DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- When he announced his country's pullout from Lebanon in March, Syria's president also promised that this year's meeting of the ruling Baath party would take ''a leap for development.''

Yet days before the party delegates gather in Damascus, those promised leaps of reform look like they will be little more than baby steps -- dashing domestic and international hopes.

In the weeks before the June 6-9 congress, authorities have stepped up harassment of human rights activists, detaining eight for a week because they'd read a statement from the banned Muslim Brotherhood. A journalist who read the same statement is still in detention. Security forces also arrested a human rights group leader after raiding his offices.

If congress does not come up with real moves toward reform, Syria and President Bashar Assad will have forfeited a valuable opportunity to shed its autocratic image -- and relieve some of the intense international and U.S. pressure it has endured for almost four months.

It will be tough for Syria to recover its reputation and credibility in the international community if the conference does not produce substantial change, Western diplomats say.

''The month of June, largely because of the Baath congress, should be a make-or-break month for the Assad regime,'' said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian novelist and analyst.

''If it seeks to survive, now is the moment for it to demonstrate its viability by loosening its grip on society,'' Abdulhamid wrote in The Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper.

With chapters in several Arab states, the Baath party boasts a membership of 2 million Syrians, an affiliation that has long been a means of ensuring progress in the workplace or attaining coveted jobs. The party played a central role in ensuring Assad's smooth and swift ascendancy to the presidency after the June 2000 death of his father, the late President Hafez Assad

But the congress comes at a difficult time for Syria, and for the party.

Since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri -- a murder some Lebanese blame on Damascus and its local allies -- Syria was forced to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon. It risks being slapped with punitive measures if U.N. investigators find it responsible for Hariri's death.

At the same time, the country is beset by economic woes, institutional corruption and archaic laws that hinder reform.

Assad said in the March 5 speech, mindful of how much is at stake: ''We are preparing for a regional conference of the Baath party, and hope this will be a leap for development in this country.''

It won't be easy going for the young president. He will have to appease party traditionalists to ensure a presidential nomination for the 2007 elections and cannot be seen to cave in to domestic and international calls for reform. That's why, some analysts say, the conference will only produce modest proposals dressed up as issues of substance to please traditionalists as well as the reformers and international community.

Some pro-reform Baath party members are already unhappy with preparations for the 10th congress of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, claiming recent elections of conference delegates shut out lower-level, yet often more qualified, Baathists. Almost all the 1,200 delegates chosen to debate the future of the party are hard-liners.

''Because of their senior ranks, they have no incentive to change,'' said party member Ahmed Haj Ali.

Ayman Abdel-Nour, an analyst and Baathist, said some party members have asked Assad to allow 100 to 200 reformist members to attend as observers.

''No one among those attending will want to say a reformist word. This shows we still have a disease in the Baath party,'' said Abdel-Nour. ''There will be some reform but not as much as we had expected.''

Abdel-Nour said the conference would endorse some loosening of central control, with moves to decentralize government procedures and hold free elections for local councils. The congress also looks likely to approve a drive toward a more open economy, he said.

But the endorsements will mean nothing if they get bogged down -- or modified -- in the long journey through party, presidential palace and parliament before becoming law.

''This will take no less than 1 1/2 years,'' Abdel-Nour said.

Editor's note: Donna Abu-Nasr has covered the Middle East for The Associated Press since 1987.