DAMASCUS: More than 100 dissidents heard calls for a peaceful transition to democracy at a public meeting in Syria’s capital on Monday that they said was unprecedented in five decades of iron-fisted Baath party rule.
The opposition figures, all of them independent of any party affiliation, gathered in a hotel in Damascus to discuss a way out of the deadly clashes between security forces and protesters that have rocked Syria since mid-March.
They sang the national anthem and held a minute’s silence for the "martyrs, both civilian and military."
"There are two ways forward — the first a clear and non-negotiable move to a peaceful transition to democracy which would rescue our country and our people," opposition activist Munzer Khaddam told the meeting.
"The alternative is a road that leads into the unknown and which will destroy everyone," he said.
"We are with the people and we, like them, have chosen the first path. Those who refuse to take it will go to hell."
The president of the Syrian League for Human Rights, Abdel Karim Rihawi, stressed that the meeting was not intended to take the place of the "protesters in the street."
"We will talk so that we can formulate a national strategy on how to end Syria’s current crisis," he earlier told AFP.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 1,342 civilians have been killed in the government’s crackdown and that 342 security force personnel have also died.
Anwar Bunni, a prominent human rights lawyer who has spent five years in Syrian jails, said it was the "first meeting of its kind at a public venue announced in advance."
There had been no confirmation from the Syrian authorities that the meeting would be allowed to go ahead.
Bunni told AFP that opponents of President Bashar Al-Assad would take part in the "national dialogue" he proposed last week only if peaceful demonstrations were authorised, political prisoners released, the opposition recognized and the use of force ended.
In a televised address on June 20 — only his third since the protests against his 11-year rule erupted — Assad said the proposed dialogue could lead to a new constitution and even an end to his Baath party’s monopoly of power.
But Assad said he refused to reform Syria under "chaos," drawing a pledge from the pro-democracy activists who have spearheaded the protests that their "revolution" would go on.
Demonstrators again took to the streets later the same day, meeting deadly violence from the security forces.
Some of the dissidents who gathered in Damascus sought to distance themselves from opposition activists who met in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Antalya earlier this month and who included members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood as well as secular politicians.
"We have no links with the opposition activists abroad — we too question their real objectives," said writer Nabil Saleh.
In the days since Assad’s speech, the security forces have pressed their deadly sweep for dissidents towards Syria’s borders sending around 11,000 refugees fleeing into Turkey and hundreds more across to Lebanon.
Some 300 students detained last week after a rare protest in Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo have been charged with "sabotage" and "insulting the president," a human rights activist said Monday.
"It is a new sign that the authorities are set on deepening the crisis rather than finding political solutions," said Radif Mustafa, the chairman of the Kurdish Human Rights Committee.
Pro-government daily Al-Watan said on Sunday that the border areas near Turkey being targeted by the military had been used as a "key crossing for armed groups".
But foreign governments have refused to accept the contention that the protests are the work of armed gangs supported from abroad. "We’re just not buying it," US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said last week.
