Transition, maybe

Nada Bakri has an article in The New York Times about Syria:

Syrian officials have formally opened what they described as a national dialogue aimed at a transition to multiparty democracy, but the country’s opposition leaders boycotted the event, calling it a sham to mask the government’s brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy protests that have shaken Syria’s ruling Assad family. Although moderate politicians did attend the talks in Syria, opposition figures said they would not participate without an end to the crackdown, which rights groups say has left an estimated thirteen hundred Syrians dead and twelve thousand arrested.
The talks came almost four months after protesters first took to the streets across Syria demanding an end to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose clan has dominated Syrian political life since the 1970s and has shown little or no tolerance for dissent. The Syrian uprising was inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt that toppled authoritarian regimes in those countries earlier this year.
In his opening remarks, Vice President Farouk al-Shara said that the two-day talks, held at a state-owned resort in Demas, a town twelve miles outside of the capital, Damascus, were to discuss legislation that would allow for a transition to a multiparty system. He said the authorities would hold another meeting later to announce the new system. Though his announcement answered a demand of pro-democracy activists, many Syrians dismissed it and said they were skeptical of a government that has repeatedly promised reforms and has yet to deliver any. “This dialogue is beginning at an awkward moment and in a climate of suspicion,” Shara said. “There are many obstacles, some natural and some manufactured, to a transition toward another point.”
One opposition leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as to avoid government reprisals, called the event “a dialogue between the authority and the authority itself”. The opposition leader said: “We decided to boycott the meeting because, if we participated, we would be partners in the bloodshed by the regime’s military and security machine.”
President Assad, who came to power in 2000 after inheriting the office from his father, announced the dialogue in a speech on 20 June, his third to the nation since the uprising started.
A posting last week on social networking sites for nationwide demonstrations under the banner No to dialogue attracted hundreds of thousands to the streets on Friday. Activists said that security forces killed at least fifteen protesters and arrested hundreds of others. Even though the numbers of those reported killed and arrested were lower than in previous weeks, opposition figures and protesters said the violent repression in itself had discredited the government’s call for dialogue.
In Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city, which has become a focal point for the uprising, the protests took place in the presence of the French and American ambassadors, who had visited Hama in a symbolic show of support for their cause. The Syrian Foreign Ministry summoned both diplomats to a meeting two days later to protest against their visit to Hama.