Dozens more Syrians died in demonstrations this past week, despite another appeal to the nation by the president and a cabinet shuffle, says Bassel Oudat in Damascus The members of the new government in Syria were announced on 14 April after President Bashar Al-Assad asked former minister of agriculture Adel Safar to form a new cabinet. Safar kept more than half the ministers in their posts despite widespread protests on Syrian streets demanding comprehensive political, economic and social reform. The key ministers who kept their posts are the ministers of defence, foreign affairs, oil, communications, religious endowments, culture and irrigation. Some ministers were rotated to lead other ministries. Sixteen ministers out of 30 remained, and Baath Party members, as in previous governments, kept the lion's share of posts in the new cabinet. Members of the National Progressive Front, an alliance of the ruling Baath party with eight other parties, also retained their quotas in the cabinet. The announcement of the new government comes at a critical time for Syria as tens of thousands of people have been protesting in most major Syrian cities for more than one month, demanding political freedoms, democracy and an end to corruption. By the time the new cabinet was formed, some 200 people had been killed and hundreds injured in protests, and tens more were killed and more than 100 injured at the hands of security forces and military, according to Syrian and international human rights groups. The Syrian people did not believe the new government was a sign that the Syrian leadership is genuinely willing to carry out radical reforms, or stabilise conditions and tensions across the country by choosing a government which is a true expression and representation of the Syrian street. As soon as the new cabinet was announced, a number of critics posted on their Facebook pages harsh criticism of the new minister of interior, whom they said was the warden of Tadmur Prison when a massacre took place there in 1980. He also supervised the massacre at Sidnaya Prison last year when he was the director of the Military Intelligence Agency, according to the "Syrian Revolution" web page. In an expression of the Syrian street's rejection of the Syrian cabinet in its entirety, protests continued on Friday as an unprecedented number of demonstrators took to the streets. Demands continued to escalate with some demonstrators demanding the overthrow of the regime. The Syrian people know that the cabinet is only an executive government, and that under an extremely centralised presidential system the government cannot initiate any national action without the approval of the leadership. It can't interfere in Syria's foreign policy which it learns about at the weekly briefing which the foreign minister delivers to the cabinet in a routine meeting. The cabinet does not decide on domestic security and media policies either, and on economic issues can only make recommendations about the budget. Large economic and strategic contracts require the approval of the president, as do the policies of every ministry. After the ministers were sworn in by Al-Assad on Saturday, the Syrian president improvised a speech -- the second of its kind in the past two weeks -- to the Syrian people who are aspiring for freedoms and democracy. As with the first speech two weeks ago, a few hours after Saturday's speech, several demonstrations broke out demanding new and immediate reforms by the president and rejecting vague promises and speeches. Al-Assad's address in front of the new government focussed on living conditions of citizens and promised the Syrian people the repeal the Emergency Law and its replacement with a number of freedom laws. He also discussed several political demands which were unrelated to living conditions, but this did not satisfy protest organisers and participants or political activists inside and outside Syria. The president's speech was not received well by demonstrators, who no longer fear participating in protests despite the growing number of deaths. Protesters, other political activists and opposition figures believe the address offered nothing new, pointing out that Al-Assad did not promise immediate reform but kept the timeline vague. Neither did he indicate that Article 8 of the Constitution could be amended, asserting that the Baath Party is the sole ruler of the state and people. Al-Assad also did not pardon political prisoners who were detained during the past three decades without trial, or were convicted in extraordinary and special trials outside normal legal procedures which were created under the Emergency Law. There are many demands by the Syrian people which Al-Assad did not discuss in his address, such as amending the parliamentary and president election laws, which is a principle demand by the opposition and revolutionary youth. Neither did he announce an exact date or timeline to issue a law on political parties or media legislation, nor did he indicate that security will loosen its grip on society or that the security agency will stop oppressing Syrians. These security agencies have terrorised Syrians for three decades, but now and for the first time the people have overcome their fear by brandishing a bold slogan in their protests: "After today, there is no more fear". The former Syrian MP who was previously a political detainee, Riyad Seif, described Al-Assad's address as "superficial reforms", and said that any change which does not propose transition to a democratic political system is "a waste of time". Seif, who spent seven years in prison during Bashar Al-Assad's rule, called for "democratic change and the immediate release of all political prisoners, a halt to political arrests, freedom of expression and protest, and a national conference which includes representatives of all sectors of Syrian society to decide on a plan to move to democracy, gradually and in a peaceful and safe manner". The day after Al-Assad's second address, demonstrations broke out in Daraa, rural Damascus, Hems, Latakia, Panyas and other cities. The most violent were in Hems and Latakia as demonstrators were killed and injured by security forces. Demonstrators objected to Al-Assad's speech by raising their demands and repeating the slogan of the Arab revolutions: "The people demand the overthrow of the regime". This indicated that their patience is running out and that they no longer accept reform only. In an attempt to appease the families of the dead Al-Assad declared that all the victims who were killed in demonstrations were "martyrs", but warned that once the new laws replacing the Emergency Law are issued there will be no excuse for demonstrations in Syria and that relevant agencies will firmly apply the law without leniency. Syria's official and semi-official media close to the regime continued to campaign relentlessly against demonstrators, and haphazardly accused various states, agencies, individuals and media of instigating events in Syria. Those accused include Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and Iraq, and of course Israel, the US and France. No Arab media or media personality escaped the blame game. "The Syrians are no longer satisfied with eliminating the state of emergency and replacing it with a harsher and more oppressive terrorism law," Radwan Ziyada, the director of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies and lecturer at the American University, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "What is needed are a number of comprehensive reform measures which end the Baath's solitary rule over the state and society, the release of political prisoners, and a referendum on a new law regulating parliamentary and presidential elections."
