Syria’s Baath Party Urged on Economy

Quoted by the Associated Press

“We will know in the next few days whether this regime is committing suicide or whether it still has some survival instincts left,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, an analyst who returned recently from a six-month fellowship at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

Michel Kilo, a pro-democracy activist, said Assad’s focus on the economy shows he is a proponent of the “Chinese model,” a reference to that country’s policy of liberalizing the economy while resisting political change.

Abdulhamid said the conference will likely aim to give Syrians a socio-economic package that will appeal to the grass roots.

“It’s the strategy of somebody desperately clinging to power,” he said. “There is so much lack of skill and know-how and so much corruption that they really cannot implement a good package.”

Syria Faces Pressures to Democratize

Quoted by NPR

Syria is under intense international pressure. It was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in April; Washington accuses it of supporting insurgents in Iraq. In the second story of a series on the prospects for democratic change in the Middle East, a look at whether the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad can survive. Continue reading “Syria Faces Pressures to Democratize” →

Long road to reform in Damascus

Abigail Fielding-Smith guardian.co.uk

“The smell of freedom is in the air,” announced a Newsnight correspondent in a recent report from Lebanon. The overthrow of the Iraqi regime and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon have led to talk of a domino effect in the Middle East, and all eyes are now on the ancien regime in Damascus. Continue reading “Long road to reform in Damascus” →

Syria’s Assad a work in progress

Quote in: The Star, MITCH POTTER MIDDLE EAST BUREAU

“I’m still waiting for him to be presidential. We need to hear his vision while there is still time,” Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid told the Star.

“Either he will come out with a real re-creation of the entire modus operandi of this government, or he will pave the way for international sanctions and internal dissent, leading to implosion, eventually,” added Abdulhamid, the leader of a minority rights project who has been banned from travelling aboard.

Abdulhamid scoffs at what he views as lost decades dedicated to pan-Arab hopes.

“We have Palestinian refugees in Syria but no success to show for it. We have a half million Iraqis now, and prices for everything are going up. We spent 30 years in Lebanon and all we get is hatred,” Abdulhamid said. “Syria has always been the heartbeat of Arab nationalism, and where has it got us?”

But for all its problems, Assad’s Syria feels nowhere near as claustrophobic as Saddam’s Iraq. Here, mobile phones are everywhere, and rooftop dishes draw down satellite television on a scale that would have led to mass arrests in Baathist Iraq. And while the estimated 500 Internet cafes in Syria remain subject to state surveillance, young Syrians have become experts at improvising their way onto sites banned by the government.