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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Govt. Decides to Expand Investigations in Abdul Wahed Case
2012-07-10
[An Nahar] The cabinet on Monday managed to reach a settlement over the case of Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahed and his lover companion and approved a plan to deploy the army on Leb's northern border with Syria, during a session that focused on the turbulent security situation in the country and the draft state budget.

The cabinet also tasked a committee headed by Prime Minister Najib Miqati with following up on the issue of providing security agencies with telecom data, after a recent attempt on MP Boutros Harb's life sparked fears of a return to political liquidations in the country.

Under the settlement reached over the case of Sheikh Abdul Wahed, the cabinet approved a decision by State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr to expand the investigations into the deadly incident under the supervision of State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza who will have to brief the government on the proceedings.

"The cabinet has approved a plan to deploy the army on the northern border with Syria," al-Jadeed television reported.

Meanwhile,
...back at the wrecked scow, a single surviver held tightly to the smashed prow...
LBCI said "the cabinet has taken notice of Judge Saqr's decision to expand the investigations in Sheikh Abdul Wahed's case."

At the opening of the session, President Michel Suleiman
...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too...
noted that withholding telecom data from security agencies has raised "suspicion" over the government's conduct.

According to al-Jadeed, Suleiman also said that officers linked to Sheikh Abdul Wahed's death were released after the duration of their detention on remand expired, adding that they can be called again for interrogation.

In a presser held after a meeting in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
for the follow-up committee on Sheikh Abdul Wahed's case, Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
bloc MP Hadi Hbeish said: "We received word of Saqr's decision to expand the investigation in Abdul Wahed's death and this will soothe his family."

"The political contacts have started to rectify the situation in this case," Hbeish added.

Meanwhile,
...back at the secret hideout, Scarface Al sneeringly put his proposition to little Nell...
LBCI reported that the residents of al-Bireh, Abdul Wahed's hometown, deemed Saqr's decision as the beginning of the process to resolve the dispute.

On May 20, Abdul Wahed and his lover companion were killed at an army checkpoint in the Akkar town of al-Kweikhat.

Protests broke out on Friday in light of a decision to release on bail three army officers and eight soldiers who were incarcerated
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
over the case, while five others remain under arrest.

Mustaqbal bloc MP Khaled al-Daher, who hails from Akkar, on Sunday called on the government to "perform its duties" concerning the case of Sheikh Abdul Wahed and his lover companion or else face "civil disobedience."

"The Lebanese must be ready to defend their country. The government must perform its duties or else it will witness something it did not experience before and we might declare civil disobedience," Daher said during a meeting in al-Bireh.

"We will stage a sit-in outside (Miqati's residence and outside the Grand Serail until we achieve justice," Daher warned.

A meeting of Akkar officials late on Thursday demanded that Abdul Wahed and Merheb's case be referred to the Judicial Council.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
March 14 Urges Referring Geagea, Harb Cases to STL
2012-07-07
[An Nahar] The March 14 forces on Thursday called on the government to "resign immediately" and called for referring the liquidation attempts against Lebanese Forces
A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb...
leader Samir Geagea
... Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005 ...
and MP Boutros Harb to the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Leb.

In a statement issued after an emergency meeting at Harb's residence in the wake of a failed attempt
Curses! Foiled again!
on his life, the March 14 forces also called on the government to immediately hand over telecom data linked to recent liquidations bids to the relevant security agencies.

"We hold the government in general and the Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
and Hizbullah in particular responsible for failing to hand over this data," the March 14 forces added in their statement.

Telecom Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui is an FPM member.

"These acts can be linked to the government's collusion in failing to hand over the accused in the Hariri murder and in providing cover for illegal arms," said March 14's statement.

Earlier on Thursday, security forces found an bomb in the elevator of a building in Beirut where MP Harb has an office after witnesses wrangled with a suspect who was whisked away by a suspicious vehicle.

Police found the device in the elevator shaft of the building that lies in Badaro district's Sami Solh street a few hours after the suspect carrying a knife was subdued but managed to escape along with two accomplices.

"The attempt comes following several reports about plots to assassinate March 14 leaders which were confirmed by the interior minister more than once," the March 14 forces noted in their statement.

"We realized from the very beginning that some sides are trying to drag us into changing the rules of political engagement," they added.

The March 14 forces also demanded "immediate military protection around the house of MP Harb and around the houses of all March 14 leaders."
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Tens of Thousands Rally in Tripoli Against Syria, Hezbollah
2011-11-28
[An Nahar] Tens of thousands of supporters of the opposition gathered Sunday in the northern city of Tripoli to denounce the Syrian regime and its Lebanese ally Hizbullah, under the slogan "The Fall of Weapons, The Spring of Independence."

The rally organized by the Mustaqbal
... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri...
Movement, the main opposition party headed by ex-premier Saad Hariri
Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.
, came amid mounting tension over the financing of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Leb and the revolt in neighboring Syria.

"We initially backed Sheikh Saad for the sake of Leb's freedom, but now we also support him for Syria's freedom and to rid the country of Hizbullah's weapons and the regime of (Syrian President) Bashir al-Assad," said Mohammed Alameddin, 27.

Mohammed Hamdash, a 40-year-old bank employee, said he was taking part in the demonstration in the northern port city to denounce the Hizbullah-led government.

"We are here to say that we are against this government imposed by Hizbullah," he said, as fellow demonstrators waved Lebanese and party flags as well as pictures of Saad Hariri and his father Rafik.

In the the first speech during the rally, Mustaqbal bloc MP Mohammed Kabbara said "Assad's hegemony over Leb must be toppled and we should put an end to the criminal weapons that are accused of killing our deaders."

"This government will first fall in Tripoli before it falls in the rest of Leb and there is nothing called the Resistance
That'd be the Hezbullies, natch...
, as those who send gunnies to Syria to attack its people are not a resistance movement," Kabbara said.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati has threatened to resign should his cabinet refuse to pay Leb's 49 percent share of funding to the STL. The ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
have also hinted that they might resign over dissatisfaction with the government's performance and Miqati's policies.

"Haven't they learned from the Beirut Spring that people are stronger than all tyrants and that police states would fall in the face of the people's resolve," Mustaqbal bloc MP Samir al-Jisr said in his speech at the rally.

"This government does not need to be toppled because it is already toppled in people's minds, as it rose to power through a coup perpetrated on a black day ... after the disavowal of the promises and the pledges," he added.

"What kind of a 'resistance act' was being plotted in Tripoli and why are the seized weapons being described as arms belonging to the Resistance?" Jisr wondered, accusing Hizbullah of arming groups in the northern city.

For his part, MP Marwan Hamade -- who had broken from the Democratic Gathering parliamentary bloc of Druze leader Walid Wally Jumblat
... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
over refusal to vote for Miqati for the premiership in the binding parliamentary consultations -- urged the premier "not to allow the killers to remain on the loose."

"I will not feel sorry for Hizbullah's falling and tumbling government and I will never forgive Assad's criminal regime," Hamade stressed.

"I call on him (Miqati), from here, not to let justice be defeated at the hands of his limping government and never to forgive those who had first slaughtered his friend, ex-PM martyr Rafik Hariri, before slaying the son of his city, the hero and young martyr (slain Intelligence Bureau officer) Wissam Eid," Hamade went on to say.

He urged President Michel Suleiman
...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too...
and Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri
Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet...
"not to let Leb be captivated by the grand prison."

"I will not urge the party which has described the accused as being sacred (Hizbullah) or the Aounist movement (of MP Michel Aoun
...a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
) ... because they are part of the grand prison of totalitarianism," Hamade charged.

"Who would fear the tribunal other than the accused, the criminals and the accomplices who are covering up for them."

Hamade called for returning to "the democratic roots."

"No to eliminating anyone in the name of fake proportional representation," the MP said of the proposed proportional representation electoral system, which has been slammed by Jumblat on fear it might slash his parliamentary bloc.

"No my brother, Najib, tomorrow will not be another day as you have claimed, as those present here are pursuing the path of freedom and justice," Hamade vowed.

He also called on the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
to launch "an initiative that would besiege the killer of Damascus
...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
," calling on the Lebanese authorities to "implement the Arab initiative in its entirety."

Meanwhile,
...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. It smelled phony...
MP Boutros Harb said that Hizbullah's weapons have "impeded national dialogue and put us before two choices: compliance or civil war."

But he wondered "among whom would civil war erupt if all the Lebanese do not want that."

"Weapons would eventually kill those carrying them and we don't want to kill or be killed," Harb stressed.

The STL has indicted four Hizbullah operatives in connection with the murder. The party has refused to hand over the four members and has dismissed the court as an "American-Israeli plot."

Miqati was appointed premier after Hizbullah and its allies forced the collapse of Saad Hariri's government over its refusal to cut ties with the court based in The Netherlands.

Although Miqati pledged after taking office to uphold Leb's international commitments, Hizbullah and its allies in the cabinet are insisting that the country stop all cooperation with the tribunal.

The funding of the STL is due to be discussed at a crucial cabinet meeting next Wednesday.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Harb: Hezbollah" committed a historic mistake in Lebanon
2008-06-09
MP Boutros Harb criticized Hezbollah seizure of was Beirut and its attack against the Druze of Mount Lebanon saying Hezbollah has committed a historic mistake .
"Hezbollah has committed a historic mistake when it resorted to the use of weapons against the Lebanese people to protect its arms."
"Hezbollah has committed a historic mistake when it resorted to the use of weapons against the Lebanese people to protect its arms ." Harb told Voice of Lebanon. Harb added: "That was a departure from Hezbollah claims that its arms were for resistance purposes only and will never be used against the Lebanese people."

Harb said : "What is needed today is tending to the wounds, and I call on Sayyed Nasrallah , Speaker Nabih Berri and their allies in the opposition to work towards tending to the wounds. " Harb said the "Doha accord saved Lebanon from the brink of an explosion. But the Doha accord suffered a setback as a result of the security problems in Beirut " Harb was referring to the attacks by Hezbollah and Amal gunmen against the residents of West Beirut in the Tareek el jadeedah and Cornich el Mazraa, that prompted Parliament majority leader and head of the Future movement MP Saad Hariri to suspend all talks regarding the formation of the government

Harb emphasized that "the Lebanese system is built around consensus " and criticized the right of veto given to the opposition in the new government stressing that the Hezbollah led-opposition did not want the veto power to participate in the government decisions as a partner , but to block the decisions that do not favor the opposition and its allies.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Geagea: Freedom in Lebanon is irreversible
2008-03-21
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea warned that the pro-government ruling camp would "if it had to" elect one of two presidential hopefuls -- Boutros Harb or Nassib Lahoud by simple majority. Geagea, in an interview published by the daily An Nahar on Thursday, ruled out presidential elections in Lebanon would take place ahead of an Arab summit scheduled in Damascus March 29-30. "We will discuss the next steps after the summit," Geagea said from New York.

Geagea stressed that the ruling March 14 coalition "should reach a settlement" to the ongoing political crisis and "establish an interim rule."

He denied he will run for presidency if efforts to elect Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman failed. "If the majority (March 14 Forces) had to elect a president by a half-plus-one (of MPs' vote) it will certainly choose one of its two candidates - MP Boutros Harb or former MP Nassib Lahoud," Geagea stressed.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Wally accuses Hezbollah of plans to occupy Beirut
2007-10-13
Democratic Gathering chief MP Walid Jumblatt accused Hezbollah of planning to take over the government headquarters and to occupy Lebanon's capital Beirut. Jumblatt said this is part of the Persian plan to exert influence in the region from Iran to Lebanon, including Iraq and Syria. Jumblatt called Hezbollah a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Jumblatt, who is heading to Washington on an official visit revealed the above during an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper al Anbaa , which will be published on Saturday. Jumblatt warned that if Lebanon falls to the Persians , this could endanger the whole Arabian Gulf region

Jumblatt criticized the delay in setting up the International tribunal to try the killers of former PM Rafik Hariri. He told Al Anbaa that he plans to raise this issue both in Washington and at the UN in New York.

Asked about the Bkirki meetings for finding a consensus president Jumblatt said " I hope they will be able to select a president that will recognize all the UN resolutions starting with UN 1559." Asked who is his favorite presidential candidate he said " March 14 alliance ( of which he is a member ) has 2 candidates : Boutros Harb and Nassib Lahoud. They are our only candidates."
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Wally: Details on Hizbullah plans to invade Beirut
2007-10-13
In an interview with Kuwaiti daily al-Anbaa to be published tomorrow, Walid Jumblatt said he has information that Iran might allow Hizbullah to invade the government building and occupy Beirut.

Jumblatt added that Hizbullah is working in concert with Emile Lahoud, who might invoke obscure legal arguments to justify staying in power. The PSP leader, who is en route to the US to ask about the delay in forming the Rafiq Hariri tribunal, called on the Lebanese army to remove Syrian installed president Emile Lahoud. He described Hizbullah as an extension of the Iranian revolutionary guard and part of a "Persian project" that starts in Persia and ends in Lebanon and Syria via Iraq.

Jumblatt said he didn't trust Nabih Berri's talks, and hinted that the speaker is endangering the lives of deputies by bringing them to the parliament for no purpose. He reiterated that March 14 has two presidential candidates, Nassib Lahoud and Boutros Harb, and that the parliament's majority has the right to elect a president "anywhere".
Jumblatt described the scheduled electoral session on October 23rd as "imaginary" because the "opposition" has no intention to attend.
He called on Christians to unite around a leader who recognizes UN resolutions, especially 1559, which calls for fair elections and the disarmament of militias. Jumblatt described the scheduled electoral session on October 23rd as "imaginary" because the "opposition" has no intention to attend.

Jumblatt statement came after Hizbullah yesterday stepped up its attacks on March 14, accusing Hariri of "defending the US", and warning of "measures" ready in place should March 14 deputies elect a president without their approval. Hassan Nasrallah's finger-waving deputy vowed not to let parliamentarians have a session if there is no agreement. MP Mohammad Raad visited Lahoud to put the final touches on the "measures", and issued a statement afterwards threatening the parliament's majority. Lahoud has repeatedly said he would not hand over power to Siniora, and that he has alternatives in place that he refused to disclose.

Hizbullah has also been training and arming pro-Syrian parties, as well as Aoun's party, amid rumors that the post-election plan might involve dispatching armed elements to the presidential palace to keep the March 14 president from assuming power.
Hizbullah has also been training and arming pro-Syrian parties, as well as Aoun's party, amid rumors that the post-election plan might involve dispatching armed elements to the presidential palace to keep the March 14 president from assuming power.

This week, Al-Shiraa reported that Hizbullah has dispatched armed members to Shia villages in Mount Lebanon to prepare for the scenario of March 14 electing a president. The pro-Hariri weekly speculated that Hizbullah is either preparing to storm Baabda, which is not far from Kayfoun and Qmatieh, or to control the Beirut-Damascus highway in the event of two governments.

Military escalation seems to be on the Syrian agenda for Lebanon. In an interview with a Tunisian newspaper, Bashar Assad predicted that Lebanon "will not know stability in the near future" because some Lebanese (March 14) "had chosen to side with Israel and submit themselves to foreigners instead of taking the Arab path and that of resistance." In other words, they left Syria's orbit. Or should we say Iran?
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Harb: Armed faction of Hezbollah has no future in Lebanon
2007-10-08
Lebanon’s next president must find a way to integrate Hezbollah guerrillas into the army and set ties with Syria on a new footing after the “black decades” of the past, presidential hopeful Boutros Harb said yesterday.

Hezbollah’s arsenal is a divisive issue in Lebanon, where rival political camps are trying to agree on who should replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud when his term ends on November 23.

Harb, one of two Maronite Christian candidates endorsed by the anti-Syrian majority bloc, said Lebanon could not continue with a Hezbollah “mini-state inside the state”.

The Shia militant group, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has sworn to use its weapons only against Israel. Harb said a priority for any new president — who must be a Maronite in Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system — should be to reconvene a national dialogue to discuss how Hezbollah’s military power could be brought under state control so that only the government could decide on matters of war and peace. “Whenever we have a state and government ready to fight for the country’s independence, at that moment Hezbollah will not have a pretext to continue having their arms and we’ll invite them to be part of the institutions of the state,” he added.

Sunni, Druze and Christian factions which command a slim majority in parliament say Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into an unwanted conflict last year by seizing two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid to trade for Lebanese held in Israel.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Thomas L. Friedman: New power struggle emerging in Mideast
2006-07-15
Don't usually agree with Friedman, but he does a good job describing the dwindling hope for democracy in ME

When you watch the violence unfolding in the Middle East today, it is easy to feel that you've been to this movie before and that you know how it ends — badly. But we actually have not seen this movie before. Something new is unfolding, and we'd better understand it.

What we are seeing in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon is an effort by Islamist parties to use elections to pursue their long-term aim of Islamizing the Arab-Muslim world. This is not a conflict about Palestinian or Lebanese prisoners in Israel. This is a power struggle within Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq over who will call the shots in their newly elected "democratic" governments and whether they will be real democracies.

The tiny militant wing of Hamas today is pulling all the strings of Palestinian politics, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite Islamic party is doing the same in Lebanon, even though it is a small minority in the cabinet, and so, too, are the Iranian-backed Shiite parties and militias in Iraq. They are not only showing who is boss inside each new democracy, but they are also competing with one another for regional influence.

As a result, the post-9/11 democracy experiment in the Arab-Muslim world is being hijacked. Yes, basically free and fair elections were held in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Iraq. Yes, millions turned out to vote because the people of the Arab-Muslim world really do want to shape their own futures.

But the roots of democracy are so shallow in these places, and the moderate majorities so weak and intimidated, that we are getting the worst of all worlds. We are getting Islamist parties who are elected to power, but who insist on maintaining their own private militias and refuse to assume all the responsibilities of a sovereign government. They refuse to let their governments have control over all weapons. They refuse to be accountable to international law (the Lebanese-Israeli border was ratified by the United Nations), and they refuse to submit to the principle that one party in the Cabinet cannot drag a whole country into war.

"Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinians all held democratic elections," said the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi, "and the Western expectation was that these elections would produce legitimate governments that had the power to control violence and would assume the burden of responsibility of governing. But what happened in all three places is that we (produced) governments which are sovereign only on paper, but not over a territory."

Then why do parties like Hamas and Hezbollah get elected? Often because they effectively run against the corruption of the old secular state-controlled parties, noted Ezrahi. But once these Islamists are in office they revert to serving their own factional interests, not those of the broad community.

Boutros Harb, a Christian Lebanese parliamentarian, said: "We must decide who has the right to make decisions on war and peace in Lebanon. Is that right reserved for the Lebanese people and its legal institutions, or is the choice in the hands of a small minority of Lebanese people?"

Ditto in the fledgling democracies of Palestine and Iraq. When cabinet ministers can maintain their own militias and act outside of state authority, said Ezrahi, you're left with a "meaningless exercise" in democracy/state building.

Why don't the silent majorities punish these elected Islamist parties for working against the real interests of their people? Because those who speak against Hamas or Hezbollah are either delegitimized as "American lackeys" or just murdered, like Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister.

The world needs to understand what is going on here: The little flowers of democracy that were planted in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories are being crushed by the boots of Syrian-backed Islamist militias who are desperate to keep real democracy from taking hold in this region and Iranian-backed Islamist militias desperate to keep modernism from taking hold.

It may be the skeptics are right: Maybe democracy, while it is the most powerful form of legitimate government, simply can't be implemented everywhere. It certainly is never going to work in the Arab-Muslim world if the United States and Britain are alone in pushing it in Iraq, if Europe dithers on the fence, if the moderate Arabs cannot come together and make a fist, and if Islamist parties are allowed to sit in governments and be treated with respect — while maintaining private armies.

The whole democracy experiment in the Arab-Muslim world is at stake here, and right now it's going up in smoke.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
March 14 forces demand Parliament take action against Lahoud
2005-12-15
The March 14 political forces renewed their campaign against Syria, blaming it for the assassination of MP and leading journalist Gebran Tueni and calling for an emergency parliamentary session to debate the fate of the Syrian regime's last representative in Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud. "By assassinating Gebran Tueni, the Syrian regime ... has renewed its war on Lebanon," said MP Boutros Harb as he read a statement following a meeting of the Independence Intifada coalition - of which Tueni was a leading member.

Tueni, 48, the general director of An-Nahar newspaper where the coalition held their meeting, was killed in a car bomb on Monday just a day after his return from France where he had been spending time for fear of an attempt on his life. "We urge Parliament to hold an emergency session to discuss the dangerous situation generated by the police state that prevails at the highest level, namely the president of the republic," said Harb, who, along with several other politicians, has been calling for Lahoud's resignation since the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Lahoud's mandate was "renewed by force at Syria's request in violation of the Lebanese Constitution, and this has paralyzed the executive power and led to the crisis threatening Lebanon's independence and fate," said Harb.

Despite their division from the March 14 gathering since the return of their leader MP Michel Aoun from exile, Aoun's parliamentary Change and Reform bloc joined in the meeting, but didn't stay long and left before the release of the official statement. "We were not invited, but we came in solidarity with the martyr Tueni," said MP Ibrahim Kenaan. Aoun's bloc left the meeting early, raising speculation of a difference in opinion between the two sides that has grown since the parliamentary elections. Harb clarified that the statement reflects the opinion of those that remained until the end of the meeting. "This statement is a representation of the opinions of people who are here now," he said at the news conference following the hour-long meeting.
So Tueni, like lots of other Lebanese pols, was hiding out in France for fear of his life. Presumably somebody tipped him the coast was clear, whereupon he was boomed.
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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
President Lahoud Said To Have Made Secret Damascus Mission
2005-10-31
Beirut, 31 Oct. (AKI) - Lebanese president Emile Lahoud made a secret visit to Damascus on Sunday to meet his opposite number Bashar al-Assad, Beirut daily as-Safir reports, quoting "authoratitive Arab diplomatic sources" in the Lebanese capital. "The report is credible, and with all probability was leaked by someone from the Egyptian embassy in Beirut," a newsper official told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Most local observers say the purpose of the reported visit would inevitably be for Lahoud to price condos in Damascus assess what level of support he can count on from the Syrian regime in the future. Syria has been under intense international pressure because of the findings to date of the UN commission into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, which has pointed the finger at leading Syrian and Lebanese officials. The UN Security Council will on Monday consider a resolution to impose sanctions against Damascus unless it agrees to cooperate fully with the UN probe.

Since his election in 1998, Emile Lahoud has been a staunch ally of Damascus and the extension of his mandate last year was obtained thanks to intense Syrian pressure on parliamentarians in Beirut. After the assassination of Rafik Hariri in February, Lahoud was accused by much of the anti Syrian opposition and the public of being involved in the attack. The arrests on 30 August of four former top-level security officials - men all closely linked both to Lahoud and to the Syrian regime - for alleged involvement in the attack, only served to confirm such suspicions. In the UN-commisisoned report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, made public ten days ago, Emile Lahoud is called in to question regarding a phone call he allegedly received just before the explosion from a cellphone.

Lahoud's political legitimacy is seriously compromised, and many Lebanese political analysts are now saying it is unlikely he can complete his mandate which expires at the end of 2007. For months now, the rumour mill in Beirut has been churning with speculation on his possible successor, though no political party has officially put forward a candidate.

Under an unwritten rule that is neither contained in the constitution nor included in the Taif accords, which in 1989 put an end to Lebanon's civil war, the presidency must be given to a representative of the Maronite Christian community. The most probable candidates currently are: Boutros Harb, known for his anti-Syrian stance and his long institutional experience; Nassib Lahoud, an independent MP known for his reformist ideas; and general Michel Aoun, who returned to Lebanon earlier this year, after 15 years in exile in France.

For the moment, there is no political common ground on these names, even if the main non-Christian parties (Sunnis represented by the alliance led by Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated politician, the Druze of veteran Walid Jumblatt, and Shiites from the alliance between militia parties Amal and Hezbollah), have all taken a conciliatory stance, saying it would be better that the Christian parties first find some unity on a shortlist of candidates which, subsequently, can be put up for discussion. The Maronite patriarch Boutros Nasrallah Sfeir has however taken a different tack, saying recently that he did not want "the choice of the president of the republic to remain a question limited to the Christian community".
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