Syria’s Assad offers nothing

Syria’s Assad offers nothing, blames protests on ‘big conspiracy’

REUTERS TV/ REUTERS - Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad addresses the parliament in Damascus. Al-Assad said on Wednesday that Syria is the target of a "conspiracy" to sow sectarian strife.

By Edward Cody

CAIRO — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared Wednesday that the wave of angry protests unfurling across his country resulted from a “big conspiracy” by unidentified enemies seeking to destabilize Syria and push it into sectarian strife.

Gallery: Egypt- and Tunisia-inspired protests spread through Middle East, North Africa: Motivated by recent shows of political strength by neighbors in Egypt, demonstrators in the Middle East and North Africa are taking to the streets of many cities to rally for change.

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Graphic: Middle East and North Africa in turmoil

Assad, in a nationally televised speech, did not offer any of the concessions hoped for by protesters, such as abolishing a 48-year-old emergency law that suffocates civil liberties and allows the political system to be monopolized by the ruling Baath Party.

Instead, he portrayed himself as a modernizer who has long been engaged in economic and political reforms — and who eventually will get around to altering the hated emergency rules as well.

“Some people will come up this afternoon and say, ‘This is not enough,’ ” Assad said, chuckling into his microphone as he anticipated what satellite television commentators would opine. “But I want to tell them, we are not going to destroy our nation.”

The long-awaited speech, coming after 12 days of anti-government riots, was a major disappointment for the mostly youthful demonstrators who have added Syria to a growing list of Arab countries facing unprecedented demands for democracy, civil rights and clean government.

“What he said today, it will not stop the movement,” said Haitham al-Maleh, a veteran human rights activist contacted by telephone. “There is a tsunami going across the Arab world, and it will cover Syria, too.”

Malath Aumran, an exiled cyber-activist, said Assad’s response fell far short of the protesters’ demands, which included an end to the emergency laws and secret police tactics that long have instilled fear among Syrians. “I’m really disappointed by what I heard,” Aumran said. “He is totally ignoring our demands in the streets, like any other arrogant dictator.”

The Syrian protests have resulted in about 60 deaths, according to human rights groups, and raised the most serious threat to the 45-year-old Assad since he took over from his deceased father 11 years ago. He heads a one-party government based on Arab nationalism, confrontation with Israel and invasive controls by a half-dozen furtive security agencies.

Assad’s speech, at the ornate parliament building in Damascus, was frequently interrupted by legislators who stood to shout their support. One female member, wearing a scarf over her hair, rose with a coy smile to recite a short poem to Assad and the glory of Syria. Outside, pro-government demonstrators waved their fists for television cameras.

“With our souls, with our blood, we are supporting you, oh, Assad,” they cried in unison.

Assad, acknowledging the tributes, said he took heart from the noisy expressions of support in pro-government demonstrations that took place Tuesday in Damascus, the capital, and several other cities. But people should understand, he added, that it is the president himself who with his soul and his blood supports the Syrian nation.

The internationally televised proceedings, which lasted a little more than an hour, thus gave the impression of a show of support for the Syrian leadership at a time of crisis rather than the moment of serious concessions that many people — Syrian and others — had been led to expect.

Assad said reforms announced last week — wage increases and a promise that the emergency laws and political party legislation would be altered at an unspecified date — were already significant advances but were poorly communicated by his government, wrongly giving an impression that things were standing still.

Actually, he said, the reforms have already been drafted and would have been passed by parliament long ago, except that the government was too busy dealing with economic and foreign policy problems.

But Assad’s overall explanation for the violent protests was that the unnamed plotters were misleading the people. The demands for reform were legitimate, he said, but the protests were the work of enemies trying to foment discord between Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority and the Shiite-connected Alawite minority from which the Assad family springs and on which it has based four decades of iron-fisted rule.

This was particularly true, he said, in Daraa, a dusty border crossing on the road between Damascus and Amman. Known historically as the site where Lawrence of Arabia said he was sexually assaulted by a Turkish army officer, Daraa gained a new fame last week when security forces opened fire on protesters in a violent encounter transmitted around the world by cellphone cameras and the Internet.

“The people of Daraa are the people of patriotism and the people of pan-Arab nationalism,” Assad declared, adding that they would never have risen up had they not been tricked.

He said the government had given orders to security forces not to open fire in Daraa. But the confrontation escalated, Assad said, because of “chaos in the streets” fomented by the plotters seeking to bring down Syria and sabotage its role as a leader in the Arab confrontation with Israel.

“We are for supporting people’s demands, but we cannot support chaos,” the Syrian leader added. “We are all reformists. Some demands of the people have not been met. But people were duped into taking to the streets.”