Zaki al-Arsuzi
The Syrian Regional Branch began denouncing Aflaq as a "thief". They claimed that he had stolen the Ba'athist ideology from Zaki al-Arsuzi and proclaimed it as his own, with Assad hailing Arsuzi as the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. The Iraqi Regional Branch, however, still proclaimed Aflaq as the founder of Ba'athism. Assad has referred to Arsuzi as the "greatest Syrian of his day" and claimed him to be the "first to conceive of the Ba'ath as a political movement." Aflaq was condemned to death "in absentia" in 1971 by Assad's government. The Syrian Regional Branch erected a statue in Arsuzi's honour not long after the 1966 coup. Nevertheless, the majority of Ba'ath followers outside Syria still view Aflaq, not Arsuzi, as the principal founder of Ba'athism.