Any ideas on what will happen here, Nadine? Hezbollah to Protest U.S. Role in Lebanon
Syrian-Backed Shiite Muslim Denounces
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By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 6, 2005; 2:40 PM
BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 6 -- The leader of Hezbollah, the militant Syrian-backed Shiite Muslim movement that for weeks has stood largely on the sidelines of Lebanon's political upheaval, called for national demonstrations against what he called foreign intervention in Lebanese affairs.
The announcement by Hassan Nasrallah, the Shiite cleric who serves as Hezbollah's secretary general, dashed the hopes of Lebanese opposition leaders that the large, disciplined movement would join their cause to drive Syrian troops and intelligence services from Lebanon. The first demonstration is scheduled for Tuesday in Beirut, along an avenue near the central square where Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition movement has staged round-the-clock protests since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Nasrallah appeared after what he called an "emergency meeting" of more than 30 political parties aligned with the Syrian government, now facing international pressure and a popular uprising here to end its 30-year presence in Lebanon. It was convened in the hours after Syrian President Bashar Assad outlined a staged shift of Syria's 15,000 troops in Lebanon to the countries' common border, a plan criticized by U.S. and French officials who have demanded an immediate withdrawal of Syrian forces and intelligence services. Lebanese officials said Sunday the redeployment would begin Monday after a meeting between Assad and President Emile Lahoud in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
"Freedom means that we decide for ourselves the best way to address what we see today as clear intervention of the United States and France in Lebanese internal affairs," Nasrallah said during a news conference in the Shiite suburbs of south Beirut. "The opposition must give us explanations regarding the foreign intervention. We must convince each other that only true sovereignty means independence."
Nasrallah's position comes as the Lebanese opposition, an alliance of Christian, Druze and Sunni parties, has turned its attention to winning parliamentary elections scheduled to be held this spring to form a government free of Syrian influence. Nasrallah appeared to serve notice that Hezbollah and the array of smaller pro-Syrian parties intended to mount a unified campaign to prevent a government hostile to Syrian interests from emerging after the elections.
The Lebanese opposition movement has lacked large numbers of Shiites, who account for a plurality of Lebanon's 4 million people. But the movement's leaders said Sunday they were heartened at least by Nasrallah's call for peaceful demonstrations and promises to respect political differences.
"In the end we are calling for a democratic country, and so these demonstrations should be allowed," said Ghattas Khoury, a member of parliament who belongs to Hariri's legislative bloc. "If they win the elections, we will go along with them. If we win, then they should go along with us."
With a highly structured organization and armed wing celebrated here for helping end the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah is perhaps the most formidable player in the power-sharing system here populated by religious-based parties. Linked to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed more than 240 U.S. Marines, Hezbollah is now recognized as a legal party in Lebanon and controls and a 12-seat bloc in parliament. The United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, and the European Union is now considering adopting a similar designation.
Nasrallah's ability to mobilize perhaps hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah followers for demonstrations, not including other large Shiite, Sunni, and pan-Arab parties that will likely also take part, threatens to expose a deep gulf in Lebanese society that Syrian officials have warned could widen into the sectarian strife that fueled its 15-year civil war. In his speech to parliament Saturday, Assad said, "We should not remain in Lebanon one day after there is a Lebanese consensus over our presence," something Hezbollah's counter-demonstrations are likely to show does not exist.
Syria, which first sent troops to Lebanon in 1975 at the invitation of its embattled Christian president, has long served as the gatekeeper for Iranian-supplied arms and money flowing to Hezbollah. The party, in turn, has become its proxy army against Israel along Lebanon's militarized southern border.
Known even among his opponents as one of Lebanon's shrewdest political operators, Nasrallah was careful to characterize the demonstrations as protests against foreign interference in Lebanon, not rallies in support of Syria, whose longtime presence here he praised. He also called on Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which have lobbied Syria for a quick withdrawal, to reconsider their positions, which he said only serve the Arabs' traditional enemy, Israel.
The U.N. Security Council resolution passed with U.S. and French support last year calls on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and for Hezbollah's rapid disarmament. The party was allowed to keep its arsenal of small-arms and rockets under the 1989 peace accord that ended Lebanon's sectarian civil war because Israel still occupied parts of southern Lebanon when it was signed.
Although the occupation ended five years ago, Hezbollah still claims the 100-square-mile Shebaa Farms in the southern border area as part of Lebanon. The United Nations considers the Israeli-occupied Shebaa to be a part of Syria, whose peace talks with Israel have been dormant for five years.
Nasrallah said the international pressure against Syria and Hezbollah, which increased sharply after Hariri's assassination, was designed to further Israel's political goals. Some Lebanese opposition leaders have called openly for Lebanon to recognize the 1949 armistice with Israel, a position Hariri was believed to have supported at the time of his assassination, which many here blame on Syrian intelligence services.
Syrian officials have used those comments to evoke the May 1983 decision of the Lebanese parliament to authorize the Christian president at the time, Amin Gemayel, to pursue a peace agreement with Israel. The agreement was never concluded, although Gemayel is now a prominent figure in the opposition. In his speech, Assad, addressing his supporters in Lebanon, warned, "I'll tell them that another 17th of May is looming on the horizon. I want you to be prepared to bring it down."
In recent days, Israeli media have reported that Lebanese opposition figures have appealed to Israel to use its diplomatic clout to pressure Syria to withdraw, reports Khoury called "the stupid and dirty game" of intelligence agencies. The Maronite Christian patriarch, Nasrallah Sfeir, who holds decisive political sway within Lebanon's largest Christian sect, said Sunday that "Lebanon would be the last country to sign a peace agreement with Israel."
"Our message to the opposition is to say louder that it is against peace with Israel," said Nasrallah, who refers to the party's armed wing as a resistance force. "The armistice never protected Lebanon. What protected Lebanon was the army, the resistance, and the alliance with Syria."
In pledging to withdraw his forces to the eastern Bekaa Valley and then the border, Assad essentially agreed to comply with Syria's commitments under Lebanon's peace agreement, known as the Taif Accord for the city in Saudi Arabia where it was signed.
The agreement calls for Syria to pull back its troops to the Bekaa Valley within two years of its 1989 signing, something that has not been done, and consult with the Lebanese government on a timeline for a full withdrawal. Assad and Lahoud, whose term was extended by the Lebanese parliament last year under Syrian pressure, are scheduled to meet today to set a timeline expected to conclude the redeployment's first phase before the spring elections.
But Egypt and Saudi Arabia, along with some less influential Arab states, have called on Syria to go further by complying with the stricter U.N. resolution, which calls for an immediate Syrian withdrawal and Hezbollah's disarmament, something Nasrallah said Sunday would not happen. Saudi Arabia, in particular, holds financial and political influence inside Syria and Lebanon. Hariri held Saudi citizenship, as well as Lebanese, and was a close personal friend of the kingdom's ruling family.
"They are concerned about it," Nasrallah said. "Many of them are following U.S. demands. But I ask them to take a minute and contemplate that the U.S. demands are a photocopy of Israeli demands."
There is little doubt here that the demonstrations will be enormous, given the size of Hezbollah's membership and party discipline, and will likely dwarf those held by the opposition, which helped force the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami last week.
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