Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Day After: Supporting a democratic transition in Syria

The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) has since the beginning of this year organized a series of meetings in Germany between some 40 representatives of Syrian opposition groups to plan for what should happen after they get the power. The project is led by Steven Heydemann, a Syria specialist at USIP.

My take: 45 carefully selected Syrians being bullied by some American moderator with a bag of money into taking a common position. This happening in deep secrecy - quite different from the openness that you would expect when the foundation is led for a democracy.

Postscript 27-8-2012: According to this article (Opposition presents goals for a post-Assad Syria) this meeting has produced a document: The document, the first of its kind from the Syrian opposition, offers recommendations for writing a new constitution and principles for institution building, and cites South Africa's post-apartheid transition as potentially "instructive". The USIP is to present the report, which was developed at monthly meetings from January to June, at a press conference in the German capital on Tuesday..

Postscript 29-8-2012: Here you can find the report.

Postscript 12-9-2012: Syria page has a reaction: The Day After will be too late.

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