Dissidents reject Assad 'deal'

SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad was last night scheduled to address the nation in bid to hose down pro-democracy protests.
As the Obama administration weighed bringing war crimes charges against Mr Assad over the deaths of more than 1300 protesters, Syrian troops continued to sweep the northern border to block refugees from fleeing to neighbouring Turkey.
Raka al-Abdu, 23, said that his family of 14 fled the village of Bdama on Saturday but he went back on Sunday to get bread, using mountain routes only locals would know. He found the village virtually empty.

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Syrian Refugees

People wait to cross into Turkey in a rural area on the Syrian side of the border zone between the two countries near the Turkish village of Guvecci, about 50 km from Hatay city centre. Photo: Reuters/Osman Orsal.

''They closed the only bakery there. We cannot get bread any more … I saw soldiers shooting the owner of the bakery. They hit him in the chest and the leg,'' he said.
Opposition activists announced the formation of a ''national council'' to ''lead the battle to oust Assad'', while news reports suggested the Syrian leader was preparing a constitutional overhaul that would end his ruling Baath Party's 50-year monopoly on power.
According to a Baath Party official quoted by the Los Angeles Times, Mr Assad's speech would signal a change to the wording of article 8 of the Syrian constitution that granted his party leadership ''of'' state and society, to leadership ''in'' state and society.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Photo: AFP

The wording change would supposedly allow the development of other political parties.
But critics and opposition supporters said the proposal fell far short of the demands of protesters and maintained their calls for Mr Assad's resignation.
Speaking to reporters stationed across the Syrian border in Turkey, where more than 10,000 refugees have fled to escape Mr Assad's troops, Syrian opposition spokesman Jamil Saib announced the creation of a national council ''in the name of Syria's free revolutionary youth in view of the crimes the regime perpetrated against the oppressed civilian population''.
Mr Saib said council members included Abdallah Trad el-Moulahim, one of the organisers of a Syrian opposition gathering in Turkey earlier this month, Syrian-based activists Haitham al-Maleh, Souhair al-Atassi and Aref Dalila, as well as Sheikh Khaled al-Khalaf.
On March 30, Mr Assad addressed Parliament and called the deadly unrest a ''conspiracy'' fomented by the country's enemies.
In a televised address on April 16, he announced the lifting of emergency laws that had been in place for nearly 50 years but immediately replaced them with new measures to suppress freedom of speech and public dissent.
With AFP