Assad pledges referendum, U.S. dismisses it

BEIRUT -- With Syria plunging toward civil war, President Bashar Assad announced yesterday that a nationwide referendum would be held this month on a new constitution that is the centerpiece of what he says is a plan to reform the country.

The opposition dismissed the referendum announcement as an effort to buy time. It was not clear how the government could carry out a vote in a country riven by violence, with large areas no longer even under government control.

The new constitution would enshrine freedom of speech and worship, along with other basic liberties, and end the current monopoly on power held by Assad's Baath Party, which has ruled for four decades. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said it could "turn Syria into an example to follow in terms of public freedoms and political plurality."

But Assad's foes say the government regularly tramples on rights guarantees in the current constitution. They scoffed at the proposed reforms as a sign of desperation.

"This shows Assad is living in an alternate reality," said Rafif Jouejati, a U.S.-based spokeswoman for the Local Coordinating Committees, a Syrian opposition network. "It's completely impractical."

White House spokesman Jay Carney labeled the proposed referendum "laughable." "It makes a mockery of the Syrian revolution," Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Even as Assad announced the referendum, a thick plume of black smoke billowed from a fuel pipeline in the city of Homs, which has become a focus of the escalating conflict. The government and the opposition accused each other of attacking the pipeline in Syria's third-largest city.

Opposition activists said the government had launched new assaults on Homs and other rebel strongholds.

The opposition reported at least 32 people were killed across the country, reported Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite network.