Syrian ‘national dialogue’ conference boycotted by angry opposition

Vice-president says talks will lead to ‘the transformation of Syria’, but dissidents refuse to attend while crackdown continues

Nidaa Hassan in Damascus and Julian Borger

The Syrian vice-president Farouk al-Sharaa, centre, at the national dialogue meeting in Damascus which he claimed could lead to ‘the transformation of Syria into a pluralistic, democratic state’. Photograph: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images
Opposition leaders boycotted a “national dialogue” conference on reform with Syria’s ruling Ba’ath party on Sunday, vowing not to meet the regime while protesters were still being killed in the streets.
Opening the two-day conference, Syria’s vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa, portrayed it as a potential turning point in the country’s political history.
“We hope that it will lead to … the transformation of Syria into a pluralistic, democratic state where its citizens are equal,” Sharaa told delegates at the Sahara hotel in Damascus.
But the 200 delegates consisted mainly of Ba’ath party members, intellectuals close to the regime and independent parliamentarians. Opposition figures, activists in the Local Co-ordinating Committees (LCC) who represent protesters and exiled dissidents, said they rejected email invitations due to the continuing killing and lack of trust in the regime’s promises to reform.
“While the regime is meeting – and that is what today was – there are funerals in other cities and people continue to be killed and arrested,” said Razan Zeitouneh, a lawyer and LCC member in Damascus.
Human rights groups say at least 1,500 civilians and 350 security force members have been killed since Syria’s uprising started in mid-March and thousands more have been detained.
The conference was organised to discuss short-term reforms, such as a review of the restrictive media laws, and to draw up a political road map to democracy, but the government has not said how long that process should take.

• Reforms such as the lifting of emergency law have been promised but not fully implemented. Most international journalists remain banned from the country, despite pledges to create a free media. Most analysts say the regime cannot reform without losing its grip on power.

  “Any true reform, such as a move to democracy, is a dream because it would weaken the regime,” said one opposition figure who asked not to be named. “But today’s meeting is good because it shows how far the street has pushed and, by making promises, the regime is raising the bar for itself.”

  In Midan, a central Damascus neighbourhood which suffered its first casualty of the uprising on Friday, many residents were sceptical about the meeting. “We don’t want to talk two days after someone died here,” said one 31-year-old man.

  Activists in the neighbourhood said 25-year-old Mohamed Dakdak died after being shot in the head during protests on what the opponents called “No Dialogue Friday”. At least 14 people were reportedly killed across the country on Friday but Dakdak’s death marked the first instance that live ammunition has been fired at people rather than into the air in this sensitive area in the capital, and it could lead to the spread of unrest in Damascus.

  Although protests in the capital remain small, acts of resistance have become more common. In some neighbourhoods locals have distributed lists of informers, some Damascenes have donated money to protesters, and acts of civil disobedience targeting the economy have proliferated.

  Pro-regime supporters have become increasingly bullish, throwing rubbish and tomatoes at the French embassy on Sunday and protesting outside the US embassy. The US and French ambassadors were summoned to see foreign minister Walid al-Moallem after their trip to the city of Hama at the weekend, which Syria’s government deemed “flagrant interference in Syria’s domestic affairs”.

  Hama’s residents welcomed US ambassador Robert Ford with roses, saying he had stopped a bloody crackdown on Friday after four weeks during which the government lost control of the city.

  Nidaa Hassan is a pseudonym for a journalist in Damascus

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