3:01 PM - 8 Jan 13 · Details
52 minutes of delusional rhetoric, President Assad, in his first public speech for 6 months, spoke to an admiring, carefully selected audience at the Damascus Opera House in one of the safest areas of the capital.
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The speech was also broadcast live on state TV and transmitted on a number of foreign channels.
Ironically, some Opposition supporters looked forward to the live speech as it meant that the electricity might be on long enough to cook a warm meal!
Other critics commented on the choice of the Opera for the event, describing his speech as “operatic in its other-worldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building.”
However, most observers were agreed that there is little in his long ramble that was new. He railed against “foreign terrorists” and a “handful of Syrians” who opposed him, accusing them once again of being “puppets of the West” with whom he could not hold a “dialogue”. “We will only speak with the masters, not the slaves”, he said and called for full “national mobilisation” against the “Al Qaeda terrorists”.
His only “political solution” to the crisis was also nothing new, a “dialogue” solely with Syria’s internal opposition, “those who didn’t betray Syria”, while completely excluding the Opposition in exile. According to Assad’s “peace plan” the process must go through 3 stages:
1. An end to “terrorist activity”, after which the Syrian Army would “cease operations” but would reserve the right to “react to any threats”.
2. A comprehensive “national dialogue conference”, hosted and chaired by the existing Government, in order to draft a national charter leading to a new constitution, a national referendum and eventually Parliamentary elections.
3. The forming of a new government and a national reconciliation conference followed by the issuing of a general amnesty for those arrested during the crisis. And finally, the new government would work towards repairing infrastructure, reconstruction and compensating the citizens affected by the violence.
Lonely Assad Speaking at Damascus Opera House
There was no mention of him standing down or not running in any new elections.
Assad also implied criticism of Palestinian groups such as Hamas, which previously had their headquarters in Damascus but gradually slipped away to Egypt and sided with the Opposition, accusing them of treating “Syria like a hotel, leaving it when circumstances become difficult”.
Throughout the speech, loyalists occasionally interrupted his pronouncements with applause at strategic points, at one time raising their fists and chanting: “With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, oh Bashar!”.
At the end of the speech, his supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: “God, Syria and Bashar is enough!”
A smiling Assad waved and was escorted from the hall past a backdrop showing a Syrian flag made of pictures of people whom state television described as “martyrs” of the conflict so far. Al Jazeera has a video report, HERE:
