New Syria charter ends near 50-year Baath rule

[poiuytrewq0987]

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/images/news/201202/n_13816_4.jpg

A new Syrian constitution to be voted on later this month effectively puts an end to nearly five decades of single Baath Party rule, according to the text.

The proposed constitution, which will be put to a vote on February 26, does away with Article 8 of the old charter which declared the Baath Party, in power since 1963, as the "leader of the state and society."

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has decreed to hold a referendum for a new constitution on February 26, the official SANA state news agency reported on today.

"President Bashar al-Assad issued today a decree setting Sunday, February 26, as the date for the referendum on the draft constitution," SANA reported.

Syrian state television said the new constitution would allow the "people to govern the people" under a new multi-party democratic system.

It said that under the proposed text, freedom is "a sacred right" and that any violation of personal freedom is considered a crime punishable by law.

On Sunday, a commission tasked with drawing up a new constitution submitted a draft charter to Assad, SANA reported, adding he would review it and send it to the People's Assembly before a vote.

In January, Assad said a new constitution was being drawn up by a committee set up in October to replace the current one, which enshrines his Baath party's dominant role.

At the time, he said it could be put to a popular vote as early as March, although that date for the ballot has now been brought forward.

Syria's government lifted a state of emergency in April last year and in July adopted a law allowing a multi-party political system.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/new-syria-charter-ends-near-50-year-baath-rule.aspx?pageID=238&nID=13816&NewsCatID=352

[The Journeyman]

Some pretty major stuff. I wonder, though, if this could turn out to be Israel's worst nightmare.

[RoyBatty]

Why would it. Jews control the West. The West controls most of the Middle East.
Contrary to what the Western Media & Israel claim, there is no Middle Eastern country which "poses a threat to Israel".

Even if some credible threat to Israel from a ME country existed (which doesn't), who gives a damn? :confused:
They're not our friends. They're essentially hostile to us, exploit and parasite off us. We don't, really really don't need them.

The threats posed by the USA's Corporatocracy and the EU's corrupt ruling elites and Corporatocracy against European Nation States, European ethnic and cultural groups, European people and European Sovereignty are infinitely greater than any bs "threat" to the Israeli Zionist Paradise.

Forget Israel. Think about saving Europe.

[poiuytrewq0987]

I think this will make the neocons depressed since they won't be able to get the US involved in another quagmire in the ME. It's a good thing that Assad did the smart thing and adopted a truly democratic constitution. There was chatter of how Assad contemplated on abandoning the rest of Syria to create an Alawite enclave in the Western part of the country. A good thing he didn't do that as well since such state would be considered rogue and not what the West wanted (the West prefers British, French colonial era borders).

[RoyBatty]

They'll find a way. They'll keep smuggling in weaponry via Turkey and perhaps other sources and they'll continue radicalising and encouraging local idiots and ethnic minorities into sabotaging the country and cause mayhem.

Syria's nearly isolated. They'll choke them through economic and trade measures and destabilise the country until it becomes unmanageable.

Once it's all done and the country either destroys itself or it is attacked in yet another NATO bombing spree Syria will be added to the list of countries now effectively under Neo-Colonialist Management from the USA, EU and the Israel Lobby.

[Mercury]

Homs, Syria (CNN) -- The embattled Syrian president announced a constitutional referendum Wednesday as his forces pummeled Homs and other towns where people cried out for his regime to end.

President Bashar al-Assad set a February 26 date for the vote on a draft constitution, hailed by the his government as an important reform initiative. But analysts and demonstrators sloughed off the effort as "window dressing" and the latest in a series of superficial measures undertaken to mollify his critics over the last 11 months.

Members of a committee tasked with drafting the document "reiterated their keenness on a constitution that allows ... public freedoms and political plurality in a way to lay the foundation for a new stage that will enrich Syria's cultural history," the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

Former Syrian lawmaker George Jabbour said "clause 8 of the new draft of the constitution is the essential point" of the document. It "allows a multi-party system as opposed to the Baath party being the leading party of the society and the state as stipulated in the current constitution." The Baath party rules Syria.
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Jabbour said "special committees will be formed to look into the licensing of new parties in line with the new constitution."

As for presidential elections, they "will be competitive since there is no leading party anymore, and all the parties' candidates are eligible provided their candidacy is endorsed by at least thirty-five members of parliament," Jabbour said.

Also, the draft forbids the creation of any political activity, or parties, or political gatherings based on religion, ethnicity, tribe or region. It forbids discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, or color.

Early in the uprising, there were calls for reform, but they have been overshadowed by exhortations for al-Assad's ouster. Shadi Hamid, director of research for the Brookings Doha Center, said al-Assad has been talking up reforms but "it's a little bit too late."

"It's not so much the message, but the messenger," he said.

Andrew Tabler, Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, calls the document "window dressing," citing the banning of many forms of parties and the fact that government permission is needed to form a party.

"It's not going to change the fact that it's a minority-dominated situation," he said. "It will remain a presidential system with powers vested in the hands of the president."

Tabler said al-Assad is using this "tactic to get people to leave the streets."

At least 20 people killed were killed across the country Wednesday, including a child and a defected soldier, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. The deaths occurred in Homs, Idlib, Daraa, Aleppo, and the Damascus suburbs.

Artillery fire and automatic machine gunfire echoed through Homs Wednesday, a city of 1 million people, CNN's Arwa Damon reported from inside the city. Opposition activists say government forces are set on flattening every neighborhood that might hold dissidents calling for the ouster of al-Assad.

The Syrian regime said an "armed terrorist group" sabotaged a diesel pipeline passing near the Homs neighborhoods of Baba Amr and Sultanieh, state-run media said.
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Bracing for war in Syria
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But the LCC told CNN that government warplanes flying over Baba Amr blew up an oil pipeline. Amateur video showed columns of smoke on the ground.

"Cases of suffocation in the neighborhood of Baba Amr from the smoke that is developing after the explosions that hit the oil pipelines while the neighborhood is still being shelled," the LCC said.

Also, the LCC said government forces are firing mortars at the Khaldiya neighborhood in Homs and many people have been injured.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said military forces stormed the city of Hama, where explosions rattled two neighborhoods. The Observatory said landlines, cell phone communication and Internet access in Hama were cut off.

CNN cannot independently confirm details of events across Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.

But the vast majority of accounts from within the country indicate al-Assad's forces are slaughtering civilians en masse, part of a brutal crackdown on protesters calling for democratic reforms.

Meanwhile, after repeated U.N. failures to formally denounce the Syrian government, the latest U.N. draft resolution condemning Syria could go for a vote in the General Assembly Thursday.

Though a General Assembly vote would not be binding, it would mark the strongest U.N. statement yet on the violence. Russia and China have vetoed attempts to condemn Syria for the crackdown by the U.N. Security Council, whose resolutions are binding.

The draft resolution calls on Syria to end human rights violations and attacks against civilians immediately, and condemns "all violence, irrespective of where it comes from."

The United Nations has said since December that well over 5,000 people have been killed, but haven't been able to update the number due to the turmoil on the ground. The LCC has said well over 7,000 people have been killed.

European Union diplomats said they expect new EU sanctions on Syria by February 27, targeting the Syrian Central Bank and imposing a ban on exports of precious metals and phosphates.

Victoria Nuland, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, said Tuesday that increasing pressure and sanctions on al-Assad's government was crucial.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe announced a national decision to establish an emergency relief fund for Syria, according to the website of the permanent mission of France to the United Nations. The fund, with an initial sum of €1 million ($1.3 million), will "fund the actions of all organizations and associations wishing to help the Syrian people."

France will propose the creation of a similar fund at the international level at the first "Friends of Syria" meeting in Tunis, Tunisia, February 24, the statement said.

Juppe said on French radio Wednesday morning that diplomats have not given up on Russia in the Syria talks.

"We are currently renegotiating a resolution at the U.N. Security Council to see if we can persuade the Russians," Juppe told France Info.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html