Domestic opposition gaining strength, but still facing pressures

In 2001, then Member of Parliament Riad Seif accused the regime of corruption after a lucrative mobile-phone contract was awarded to a cousin of President Bashar al-Assad. The MP's accusation represented the high-water mark of the so-called “Damascus Spring”, the brief thaw in Syrian political life that followed al-Assad's assumption of power. It was a period in which political discussion groups openly criticised government policy, hundreds of political prisoners were released, media laws were eased to allow for private publications and activists spoke openly about lifting the country's 43-year old emergency laws. "The regime is interested in staying in power for as long as possible, preferably forever,” said Seif, who was imprisoned in late 2001 after the “Spring” turned to autumn, bringing a government crackdown on opposition and pro-democracy activists. Five years on, Seif, freed in January, finds himself a key figure in a rejuvenated opposition movement that – for the first time in its history – has united behind a single reform statement, known as the Damascus Declaration. "It spoke of bringing democracy,” said Seif of the declaration, “and changing, not reforming, the country for the first time." The petition was signed last October by an alliance of leftist pan-Arab opposition parties in the National Democratic Rally, a group of eight Kurdish parties, the Committee for Revival of Civil Society and a number of prominent opposition figures. The declaration demanded the introduction of a democratic system, the lifting of the country's emergency laws and the release of prisoners of conscience, explained the former MP, who has been re-arrested twice since his release in January. The statement, now endorsed by over 1,000 opposition figures inside and outside the country, was also signed by Ali Bayanouni, the London-based head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Bayanouni’s signature brought Syria's secular Arab nationalist opposition together with the two forces – Kurds and Islamists – seen as the main opponents of the ruling Ba'ath Party. In the early 1980s, a militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood led an armed uprising against the secular Ba'athist state. The insurrection was brutally suppressed in 1982 by security services, who ordered the shelling of the city of Hama, which the brotherhood had declared an autonomous Islamic emirate. The Islamist group has been banned under Syrian law ever since. However, during the Damascus Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood renounced political violence and called for a democratic, secular state, aligning itself with the ideologies of the secular opposition. The declaration, meanwhile, recognises Islam as "the most prominent component of the nation's and people's life”. "The Damascus Declaration has no value without the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Samir Nashar, head of Syria's secular Liberal Party and a member of the transitional council of the Damascus Declaration. “Sixty-five percent of Syria is Arab Sunni, and they should have political representation." Nashar said the council was setting up committees in all governorates to counter what he admitted was a lack of grassroots support for the pro-democracy movement among the country's rural poor. "The aim is to reach deep into Syria's social classes," he said. A multi-faceted opposition While suppressed by the Ba'ath party, whose right to rule Syria is spelt out in the constitution, the diverse and long-divided opposition commands little support. Ethnic groups are divided largely along ideological lines: there are 12 Kurdish parties, only three less than all Arab parties. Kurdish political aspirations range from the radical activism of the Kurdish Leftist Party, whose leaders seek membership in an independent Kurdistan, to the Kurdish Unitarian Democratic Party, which encourages Kurdish activism under the umbrella of Syrian nationalism. Conversely, ideological parties are divided along ethnic lines: Syria's Assyrian Democratic Organisation, for example, says it promotes democracy based on securing the interests of the ethnic minorities it represents. The Democratic Arab Socialist Union Party, whose leader heads the opposition grouping known as the Democratic Rally, strives to unite pro-democracy movements under the banner of Arabism. The National Progressive Front (NPF), meanwhile, is a coalition of nine parties – including the Syrian Communist Party and the Syrian Socialist National Party – whose agendas are politically aligned with the Ba'ath party. The NPF passes legislation in the People's Assembly, the country's legislature. All opposition parties outside the NPF operate illegally. This means that opposition party leaders and activists are subject to arrest and imprisonment on charges of violating the constitution or on security-related charges. In its latest report on Syria, the International Crisis Group called on Damascus to "promote domestic political reform by lifting the state of emergency [and] legalising opposition parties". Last June, the closing statement from the Ba'ath Party's Regional Leadership Congress recommended the introduction of a new law to license independent political parties "to guarantee national participation in political life on the foundation of boosting national unity”. No such law, however, has since been introduced. People want jobs, not reform, says al-Assad In a 16 March interview with the UK-based Sky News, al-Assad denied that political reforms were a priority for the majority of Syrians. "I meet with a lot of Syrians, and the first thing I hear is about wages, jobs and a better standard of living," he said. "Now, after the war on Iraq, if you ask me about my priorities, first of all security, second the economy, third politics." Analysts argue, however, that political reforms in Syria were stalled long before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and that such reforms remain unlikely in the short term. "There’s been no movement toward democracy," said Joshua Landis, an American professor at the Oklahoma University in the United States who specialises in Syrian politics. "The economic troubles Syria confronts will force reforms, but it’s unlikely that economic reforms will bring more democracy." Inside Syria, meanwhile, the lack of political reform has divided the pro-democracy movement into two distinct camps. For activists like Abdul-Aziz al-Kheir, former head of the opposition Communist Labour Party, released after thirteen years in prison last November, the issue is still one of urging the regime to reform itself, not one of regime change. "We must have freedom of expression and freedom for political work first," said al-Kheir. "Then we can explore our power and how many concessions we can take from the regime." At a 17 March meeting in Brussels, brotherhood chief Bayanouni and exiled former Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam called for a “national salvation front” to promote democracy. The move, however, drew sharp criticism from Damascus Declaration spokesman Hassan Abdel-Azim. "This conference to form a front abroad among exiled opposition groups came without consultation with the opposition inside Syria or without even taking their approval,” said Abdel-Azim. If the means to achieve their agendas differ, though, most of the opposition agrees that support for foreign intervention in domestic politics is a red line they cannot afford to cross. A February announcement by the US State Department that it had allocated US $5 million in grants "to accelerate the work of reformers in Syria" was quickly rejected by domestic opposition figures. In the meantime, the patience of the domestic opposition is running out. "The regime is making mistakes," said Haithem Maleh, a veteran human rights lawyer who was prevented by security services from travelling to the Netherlands this month to receive an award for his pro-democracy work. Maleh said he had recently met Syrian officials and handed them seven files on opposition figures missing in prison and detailing the abuse of prisoners of conscience. "All the details are there," he said, "but still nothing changes."
Profiles of three key players