London Meeting

The following item was submitted by Farid. William comments that he was under the impression that the London meeting of the Syrian opposition groups had actually been convened by Mr Rifat al-Assad:

National Salvation Front First Act of Practicing Democracy

Washington DC - June 8, 2006/RPS/ -- On June 4 and 5, the National Salvation Front, led by the ex Vice President of Syria Abdul Halim Khaddam and Ali Sadr al-Bayanouni. leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, met in London to discuss plans to bring the Syrian regime down. .

Amongst those present was Mr. Marwan Hammoud who is the leader of the Syrian National Democratic Gathering, a political organization based in Vienna, Austria. Mr. Hammoud, with his fellow members, resigned from the NSF yesterday and was quoted by UPI as saying: "We have withdrawn our candidacy from NSF and so will others in the next few days".

The reasons that Hammoud gave as to why he would withdraw are sobering.

"We have withdrawn because we did not see democracy being practiced nor do we think that this is the vehicle (NSF) that will lead Syria to true democracy in the future". He added: "We refuse to be a tool in the hands of Khaddam because he is not competent enough to be the president of Syria. The way he approached the meeting, especially the last day, proved to us that this man cannot be democratic".

NSF has, from the get-go, drawn red lines against working with or dealing with other opposition groups, including RPS. Hammoud shared the details of the meeting with UPI and how the 10-person leadership committee was "chosen".

"Khaddam and Bayanouni disappeared with about 20 other of the attendees most of them were Muslim Brotherhood and old Ba'athists friends of Khaddam; when they appeared again, they simply announced the list of the Steering Committee made-up of 25 people and asked to vote for or against it. Since there were only 43 participants in the meeting, they already planned their win behind closed doors by convening the majority" he said.

That Steering Committee then chose the leadership of the NSF made-up by a 10-people committee.

If one looks very closely at the Ba'ath Party around the 1970's in Syria, one would discover the exact practice of these methods to install supporters in violation of real democratic rules. The majority in a minority sets the tone to "chose" another minority in the majority. This allows the smaller minority chosen to claim a majority participation when in fact it simply stole the show by splitting the participants' power as a majority.

Ba'athism, like Nazism, cannot because of its internal ideological structure behave in a democratic fashion. Not the Iraqi Ba'ath party system in Iraq nor the one in Syria were ever democratic nor can they ever be. Khaddam, as a staunch Ba'athist, is unable to practice real democracy and the London meeting proved to the Syrian opposition the danger that lies ahead from Ba'athists who dream of returning to power cloaked in a fake democratic suit.