Leader attacks protestors, avoids offering concrete plans for reform
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad went on the offensive in a much-anticipated televised address to the nation on Wednesday, avoiding any proposal for concrete reforms and attacking opposition protestors as pawns of foreign interference.
In his first address to the nation since the sweeping protests left dozens dead, Al-Assad spoke for 45 minutes in front of parliament, departing from his notes for most of his speech – except at the start and when he addressed the issue of reform. Human Rights Watch says at least 73 people were killed in the past 10 days of demonstrations, violently suppressed by government forces.
“To say it was disappointing would be understatement. It was also provocative as far as Syrian people are concerned. He made no attempt to appear conciliatory to the Syrian people or make any concrete proposal for reform,” Malik Al-Abdeh, who runs the Syria In Transition website from London, told The Media Line.
The speech is likely not only to disappoint opposition protestors, who have been demanding more political freedoms and a crackdown on corruption, but Syria’s moderate friends, such as Turkey and Qatar, which have been urging him to loosen some of the most draconian aspects of his rule.
There were unconfirmed reports that clashes broke out at the Arab International University in Damascus immediately after the speech concluded.
"I see nothing new in this speech. Al-Assad spoke of reform but presented no elements to enable that reform,” Muhammad Al-Musfir, a political scientist at Qatar University in Doha. "He accused people of subversion [fitna]. Is demanding reform subversion? That’s news to me."
Al-Musfir said Al-Assad failed to address two key articles in the constitution that reformists demand be changed — Article 49, which allows the government to persecute and arrest members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Article 8, which states that Al-Assad’s Baath party is the only legally authorized party in Syria.
Syria, whose government is among the most repressive in the world, was late in being swept up in the turmoil that has spread across the Middle East. The first outbreak of large protest erupted only two weeks ago. Al-Assad’s ability to steer his country through the turmoil could be critical because Syria is a key ally of Iran and plays a major role in neighboring Lebanon.
Al-Assad had hinted that some of the opposition’s grievances might be addressed in the speech. A day before, his prime minister, Mohammed Naji Otri, tendered his cabinet’s resignation. The state-run SANA news agency had reported that the president’s speech would "tackle the internal affairs and the latest events in Syria," and "reassure the Syrian people."
Al-Assad himself said on Wednesday he waited to address the nation until he could offer a clear message. "I know that the Syrian people have been awaiting for this speech since last week, but I was waiting to get the full picture …to avoid giving an emotional address which would have put the people at ease but have no real effect," he said.
But Al-Assad made no mention of lifting the state-of-emergency regime imposed in 1963. Nor did he refer to the civilians who have died in clashes with security forces, a move Al-Abdeh said would have improved the atmosphere.
Instead, the Syrian leader accused the protests of serving the enemies of the country, using the word fitna, the Arabic for sedition and redolent with religious meaning, to describe the demonstrators.
“Some people consider what is happening to be a revolution, but we see it differently," Al-Assad said. “The conspirators first began with incitement, which began a few weeks ago. They did not accomplish anything so they began to lie. They falsified information, sounds, pictures, everything. They then switched to the second axis – the sectarian one – and began sending text messages on mobile phones to one sect telling people to beware of the other sect."
The accusation that the opposition leaders have a religious agenda is likely to strike a nervous chord among Syrians, who are a mix of Muslims, Christians, Druze and Alawites, the latter a Muslim breakaway sect to which the Al-Assad family belongs. Sectarian tensions in neighboring Lebanon led to a protracted civil war in the 1970s and 1980s.
Syria has been ruled by the Baath Party since 1963 and Al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez Al-Assad, in 2000.
Against the hopes his speech had aroused, Al-Assad sent other signals that he was gearing up for a fight rather than compromise. On Tuesday, tends of thousands gathered at Seven Sea Square in the capital of Damascus in a government-orchestrated protest. As he entered Parliament for Wednesday’s speech, lawmakers chanted "God, Syria and Bashar only!" and "Our souls, our blood we sacrifice for you Bashar." His speech was interrupted by standing ovation.
“Every day, our enemies scientifically and in an organized way try to harm Syria’s stability,” Al-Assad told the lawmakers. “"They have chosen the wrong people [to conspire against] because this kind of conspiracy will not succeed.”
Al-Assad’s tactics follow the trajectory of other Arab leaders – violent crackdown on demonstrators, replacing the cabinet and promising piecemeal reforms that don’t address the fundamental grievances of the opposition. In Egypt and Tunisia, however, those tactics failed to stop mounting protests and both countries’ leaders were forced to resign. In Bahrain, protests were only quelled by the intervention of troops from Saudi Arabia.
Nevertheless, Al-Assad reiterated in his Wednesday address that Syria was different from other Arab countries beset by unrest.
"Syria isn’t isolated from the Arab world, and is influenced and influences. At the same time, we are not a copy of the other countries … we in Syria have features that make us more distinct both internally and externally."
Both he and political analysts have cited his personal popularity —unlike most of the region’s autocrats he is a relatively young, 44 years old, and been in power for just 11 years – and his strong hostility to Israel and the U.S. as reasons why Syria may squeeze through the most severe turmoil. Ironically, Al-Assad has the quiet backing of the U.S. and Israel, who worry that the president’s exit would expose the country to a possible takeover by Islamists.