AMMAN — Followers of the religion of Bashar Assad who oppose the Syrian president met in Cairo on Saturday to support a democratic alternative to his rule, seeking to untangle his fate from their own. In the first meeting of its kind by Alawites who support the revolt, delegates aimed to draft a declaration supporting a united Syria and to invite other opposition groups to cooperate on preventing sectarian bloodletting if Assad falls. “We are inviting all of the opposition to confront the sectarian problem being ignited by the regime. The last card the regime can now play is civil war and the partition of Syria,” said veteran opposition campaigner Bassam Al-Youssef, an Alawite who spent more than a decade in jail under the iron rule of Assad's father, the late President Hafez Assad. As the war takes on an increasingly sectarian bent, distancing the Alawites from Assad could be crucial for the survival of the community, an offshoot of Shi'ites that makes up about 10 percent of Syria's population. “The meeting is happening almost two years late,” a Western diplomat said. “But it will help disassociate the sect from Assad. Every effort is needed now to prevent a wide-scale sectarian bloodbath when Assad eventually goes, in which the Alawites would be the main losers.” At least 70,000 people have been killed since a protest movement led by Syria's Sunni majority broke out against four decades of family rule by Assad and his father. The demonstrations were met by bullets, sparking a backlash and a mostly Islamist armed insurgency that is leading some Alawites to fear they have no future without Assad. Assad has said he is fighting a foreign-backed conspiracy to divide Syria. A statement by the organising committee of the Alawite conference said: “The regime, which is becoming more isolated and weak, is working on turning sectarian zealotry into bloodshed. There are anti-regime forces also pushing toward sectarian warfare.” “Depriving the regime of the sectarian card is crucial for its ouster and for negotiating a Syrian national covenant on the basis of a modern statehood and equal citizenship and justice,” it said. Alawites were prominent in a leftist Syrian political movement that was crushed by Assad's father. Ten Alawite activists from inside Syria who were on their way to join the two-day conference were prevented from traveling, but seven others managed to attend the 100-delegate meeting, Youssef said. Among prominent Alawites currently in jail is free-speech advocate Mazen Darwish, who worked on documenting the victims of the crackdown against the revolt, and Abdelaziz Al-Khayyer, a centrist politician who advocated peaceful transition to democratic rule. — Reuters
