By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
President Bashar Al-Assad's opponents have
taken a step toward unity by forming a national council to represent Syria's
uprising but have a long way to go until they create a broad-based alternative
to his rule. Six months after protests demanding political freedoms broke out,
opposition figures meeting in Istanbul named members of a Syrian National
Council on Thursday to steer a transition in case Assad falls and to liaise
with international powers that have condemned the crackdown.
France welcomed the council's creation, but
in a sign of obstacles and internal rivalries which the opposition must
overcome, not all names were finalised and some figures appointed to the group
said Islamists won too much influence. Aside from the goal of Assad's downfall
and a transitional period to democracy that preserves state institutions, the
council has yet to produce a credible leader who can command wide respect on
the street. Other groups may still try to set up alternative leaderships both
inside and outside Syria.
They have not brought together everyone, and
there are varying objections on the members, but the fact is that they finally
formed a council after months of bickering over the names, while the regime has
been killing 20 Syrians a day," prominent Syrian writer Hakam al-Baba told
Reuters. "A main objective now is to address the international community,
and I think the council can do that. They have also left the door open for the
rest of the opposition to join," said Baba, a dissident who lives in the
Gulf.
The opposition is also still far from forming
a front similar to one set up in the past by Iraqi opposition groups which
campaigned for Saddam Hussein's removal and was well connected in the West,
especially Washington. One opposition figure not in the council said Islamists
were over-represented on the newly announced body."The National Council
has taken an Islamist flavour at the time we need to assure all minorities and
the ethnicities more of their future in a post-Assad Syria," said Thamer
Al-Jahmani,a prominent lawyer from Deraa who took refugee in Jordan last month
after the assassination of a fellow activist.
Among 70 of the announced names for the
140-member council were Sheikh Anas Airout, a cleric who has played a key role
in protests in the coastal city of Banias, and Sheikh Muti Al-Butain and Bashar
Al-Heraki from the city of Deraa, members of a "neo-Islamist" current
opposed to rigid interpretations of Islam and in favour of a civic form of
government. "I have been counted as an Islamist just because I pray and
have a light beard," Heraki said. "Even using this way of counting,
Islamists end up representing a little over a quarter of the council as it
stands.
A declaration issued by the council said its
goal was in line with calls for the "downfall of the regime", chanted
by thousands of protesters every week since the outbreak of unrest in March.
The United Nations says 2,600 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on
the protests. A spokeswoman for the council said that while members opposed
foreign military intervention they supported international protection for
civilians.
Western nations, which have been increasing
sanctions on Assad and his inner circle, have called on the opposition to
unite, but they show no appetite for an intervention similar to the NATO
bombing that helped remove Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. The council said a power
vacuum must be avoided during any transition to democracy. Minority rights must
be safeguarded, along with "the non-violent character of the Syrian
revolution".
Secular figures such as veteran leftist
Khaled Al-Haj Saleh and politics professors Najib Ghadbian and Wael Mirza, and
rights campaigner Ammar Al-Qurabi are members, as well as 50 unannounced names
from grassroots activists inside Syria. Hozan Ibrahim, a spokesman of the Local
Coordination Committees, one of the more secular groups, said the council was
not national because "not everyone is there". Diplomats following the
Istanbul gathering said talks were taking place to win endorsement of the
Damascus Declaration, signed by a group of veteran opposition leaders such as
widely respected dissident Riad Al-Turk, who spent 25 years as a political
prisoner, and former parliamentarian Riad Seif.
The Damascus Declaration is seen as having
moral authority over protesters though its signatories have played little role
in demonstrations, which started when a group of younger activists, mainly
women, rallied in Marjeh Square in Damascus in March demanding the release of
political prisoners. Another figure the National Council wants to bring on
board is Burhan Ghalioun, a French-based professor who met the Istanbul group
in Qatar this month but chose not to join it, diplomats said.
The opposition is in a steep learning curve
and they have to prove as a council that they matter. We must not forget that
after six months they have not yet agreed on a set of principles of what to do,
not even one unified statement," one diplomat said. "I think the
Istanbul people felt the street pressure and said we have to do something and
form a body even if not everyone else agreed," the diplomat said.
Previous efforts by Haitham Al-Maleh, a
former judge who spent almost a decade in jail, to form a shadow government
failed after security forces killed 15 protesters near the Syrian venue where
his conference was due to take place and authorities arrested two leading
opposition figures. Other opposition groups, including one led by charismatic
Kurdish leader Mishaal Tammo and a centrist bloc led by Hassan Abdel Azim, are
also seeking to form a "National Assembly". Activists have separately
formed a Revolution Leadership Council, whose membership is mostly secret.
"If the figures on the inside manage to form a national assembly, the
outside conference should join it," Jahmani said.
Secular opposition figure Louay Hussein said
that any grouping needs to win support from a "silent majority" he
said yearns for democracy but fears possible chaos if Assad falls. Hussein last
week launched an initiative that proposes withdrawing the army and pro-Assad
militiamen from the streets, release of political prisoners and scrapping of
repressive laws and legal impunity for the security apparatus in return for the
opposition entering into talks with the authorities for specific measures for a
transition to democracy.
The authorities are not ready to listen to
anyone. They have closed their ears and are pursuing a security solution,"
Hussein said. "But we still need to reach a consensus on how to move from
the current totalitarian system to a democratic state." – Reuters
This analysis was published in
The Kuwait Times on 19/09/2011
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