Syrian President Bashar al-Assad waves at supporters during a rare public appearance in Damascus last week. Picture: AFP Source: AFP
SYRIA has defied international calls to halt attacks on rebel enclaves and at least 89 people have been killed nationwide on the eve of a constitutional referendum that the opposition sees as a ploy by President Bashar Assad's regime.
Assad presented the revised charter - which allows for at least a theoretical opening of the country's political system - as an effort to placate critics and quell the 11-month uprising against his rule.
But vote (tomorrow AEDT)�is unlikely to overshadow a new round of international condemnation and calls that Assad leave power.
The new charter would create a multiparty system in Syria, which has been ruled by the same family dynasty since Assad's father Hafez seized power in a coup in 1963. Such change was unthinkable a year ago.
After 11 months of bloodshed, however, Assad's opponents say the referendum and other promises of reform are not enough and have called for a boycott of the vote.
Assad was roundly criticised on Friday at a major international conference on the Syrian crisis in Tunisia, where US, European and Arab officials began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the regime falls.
President Barack Obama said on Friday of Assad's rule: "It is time for that regime to move on."
On Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Assad's crackdown belied promised reforms.
"That kind of logic unfortunately renders any kind of reform meaningless," he said. "To fight on the one hand with your people and then to claim that there is reform is contradictory."
Still, Assad enjoys substantial support in many parts of the country. Some have benefited from his policies, others fear chaos or sectarian civil war if he falls.
The insular nature of the regime makes the extent and character of that support hard to measure, and the regime has prevented most media from operating freely in the country during the uprising.
Syrian Interior Minster Lt Gen Mohammed al-Shaar said more than 14,000 voting centres have been set up for more than 14 million eligible voters across the country.
But the suggestion of political reform led by Assad's regime rang hollow in many parts of the country, where government security forces continued their deadly crackdown on rebels seeking to end Assad's rule.
The violence could also prevent the vote taking place nationwide.
An activist in a neighbourhood in the central city of Homs that government forces have besieged and shelled daily for one month laughed when asked about the vote.
"How can they ask us to talk about a new constitution when they are shelling our neighbourhood?" said Abu Mohammed Ibrahim from the embattled neighbourhood of Baba Amr via Skype. "They are hitting us with all types of weapons. What constitution? What referendum?"
The regime's relentless assault on Homs, which has emerged as the heart of the anti-Assad revolt, entered its fourth week with government shelling killing at least 19 people on Saturday.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said the group's local chapter was not able to enter the area on Saturday to evacuate wounded Syrians, two injured foreign journalists and the bodies of two others killed by government rockets this week.
American correspondent Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik were killed on Wednesday by shelling in Homs.
Colvin's mother, Rosemarie Colvin, told the AP that "absolutely no decision there has been made" on burial or funeral arrangements. "We're still hoping very, very strongly that they'll bring the two of them out," she said.
A team from the Syrian Red Crescent evacuated 27 people from the area on Friday, seven of them wounded, but was not able to get out the journalists.
Spokesman Hicham Hassan said the group would continue negotiating with Syrian authorities and activists to get access to the area and that the Syrian Red Crescent carried out evacuations elsewhere in Syria, including in other neighbourbonnets of Homs.
