|
Anti-Syrian Demonstration Cancelled In Lebanon
BEIRUT, April 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Opponents of Syria's military presence in Lebanon said Saturday they had cancelled a planned anti-Damascus rally in downtown Beirut "to avoid clashes" following protests by pro-Syrian Muslims and anonymous threats.
"We decided to cancel this gathering to avoid potential clashes with mercenary elements and not give a pretext to the Syrians, who want to believe the Lebanese are killing one another over the Syrian presence," said a spokesman for the staunchly anti-Syrian Free National Current, led by exiled former premier Michel Aoun.
A number of Christian, Druze and secular groups had called for a rally in downtown Beirut on Wednesday to demand a withdrawal of Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon since the 1970s and to "announce the end of the war."
But Shiite and Sunni Muslim leaders denounced the calls and said Christian leaders were fomenting religious friction, the cause of Lebanon's bloody 1975-90 civil war.
Elias Attallah, a member of an organization of Christian and Muslim intellectuals called the Democratic Tribune, told AFP the Wednesday rally "was cancelled because of the artificial and suspicious campaigns of a sectarian nature."
"This was a gathering to mark our real wish, and that of most Lebanese, to turn the page of the war on the eve of April 13th, the anniversary of its start," he said.
"Our objective is to calm tensions and for that reason we decided to no longer meet Wednesday," added Wael Abu Fawur, a member of influential Druze MP Walid Jumblatt's party.
On Friday, Grand Sunni Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, voiced his rejection for calls for the withdrawal of Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon.
Qabbani stressed the Syrian presence is the security valve against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ongoing threats to Lebanon, Syria and the whole Arab region.
In his Friday prayers, Qabbani said the call by some parties for the pullout of Syrian forces is the cause of divisions in the country, which everybody is complaining about.
He said such calls provoke tension and draw the country back to the atmosphere of the civil war years.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, spiritual leader of the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, on Wednesday said "we need Syria today even more than in the past," after the arrival to power of Sharon.
"Let those who call for [a Syrian retreat] do so in their name. We others, as the majority political current, have another view and another vision," he told 200,000 people gathered for the Shiite day of mourning Ashura.
Meanwhile, Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri has called for an end to the debate over the Syrian presence in Lebanon, describing the ongoing row over the subject as dangerous.
Berri told reporters at Nijmeh Square that Syrian troops would stay as long as regional peace has not been achieved, adding that there was no question of the Syrian army leaving the country under present circumstances.
Berri added the question of the Syrian presence is a subject that concerns the two states alone, and all argument about it must come to a halt.
But bishops from the Maronite Church, at a meeting chaired by Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, said Wednesday that the "Lebanese are not divided" over the presence of Syria's 35,000 soldiers in the country.
"The sectarian atmosphere is artificial," their statement said, adding that, "those who believe that the Lebanese are divided among themselves are not seeing reality."
Syria entered Lebanon in 1976 at the "insistence" of its Christian leaders, a Lebanese pro-Syrian Baath party official said in an interview published in Damascus on Saturday.
The Syrian army's intervention came in "response to the appeal of President Suleiman Frangieh," who held office then, Assem Qanso, a member of the national pan-Arab Baath command told the official ath-Thawra daily.
"The eternal [former Syrian] president Hafez al-Assad responded to the appeal of Lebanon while the rest of the world stood still, watching with indifference the bloodbath," he said in reference to the 15-year Lebanese war, which began on April 13, 1975.
On Friday, Syria's ruling Baath party newspaper recalled Damascus' role in ending the war in Lebanon, and stressed the importance of solidarity against Israel.
"It might be useful to recall that our [Arab] nation will remain stronger than its enemies if it sticks together," the newspaper said.
Syria's newspapers have been ignoring persistent calls for the pullout of its 35,000 soldiers, issued mainly by the Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, but are publishing statements of political and Muslim dignitaries in favor of their stay.
Syria says the question of its presence in Lebanon depends on the governments of Beirut and Damascus, and in turns in the Arab Israeli conflict, and not on the wishes of Lebanese political or religious parties.
|
