliver humanitarian aid to Homs and other cities.

Opposition activists say relentless shelling and sniper fire have paralyzed Homs for more than three weeks. In addition to mounting carnage in the streets, residents report scarce or nonexistent access to food, water, electricity and medical care.

Among those killed was 17-year-old Anas al-Tarsheh, an opposition videographer who primarily documented the shelling of the Sunni-dominated Homs neighborhood of Inshaat, the LCC said.

CNN and other media outlets cannot independently verify opposition or government reports because Syria has severely limited access to the country by foreign journalists.

But the vast majority of reports from the ground indicate government forces are massacring citizens in an attempt to wipe out dissidents seeking al-Assad’s ouster.

CNN’s Salma Abdelaziz, Holly Yan, Joe Sterling and Yousuf Basil and journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this report.

Source: CNN

#Syria and the New Constitution: The End of Reform?

A picture shows a house hit by a shell which activists say was fired by Syrian regime forces in Idlib in northwestern Syria on 22 February 2012. (Photo: AFP - Bulent Kilic)

By: Salama Kayla

Published Thursday, February 23, 2012

Once revolution breaks out, it’s too late for reform. The revolution would never have begun if there had been the possibility of reform. People don’t revolt if reforms can solve their problems. Revolutions occur when there is no prospect for reforms and the entire economic and political order needs changing.

That is to state the obvious. Considering the revolution which began in Syria on March 15, and the reforms the regime has come up with since early April, it is equally obvious that they have come too late.

Syrians have been hearing about reform for two decades.

In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the wave of democratization that swept Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union alarmed the regime in Damascus. It feared for the survival of the ossified political system and the crisis-ridden economy.

This led to talk that democracy would be introduced “within a year.” But the promise was retracted after the Islamists won elections in Algeria, and the Soviet Union disintegrated.

So the Syrian political opposition, and the people, have been awaiting reform since 1990.

What they got, in 1991, was “economic reform,” enshrined in Law 10/1991, which paved the way for the liberalization of the economy. That is when the living standards of growing numbers of workers and wage earners began to deteriorate and economic policy began to favor the private sector.

Subsequently, the young Syrians currently demonstrating in the streets, along with the political opposition, looked to President Bashar Assad to introduce reforms. They waited for him to deliver on the promises he made in this regard after he assumed power in 2000.

The constitution is the latest in a series of cosmetic reform measures put forward by the regime.But all he ended up doing was deepening the “economic reform” that was to be the root cause of the outbreak of the uprising. Economic liberalism triumphed. The private sector assumed control of 70 percent of the economy. We saw extreme concentrations of wealth develop, along with extreme impoverishment.

Thus by the time the revolution began, the time for reform had certainly passed.

The “reform” steps the regime has taken since then have been designed purely for media consumption, and as a distraction from the ferocity of the violence, killing, and destruction underway all over Syria.

The new constitution falls into that category. It is not a newly-drafted constitution at all, but an amended version of the old one.

It acknowledges realities that have become established over the past decade – whether in the economy or in terms of “political freedom” – but does not alter the basic structure of the regime. It thus perpetuates all the problems that led to the revolution.

The constitution is the latest in a series of cosmetic reform measures put forward by the regime, including the lifting of the state of emergency, and the introduction of new laws on the media and political parties.

All these “reforms” ensure that the president remains in a position of absolute power. They could be likened to Hosni Mubarak’s “reforms” in Egypt in mid-1980s – despite the difference in time and place, and the very different circumstances – except that the latter were more far-reaching.

The new Iegislation on media and political parties leaves both subject to regulation by the executive authority (though the government itself represents a political party). Likewise, the draft constitution ties all powers to the executive authority – at whose pinnacle is the president.

The first proposed change in the constitution concerns “Economic Principles.” These put the era of “socialism” behind us, and brings the constitution in line with the realities that have been created over the past two decades, paving the way for more of the same kind of liberalization.

The economy was hardly “socialist” before. It was more a form of state capitalism based on private ownership. But the state did play a role in the economy which bolstered investment in productive sectors and employment.

The new constitution upholds the new economic status quo created by a group that plundered the country’s wealth. This group was able to do so because of the highly centralized political system that pivots around the president.

The new constitution still describes the political system as republican, with sovereignty vested in the people. They are to exercise it in the manner specified in Article 2: by electing a president and a People’s Assembly.

There is no change in the role accorded to the assembly, the legislative authority, or the president, who, on behalf of the people and in cooperation with the council of ministers, wields executive authority (Article 83).

The “separation of powers” here between legislature and executive is purely formal. While the People’s Assembly is granted legislative authority, the constitution goes on to restrict that to specific functions such as “enacting legislation, discussing the government’s program, approving the state budget, approving development plans…” (Article 75).

Members of the Assembly are also entitled to “propose legislation and direct questions or interpolations at the government or individual ministers” (Article 74). It is significant, in this regard, that the government is accountable to the legislature for implementing its program (Article 76.2), even though executive power is actually wielded by the president.

The president will remain unaccountable, though it is he who will continue to choose the prime minister (Article 97), formulate overall state policies in conjunction with the council of ministers, and supervise their implementation (Article 98). Yet the legislature can only hold the head of state to account in the case of high treason (Article 117).

As for the judicial authority, guaranteeing its independence is one of the functions of the president, assisted by the Supreme Judicial Council (Article 132). The latter provides the necessary oversight to ensure the independence of the judiciary (Article 133.32).

The judiciary cannot be both independent and subject to the president. The constitution describes the Supreme Court as an “independent judicial body” (Article 140). But its members are named by the president (Article 141).

Its job includes judging whether laws and decrees are constitutional, supervising presidential elections, ruling on any claims of irregularities, and providing legal opinions when requested by the president (Article 146).

Thus, a body appointed by the president decides whether laws passed by parliament are valid, and how the same president is elected. In other words, the president is the arbiter of both parliamentary legislation and his own re-election.

The structure of the regime remains as it was: absolute presidential power, with pro forma separation of legislative and judicial authorities.The constitution provides for “political pluralism” in Syria (Article 8). But the political parties law vests the power to approve requests to form new parties in a committee whose members are mostly (four out of five) chosen by the president and the minister of the interior.

So no party can operate without the approval of the executive, as opposed to an independent judicial authority. The status of “popular organizations and professional unions and associations” meanwhile remains unchanged. They too remain subject to the executive authority (which in a multi-party system would mean the governing party).

This all puts into perspective the much-trumpeted removal of Article 8 of the old constitution, which enshrined the Baath Party as “leader of state and society.” The Baath Party in Syria is no more than a facade for absolute presidential power.

What has been achieved here is merely the removal of that facade, which had crumbled after two decades of economic liberalism. The structure of the regime remains as it was: absolute presidential power, with pro forma separation of legislative and judicial authorities, that are also ultimately subject to the president of the republic.

The regime’s reforms are so superficial they seem almost comical when set against the revolution raging in the country. But they make clear that the regime feels incapable of surrendering any of the absolute power it wields at present, and that the people should expect no more than word games.

This is the culmination of the reform process that was launched in early April 2011. It is laughable. It vindicates the basic political instincts of the mass of ordinary people. They only took to the streets after they felt certain that this regime cannot be reformed, and so it must be removed.

Salama Kayla is Syria-based Arab writer.

Source: english.al-akhbar.com