Syria votes in referendum as Homs bombarded

President Assad and his wife vote at the referendum for the new constitution Damascus – Azhar Al-Jarbouei Syria held a referendum on a new constitution Sunday, as President Bashar Al-Assad struggled to placate those vying for his ouster. However, the opposition deemed it an empty gesture and the West

immediately dismissed the vote as “laughable”.
Meanwhile on Monday, regime forces fired heavy barrages of artillery and rockets across Homs, where rebels have been holding out through weeks of bombardment, opposition activists said.
"Intense shelling started on Khalidiya, Ashira, Bayada, Baba Amr and the old city at dawn," activist Muhammad al-Homsi told Reuters from Homs.
"The army is firing from the main thoroughfares deep into alleyways and side streets. Initial reports indicate at least two people killed in the Souk area," he said.
At least 31 Syrian civilians and soldiers were killed on Sunday in bloodshed that coincided with a vote on the new constitution that could keep Assad in power until 2028.
Earlier this month, Assad unveiled the proposed new national charter in his latest reform pledge since protests erupted last March, with the resulting violence killing more than 7,600 people, monitors say.
But the referendum, which opposition forces have called to boycott, has failed to ease global pressure on Assad, with the United States calling it “laughable.”
More than 14 million people over the age of 18 are eligible to vote at 13,835 polling stations, which opened for 12 hours at 7:00 am (0500 GMT).
However, with many parts of the country reeling under a bloody campaign to crush protests, and army defectors engaged in a guerrilla campaign against loyalist troops, it is unclear how the ballot can prove to be convincing.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem said: "My message to the outside is to address their own internal worries and to leave Syria alone," adding that "those who care for the interest of the Syrian people don't impose sanctions on it."
The new constitution, framed by a committee of 29 people appointed by Assad, would drop the highly controversial Article 8 in the existing charter, which makes Assad’s Baath party “the head of state and society.”
 It would effectively end the monopoly on power the Baathists have enjoyed since they seized power in a 1963 coup that brought Assad’s late father, Hafez, to power.
Activists leading the revolt against the decades of Assad family rule have called for a boycott of the vote. In Damascus and suburbs where troops drove out insurgents last month, activists said they would try to hold protests near polling centers and burn copies of the new constitution.
State television showed officials stacking boxes of referendum ballots and preparing voting centres, and citizens interviewed said they planned to vote ‘yes’ in the national interest.
Activists said security forces have stopped people who had ventured out to buy food in Homs, confiscated their Interior Ministry-issued identification cards and informed them the cards can be retrieved at specified polling centres on Sunday.
“They want to force people to vote in this doctored, so-called referendum anyway they can,” activist Mohammad Al-Homsi said from Homs.
A purported photocopy of Baath Party internal correspondence directed to the party’s branches across the country said members needed “to gather the biggest party and popular participation in the referendum”.
“Please direct the Baathist comrades and brother citizens to vote ‘yes’ to the new constitution because it expresses the aspirations of the Syrian Arab masses to build your modern state,” said the letter, signed by Mohammad Saeed Bkheitan, the party’s assistant secretary general.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) called on Syrians last week to boycott the referendum, saying it was an attempt by Assad to cover up the crackdown.
The group in a statement said holding a referendum “whose result is known in advance” would not alter the police state that underpins the repression.
The authorities have held two referendums since Bashar inherited power from his late father 12 years ago. The first installed him as president in 2000 with an official 97.29 percent ‘yes’ vote and the second renewed his term seven years later with 97.62 per cent of the vote.
The authorities touted the referendums as the ultimate exercise of what they termed popular democracy. Dissidents said they were a sham.
As the country prepared to hold a referendum, the government kept up its onslaught, with at least 100 killed on Saturday in a fourth week of bombardments on the central city of Homs and assaults on towns and villages in northern and southern provinces.
“No one is going to vote,” said activist Omar, speaking by Al Jazeera from the rebel-held Baba Amro district of Homs.
“This was a constitution made to Bashar’s tastes and meanwhile we are getting shelled and killed,” he added. “More than 40 people were killed today and you want us to vote in a referendum? ... No one is going to vote.”
 Beijing meanwhile on Monday hit back at Hillary Clinton over her criticism of China and Russia's stance on Syria, calling the US Secretary of State's comments unacceptable.
Clinton said Friday that the international community must work to change the positions of Moscow and Beijing, which have faced intense criticism for vetoing two UN resolutions condemning the Syrian regime.
"It is quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto when people are being murdered," she said.
"It is despicable and I ask whose side are they on? They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people."
Asked for China's response to the comments, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing "cannot accept that at all", and criticised the international community for trying to "impose a so-called solution" on the Syrian people.
China, which has a long-held policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs, has repeatedly defended its veto and says it is "willing to play a constructive role with all sides for the peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis".
China and Russia last week boycotted a "Friends of Syria" meeting of more than 60 foreign ministers gathered to seek an end to the 11 months of bloodshed.
Both countries have frustrated efforts to rein in the regime of Bashar Assad, including by vetoing two US Security Council resolutions.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday said in an article published in Russian newspaper Moscow News that he was against military intervention in Syria, saying Moscow would not allow a replay of the NATO-led Libyan intervention.
"Learning from that bitter experience, we are against any Security Council resolution that could be interpreted as a signal for military interferencet in domestic processes in Syria," he said.The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in the meantime it was still unable to evacuate distressed civilians from Baba Amro. After a day of talks with Syrian authorities and opposition fighters, it said there were “no concrete results”.
“We continue our negotiations, hoping that tomorrow (Sunday) we will be able to enter Baba Amro to carry out our life-saving operations,” spokesman Hisham Hassan said.
Tunisian President Moncez Marzouki meanwhile told "Arabstoday" that he was against foreign military intervention but supported a "pure Arab role" in mitigating the crisis.
 Two western reporters stranded in Homs, Edith Bouvier and Paul Conroy, are still waiting to be rescued. "The evacuation will not happen Sunday because it is dangerous to send ambulances at night. It will take place most likely on Monday," said Saleh Dabbakeh, spokesman for the Red Crescent in Damascus in a statement. Since the deaths last Wednesday of Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Rémi Ochlik, the ICRC has been trying to get scores of wounded out of Syria to hospitals in Lebanon. 
French President Nicholas Sarkozy however said thet had "the beginnings of a solution". 
"It seems that things are starting to move," he told RTL radio.