LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
MAY 25/2006
Below news bulletins from the Daily Star for
24/05/06
Lebanese police arrest Saddam Hussein's nephew
Cabinet takes stand against Syrian warrant for
Jumblatt
Hizbullah's weapons pose difficult questions for all
Lebanese
Lahoud calls for support of resistance as South
prepares to mark Liberation Day
Rice warns Damascus to start 'listening' to UN
resolution
Lawyer says new law 'unites Druze'
Freed hostage returns from Iraq
Ahdab downplays rumors in death of personal guard
From Russia with love: Hariri thanks resistance
Legislature debacle shows Syria's influence
Harb calls out Rizk on delay in appointments
What's Hizbullah's problem with the army?
By Michael Young
Below news bulletins from miscellaneous sources
for 24/05/06
Hezbollah Terrorist Sleeper Cell Suspected in New York City-NewsByUs
The Lebanese Hezbollah and the Exportation of the Shiite-SITE
Institute
Activists' arrests spark fears Syria is slipping back to more-Khaleej
Times
Kidnappers have freed Lebanese hostage in Iraq-Asharq
Alawsat
Lebanon divided about Hezbollah arms-Middle
East Online
Tough love from Israel's friends-Boston Globe
Rice: Syria Should Stop Treating Lebanon like a 'Client'-Naharnet
Lebanon's Hezbollah renews rejection to disarmament-People's Daily Online
How UN Pressure on Hizballah Impedes Lebanese Reform-Middle East Report Online
Noam Chomsky on LBC-Alarab online
Cabinet takes stand against Syrian warrant for
Jumblatt
By Nada Bakri and Nafez Qawas -Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 25, 2006
BEIRUT: Lebanon's Cabinet issued a statement in support of Walid Jumblatt on
Wednesday in response to an arrest warrant against the MP by a Syrian military
court that was relayed to Beirut via Interpol.
The warrant demands that Jumblatt be brought before a Syrian military court to
face questioning on charges of having slandered and incited hatred against
Damascus.
"The Cabinet asked Justice Minister Charles Rizk to prepare a study and present
it to Parliament in order for the legislative body to issue a decision rejecting
the warrants," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said following the session.
Cabinet's condemnation of the warrant was supported by all those present,
including Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, the only Shiite member on hand.
Parliament is the only authority that can rule in relation to the warrant
because Jumblatt has parliamentary immunity. Should it decide to reject the
warrant, it will then be totally ineffective in practice.
A source close to the judiciary said Parliament "will likely reject the
[warrant] because Jumblatt has parliamentary immunity and because it is based on
political reasons."
Jumblatt is a key anti-Syrian figure who has repeatedly accused Damascus of
involvement in the series of bombings in Lebanon over the past year, including
the 2005 murder of former Premier Rafik Hariri. If Parliament approves the
warrant, the Lebanese judiciary will then examine the case and rule whether
Jumblatt has committed a crime.
Interpol's General Secretariat, which refused to comment on the Jumblatt's
warrant because the organization "does
not comment on individual cases," said the "Red Notices" used by the Syrian
court are one of the ways in which Interpol informs its 184 member countries
that an arrest warrant has been issued for an individual by a judicial
authority.
"It is not an international arrest warrant and Interpol cannot demand that any
member country arrests the subject of a Red Notice," Interpol's press office
told The Daily Star in an e-mail.
All requests for Red Notices are verified by the General Secretariat to ensure
that they comply with the organization's constitution and rules and regulations,
the press office added.
These checks include ensuring that Interpol's involvement in the matter would be
within the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as mandated by
Article 2 of the police body's constitution, and that the request does not
contravene Article 3 of the constitution, which states that it is "strictly
forbidden for the organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a
political, military, religious or racial character."
The Syrian warrant against Jumblatt was handed to Interpol after the Lebanese
government ignored an earlier Syrian demand for the Democratic Gathering bloc
leader's arrest.
In February, a Syrian military court filed a lawsuit against Jumblatt,
Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamade and journalist Fares Khashan, accusing
them of "inciting the US administration to occupy Syria" and "defaming"
Damascus.
Incensed over the latest Syrian measure, anti-Syrian MPs urged Speaker Nabih
Berri on Tuesday to respond immediately by allowing legislators to vote on a
statement condemning the warrant. Parliament was expected to take measures to
prevent Interpol or Syria from pursuing legal action, now or in the future,
against Lebanese MPs; however, the session was adjourned shortly after it began
following a heated argument between the speaker and a former minister. The
session was postponed till next Tuesday.
Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party described the subpoenas as "worthless
judicial sorcery which is ineffective in practice and a continuation to the
Syrians' horror series against the Lebanese."
The party added in a statement issued Wednesday that "Jumblatt's immunity is not
only based on his political post but derived from public support."
MP Saad Hariri, leader of the Future Movement and Jumblatt's closest ally, also
condemned the Syrian move.
"The warrant is political heresy and hallucination and does not help establish
good relations between the two countries," Hariri said from Moscow, where he is
seeking Russian support to convince Damascus to exchange embassies with Beirut.
Free Patriotic Movement MP Ibrahim Kanaan also condemned the warrant, which he
described as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.
"Regardless of our relations with Jumblatt in politics, we will stand by him
when it comes to breaching Lebanon's sovereignty," Kanaan said.
Former Premier Salim Hoss denounced the Syrian judiciary for taking "an
unrealistic measure, which is ineffective in practice and ignores the
parliamentary immunity of Jumblatt."
The head of Parliament's Administration and Justice Committee, MP Robert Ghanem,
lashed out at Justice Minister Charles Rizk and State Prosecutor Said Mirza,
saying they should have returned the warrants immediately to keep Interpol from
becoming involved.
"The state prosecutor should have taken the right measures when it received the
warrants by demanding ... Rizk inform the Syrian authorities that these warrants
are ineffective according to Article 39 of the Lebanese Constitution," Ghanem
said.
Article 39 states that "an MP cannot be legally charged for declaring his
political opinions."
Ghanem added that according to a 1951 judicial agreement between Lebanon and
Syria, Lebanese authorities can return a warrant should it decide that the
people who are being legally pursued are innocent. He said Rizk should have
issued a decision rejecting the warrants and then sent it to Parliament, which
would have closed the file.
Rizk responded by saying that Jumblatt's parliamentary immunity prevented the
state prosecutor from taking any legal measure against Syrian authorities, and
obliged it to transfer the file to Parliament.
Hizbullah's weapons pose difficult questions for
all Lebanese
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Thursday, May 25, 2006-Nayla Razzouk
Agence France Presse
BEIRUT: Six years after Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon under pressure from an
armed campaign by Hizbullah, the group's weapons have become a major source of
division.
Despite United Nations resolutions demanding the disarming of militias in
Lebanon, Hizbullah insists that the disarmament of its military wing must be
linked to a broad peace deal with Israel, which seems to be a remote
possibility.
Hizbullah's stand is shared by other pro-Syrian actors in Lebanon, particularly
President Emile Lahoud, despite growing domestic criticism against Hizbullah's
weapons which threaten to keep Lebanon at the center of regional turmoil.
"The resistance should be kept until a just and comprehensive peace is achieved
in the region," Lahoud told reporters on Wednesday during a visit to Southern
Lebanon to mark the anniversary of the withdrawal.
"If the Lebanese Army were deployed along the borders (with Israel) ... it would
be turned into a police" force to protect Israel's borders, "and this is not
acceptable," he said.
Lahoud also said in comments published Wednesday that "the demand made by many
for the integration of the army and the resistance in not in Lebanon's
interest."
"When the resistance and the army will be integrated ... they will not be able
to face the Israeli Army, given the [Lebanese Army's limited] capabilities," the
president added.
As the anniversary approached, Hizbullah's secretary General, Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah, maintained that guerrilla fighting was Lebanon's only option in the
face of the potential Israeli dangers and the absence of a strong Lebanese
regular army.
"It is the only available alternative before us," Nasrallah said on Tuesday,
adding defiantly that northern Israel remained "under the firing line" of his
group's more than 12,000 rockets.
Using a sustained campaign of guerrilla attacks, the Iranian- and Syrian-backed
Hizbullah was instrumental in leading to Israel's troop withdrawal after 22
years of occupation on May 25, 2000. But the national support for the resistance
has since diminished as celebrations to mark the pullout were restricted to
rallies by Hizbullah and its allies following political disputes, since Syria
was forced to end 29 years of military presence and political domination last
year.
Deeply divided Lebanese leaders have been engaged in reconciliation roundtable
talks since March 2, with the last item on the table being the most contentious
of issues: a national defense strategy for the country.
Lebanese leaders did manage to reach an agreement in April at the national
dialogue to dismantle Palestinian military bases outside refugee camps within
six months.
Influential parties in Lebanon fear that the guerrilla campaign became a tool
for powerful neighbor Syria and kept Lebanon a dangerous open arena for the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
Lebanon's largely anti-Syrian government, which took power after elections last
year following the forced withdrawal of Syrian forces from the country, is under
heavy international pressure over the disarming of Hizbullah.
UN Security Council Resolution 1559 called for the dismantling and disarming of
all militias in Lebanon.
Since the Israeli pullout, relative calm has prevailed in Southern Lebanon,
despite sporadic shooting incidents, mostly in the flashpoint Shebaa Farms area
- seized by Israel from Syria in 1967 but claimed by Beirut, with Damascus'
approval.
Hizbullah, the only armed group not required to lay down its weapons after the
1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon because it was spearheading the fight against
Israel, has vowed to end Israel's occupation of Shebaa.
Lebanese police arrest Saddam Hussein's nephew
By Adnan El-Ghoul -Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 25, 2006
BEIRUT: Police in Lebanon have arrested the son of Saddam Hussein's half-brother
on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol. According to sources
close to the security forces, Bashar Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, identified by
the international policing organization as a "dangerous wanted terrorist," was
nabbed at the Malibu Bay Hotel in the Jounieh neighborhood of Maameltein.
Tikriti had been planning to board a flight from the Lebanese capital to Brazil
later in the day.
Police were tipped off when members of the hotel's staff suspected that
Takriti's passport had been tampered with to alter his name.
The sources added that the wanted Iraqi had originally entered Lebanon through
Syria after escaping Iraq. An international warrant for Tikriti's arrest on
terrorism charges, including leading a group to fight US forces in Iraq, was
later discovered once authorities realized who they had in custody.
The sources said security forces will follow standard procedures by asking the
Interpol office in Beirut to confirm the identity of the suspect and by handing
him over to Interpol. Lebanon is a member of the global policing organization.
Ironically, Iraqi officials broke the news Wednesday of Tikriti's arrest before
their Lebanese counterparts. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the
arrest had taken place, saying "the arrest was for the crimes he committed after
the fall of the former regime."
Maliki said: "Tikriti is an important element on the most-wanted list due to his
ugly crimes against the Iraqi people."
The statement did not offer any details about Tikriti's background or age.
"The arrest of the criminal Tikriti represents a successful intelligence
operation; we will continue chasing the former regime elements on the run and
bring them back to Iraq to face fair trials," it added.
"Bashar Sabawi al-Tikriti's arrest is a message to the rest of the terrorists
inside or outside Iraq who will fall in the hands of the security forces so that
they receive their appropriate punishment." - With agencies
Lahoud calls for support of resistance as South prepares to mark
Liberation Day
By Mohammed Zaatari -Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 25, 2006
SOUTH LEBANON: President Emile Lahoud said Wednesday that it was the duty of the
state to improve the living conditions of residents in liberated villages,
adding that "it is time to end their sufferings and provide them with a decent
living."
Speaking during a visit to Khiam refugee camp and a number of liberated villages
in the South on the eve of Liberation Day, Lahoud expressed his readiness "to
provide all support to the resistance until Lebanon recovers its occupied
territories, frees prisoners held in Israel and restores its water resources."
Speaker Nabih Berri received congratulatory phone calls from Lahoud and former
President Elias Hrawi on the occasion of Liberation Day. Arab and Islamic
leaders, as well as Lebanese political figures, also phoned their
congratulations to Berri.
Meanwhile, Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem called
Liberation Day "a unique event."
"If we were to conduct a referendum on the resistance, we would find out that it
is still supported by the majority of Lebanese people," he said.
"However, on the political level some parties changed their position regarding
the resistance, especially after the UN Security Council issued resolution 1559
and the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri."
Concerning the ongoing national dialogue, Qassem said, "I don't think that
politicians will reach a result soon."
Hizbullah members on Wednesday continued with their preparations for Liberation
Day celebrations.
However, while the entrance of the South's main towns and liberated villages
were adorned with triumphal arches, the area's schools were still wondering
whether their doors would be open or shut today.
Several schools were notifying their students that today would be a regular day,
whereas The Daily Star was told that others would dedicate class time to
teaching the importance of resistance against Israel.
Streams of yellow banners have been raised along roads in the South praising the
resistance and Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. "We are at your
service Sayyed Nasrallah," read one banner.
Near Sidon's Grand Serail, Hizbullah displayed Katyusha rockets, other weapons
and tanks used during the fight for liberation, while villages were decorated
with military tools left behind by Israeli troops.
"I am now using this cannon to display my cages, whereas Israelis once used it
to shoot at our brothers," said pet shop owner Zakaria Karnib.
Rice warns Damascus to start 'listening' to UN
resolution
'Stop treating lebanon like a client'
Compiled by Daily Star staff -Thursday, May 25, 2006
BEIRUT: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Syria has not responded to
UN Security Council Resolution 1680's calls for establishing diplomatic
relations with Lebanon and that Damascus continues to treat Lebanon as a
"client."
In an interview aired Tuesday on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiyya television network,
Rice urged Syria to "stop treating Lebanon like a client ... Treat it like a
neighbor. Treat it like an independent and sovereign country and then we can
move on to a more peaceful and prosperous future for the Lebanese
people."Commenting on last week's clashes between Fatah al-Intifada, a
Palestinian militant grouped backed by Damascus, and the Lebanese Army in which
one soldier was killed, the secretary said: "Obviously, Syria wasn't listening.
The resolution didn't say support a single Palestinian faction within Lebanon.
It said treat Lebanon as an independent and sovereign neighbor that deserves to
have a border that is demarcated and delineated."
The resolution, drafted by the United States, France and Britain, "strongly
encourages" Syria to respond positively to Lebanon's request to delineate their
common border and establish full diplomatic relations.
The resolution also welcomes a report from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
urging both Iran and Syria to cooperate with efforts to restore Lebanon's
political independence and disarming all militias in Lebanon.
The Syrian government rejected the resolution as "unprecedented international
interference in the bilateral relations of two countries."
Before the resolution was passed earlier this month, Syria had sent a letter to
Annan warning that "adopting new resolutions would heighten instability in
Lebanon or the region." Rice said Lebanon's ongoing national dialogue was
pursuing the disarmament of all militias, most notably Hizbullah. "This is being
worked through the Lebanese process," she said. "The Lebanese know that they
have obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1559. I believe that they
will indeed undertake those obligations and those obligations include the
disarming of militias. But this is a transitional period and we understand that,
and so allowing Lebanon to work on this is very important."
Separately, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack took issue with a
Syrian arrest warrant issued for MP Walid Jumblatt on charges of inciting hatred
against Syria. Admitting he had not seen the details of the warrant sent to
Interpol by a Syrian judge Monday, McCormack said: "It seemed to me to be a ...
provocative move on the part of the Syrian government."
He said Damascus would be better served by ending its interference in Lebanon
and establishing an embassy in Beirut.
"I think they should really concentrate on getting their own house in order
before they start issuing or requesting arrest warrants for political leaders in
Lebanon," he added. - Agencies
Lawyer says new law 'unites Druze'
By Therese Sfeir -Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 25, 2006
BEIRUT: A news conference was held Tuesday to explain a new law organizing the
Druze sect after the bill was passed by Parliament for the second time due to a
presidential abstention.
The conference was organized by lawyer Ghassan Mahmoud, who had been assigned by
Parliament to draft the law, and former military police commander Brigadier
Issam Abu Zaki. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi and MPs Akram Chehayeb, Faisal
Sayegh and Ayman Shuqair also attended. "The new law reorganizes the sect's
institutions, which have been undermined by the intelligence services during the
period of [Syrian] tutelage," Abu Zaki said.
The new law would "allow the sect to choose the heads of its institutions
through free elections, without conspiracies and compromises," he added. Abu
Zaki said that past attempts to reorganize the sect were hampered by "Lebanese
and foreign interference."
"With the achievement of the country's sovereignty and independence, the Druze
sect has the opportunity to reorganize its affairs in cooperation with
government leaders," he added.
The law was sent to President Emile Lahoud three months ago for approval, but
was returned unapproved after complaints from by acting Druze spiritual leader
Sheikh Bahjat Ghaith, former MP Talal Arslan and former Minister Wiam Wahhab
that it would create divisions. Parliament passed the bill a second time,
meaning it is now law.
Abu Zaki said Lahoud's abstention from passing the law was "a form of
dictatorship."
Legislature debacle shows Syria's influence
By Philip Abi akl -Thursday, May 25, 2006
Tension between Damascus and Beirut has remained high in recent weeks, despite
Arab initiatives to broker a truce between the neighbors and a reported
readiness on Syria's part to improve frayed bilateral relations.
A case in point was Tuesday's raucous parliamentary session, which showed that
there are still political parties in Lebanon that will avoid taking a stand
against Damascus at all costs.
At issue was Speaker Nabih Berri's refusal to act on warrants issued by Damascus
for the arrest of MPs Walid Jumblatt and Marwan Hamade. Berri took the position
that because Interpol had not forwarded the warrants to the relevant
parliamentary council, no legislative action was appropriate. Majority MPs,
however, urged their fellow deputies to take a stand, asking the speaker to
issue a statement denouncing the warrants and affirming the MPs' parliamentary
immunity. If Parliament did nothing, they argued, any country could feel free to
bring charges against Lebanon's politicians for their opinions - a development
that would gnaw at the core of democratic principles such as the freedom of
speech. Hizbullah's MPs remained tight-lipped on the issue, saying after the
session that Loyalty to the Resistance bloc leader MP Mohammad Raad would
determine the party's position.
However, a well-informed source said Hizbullah's MPs had not participated in the
debate in Parliament to "return the favor" for Parliament's silence when US
officials and other Western authorities accused Hizbullah of being a terrorist
organization.
For this reason, the source added, Hizbullah decided to sit back and wait for
Parliament's decision on this latest issue.
However, Berri decided he would rather adjourn the session than take a stand.
While Hizbullah and Amal MPs refused to reveal their positions on the Syrian
arrest warrants, Reform and Change MP Ibrahim Kenaan, speaking on behalf of
party leader MP Michel Aoun, denounced Syria's actions and defended the
principle of parliamentary immunity.
Berri seemed much more comfortable, upon returning from a recent visit to
Damascus, in declaring his impression that Syrian officials were ready to meet
with their Lebanese counterparts. "The doors of Damascus are open to receive
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora," he said at the time.
After Tuesday's session in Parliament, Siniora said he had informed Higher
Lebanese-Syrian Council Secretary General Nasri Khoury of his willingness to
visit Syria. "Khoury has not replied so far," he said.
In the final analysis, the damage caused by Syria's issuance of the arrest
warrants may derail the Arab initiatives to improve Lebanese-Syrian relations.
We shall soon know as Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa is expected to
visit Beirut in the near future.
What's Hizbullah's problem with the army?
By Michael Young -Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Syria doesn't make it easy for its friends in Lebanon. After last week's killing
of a Lebanese soldier in a firefight by members of the Syria-backed Fatah al-Intifada,
Hizbullah's continued refusal to disarm and integrate into the Lebanese Army
looks that much more objectionable. A party, allied with Syria, refusing to
acknowledge the authority of a national institution, one of whose men just died
thanks to the actions of pro-Syrian Palestinians: That's the image Hizbullah
radiates today.
On Monday, the party's deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, showed he was
unfazed. In a Reuters interview, he observed that the idea of assimilating
Hizbullah into the army was "originally [United Nations envoy Terje] Roed-Larsen's
idea, in other words it came from the Americans and some others in the Security
Council, and in fact it aims to terminate the resistance, not to find a solution
for Lebanon on how the army and resistance can coordinate."
You will hear a great deal about how Qassem speaks for the hard-liners in
Hizbullah, while the organization's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,
is made of softer fabric. However, Nasrallah reaffirmed Qassem's message on
Tuesday: We won't disarm; we won't be part of the army. The deeper implications
of this inflexibility are no less disturbing: Hizbullah has the right to set up
an armed state within a state, pursue its own separate foreign policy (even if
it is hardly alone in doing so), and ignore the anxieties of other communities,
though this undermines virtually every major tenet on which the sectarian
compromise system is built.
But let's step back for a moment and again ask those questions Hizbullah has
generally answered with an embarrassed shuffling of feet and empty phrases on
the remarkable effectiveness of its combatants: What does the party have against
the Lebanese Army, the sole national institution unequivocally entitled to
defend the country? Why does Hizbullah regard its own dissolution into the army
as termination of the resistance? Why is it that such a plan, which was one of
the foundations of the Taif agreement and the post-Taif settlement, should
suddenly be labeled part of an American and UN plot to harm Lebanon?
Such questions merit being posed to the party by one person in particular,
President Emile Lahoud, who has spent over a decade dining out on assertions
that he reunited the army and turned it into the respected force it is today.
Anyone who has followed the saga of the armed forces in the postwar period knows
rehabilitation also meant that the institution's pro-Syrian backbone had to be
stiffened by passionate relations with Syria's military. This involved
dispatching officers to be trained in Syrian military academies (where they were
even instructed on how to introduce their examination papers with paeans to the
late Hafez al-Assad). The army's "nationalist" credentials remain unblemished:
Syria continues to have sympathizers in the officer corps and in military
intelligence, and when Walid Jumblatt announced some months ago that the army
had allowed Syria to send rockets into Lebanon to supply Hizbullah, the high
command's response was reportedly drafted with the head of Hizbullah's
intelligence service.
And yet Hizbullah continues to intimate, without coming out and saying so, that
the army is unreliable. This suspicion takes us back to the pre-1975 days, and
to the years 1982 to 1984, when the army was accused by the pro-Palestinian
left, later by the National Movement, and yet later by Nabih Berri's Amal
Movement and Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, of being a utensil in
Maronite hands. But those days are over, with the Maronites not much able to
control anything of consequence in the state today. The army Lebanon now has is
what the opponents of the pre-Taif political system always dreamt of; in fact it
is precisely what Hizbullah always dreamt of, given the blank check the military
leadership has offered the party in the postwar period.
Then why the persistent doubts? Because Hizbullah is planning ahead and wants to
protect its independence indefinitely. How indefinitely? The visiting Noam
Chomsky expressed Nasrallah's thoughts well enough when he declared it a
"reasonable position" that Hizbullah retain its weapons "until there is a
general political settlement in the region and the threat of aggression and
violence is reduced or eliminated." That could be a long time, certainly longer
than most Lebanese groups are willing to give the party without themselves
beginning to arm. Hizbullah realizes that whoever controls the army down the
road will also benefit from its legitimacy, making a self-regulating militia
unnecessary.
That's why Hizbullah's refusal to assimilate into the army is, in most respects,
a refusal to assimilate into the Lebanese state; or rather to do so only when
convenient - for example when using participation in state bodies to derail its
own disarmament, and its weight in the state's bureaucracy to dispense patronage
to the Shiite community. That was why the party demonstrated against the
government's social and economic reform project two weeks ago, in collusion with
an Aounist movement afloat in contradiction, having endorsed an administrative
purge and de-politicization of the civil service in its political program.
There is considerable boldness in such behavior from Hizbullah. The party has
the weapons, so no one, not even the army it refuses to submit to, wants to pick
a fight just now. But that restraint, or fear, won't last indefinitely. It is an
unfortunate reality in Lebanon that what cannot be resolved peacefully is
usually addressed militarily, where it also generally fails to be resolved.
Whichever option follows, Hizbullah will not be able to avoid the weapons issue
forever, particularly when it comes to convincing the Lebanese that their army
is really not up to par.
The future of Hizbullah's arms is next on the national dialogue's agenda in
early June. Nasrallah's and Qassem's statements were preparation for that
negotiation and need not be the final words on the party's weaponry. But sooner
rather than later Hizbullah will have to surrender its arsenal, and it serves no
one's interest to delay that moment by casting doubt on the army, just because
it might one day challenge the party's de facto sovereignty.
***Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.
US Condemns Blatant Rights Abuses in Syria
By David Gollust
State Department
23 May 2006
The United States Tuesday condemned what it said was the Syrian government's
blatant abuse of the rights of those peacefully seeking to express opposing
views. The government of President Bashar al-Assad last week arrested at least
nine democracy advocates in what was described as the biggest crackdown of its
kind in years.
The United States is deploring what it says is an atmosphere of fear being
fostered by Syrian authorities, and it is calling on the Damascus government to
cease the harassment of those trying to defend human rights in that country.
The comments by the State Department followed the arrest of Syria's leading
human rights lawyer, Anwar al-Bunni, opposition activist Michel Kilo and several
other critics of the Damascus government in a series of actions by security
police last week.
Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the crackdown is of great concern to
the United States, and only the latest example of Syria's blatant abuse of the
rights of those peacefully seeking to express opposing views:
"The Syrian government continues to implement domestic policies which distance
itself from the rest of the international community," said Sean McCormack.
"Arrests without warrant and sentences without evidence are not acceptable means
of addressing political dissent. We continue to call for the immediate and
unconditional release of all political prisoners in Syria."
All but one of the Syrian activists arrested last week were reported to have
signed a petition calling for an improvement in Syria's relations with Lebanon.
The petition, also signed by hundreds of Syrian and Lebanese intellectuals, came
as the U.N. Security Council considered a resolution calling on Syria to
establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon and set an mutually-agreed border
with its neighbor.
The Syrian state media condemned petition signatories and said the timing of the
move was suspicious given the U.N. debate. The Security Council approved the
resolution sponsored by the United States, Britain and France last Wednesday in
a 13 to nothing vote.
Russia and China abstained on the measure, which also called on Syria to fully
implement past resolutions demanding that it cease interference in Lebanon and
support the disarmament of all Lebanese militias.
Spokesman McCormack also criticized as provocative a Syrian move to seek the
arrest of Lebanese Druze leader and legislator Walid Jumblatt, a leading critic
of Syria's role in Lebanon.
He said the Bush administration is continuing to consider additional U.S.
sanctions against Syria under the Syria Accountability Act approved by Congress
in 2003, but has no immediate plans to impose new measures.
President Bush banned most U.S. exports to Syria two years ago under terms of
the measure, but withheld action on more severe steps.