Hizbollah Draws Vast Pro-Syrian Crowds in Beirut
Hizbollah officials and a pro-Syrian security source said one million people attended the rally and witnesses said the crowds were certainly in the hundreds of thousands
Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizbollah that dwarfed previous protests demanding that Syrian troops quit Lebanon.
Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah urged the Lebanese opposition to join a national unity government and to reject a U.N. resolution demanding Syrian troops leave Lebanon.
"We call...for the formation of a government of national unity and we ask the opposition to join it," he told the rally.
Nasrallah said no one in Lebanon feared the United States, whose troops left Lebanon in 1984, a few months after a suicide bomber killed 241 Marines at their Beirut headquarters.
"We have defeated them in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again," he said, drawing chants of "Death to America" from the demonstrators.
As the mainly Shi'ite Muslim crowds thronged Riad al-Solh square, a security source said Syrian forces had begun moving eastwards under a phased withdrawal plan announced Monday.
"The redeployment to the Bekaa Valley has started in line with the first phase," the Lebanese source said.
The huge Hizbollah rally was the first major show of popular support for Syria in Beirut since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri touched off daily anti-Syrian protests, mainly involving Maronite Christians.
Those protests, which drew tens of thousands Monday, take place in Martyrs Square, just 300 meters (yards) from the scene of the gathering organized by Hizbollah and its allies.
The rival demonstrations, each using the Lebanese cedar flag to show patriotism, reveal deep rifts in Lebanon over Syria's role and international demands for Hizbollah to disarm.
Hizbollah officials and a pro-Syrian security source said one million people attended the rally and witnesses said the crowds were certainly in the hundreds of thousands.
Nasrallah said he had no problem with a Syrian pullout under the terms of the 1989 Taif Accord that ended the civil war, but would have no truck with a U.N. resolution demanding that foreign forces leave Lebanon and militias lay down their guns.
"If the mechanism for Syria's stay or withdrawal is within the Taif Accord then we are agreed," he told the rally.
"But those who insist on (resolution) 1559, we say to them your insistence is a revolt against the Taif Accord... and that means a revolt against national consensus," he declared.
Shi'ites, Lebanon's largest community, condemned Hariri's killing but few joined Christian, Druze and Sunni Muslim critics of Syria's dominant role in the country.
Shi'ites and many other Lebanese are proud of Hizbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran (news - web sites), for forcing Israel to end its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000.
"I am here to express my opposition to resolution 1559 because it demands the disarming of the resistance. Hizbollah is not a militia. It deters Israeli aggression against Lebanon," 30-year-old demonstrator Mona Srour told Reuters.
Popular agitation in Lebanon, combined with intense world pressure, has prompted Syria to announce plans to end its 29-year military presence in its smaller neighbor.
The Lebanese source did not say which positions the Syrians were vacating, but witnesses reported troops on the move in several places on mountain ridges east of Beirut.
SYRIAN INTELLIGENCE AGENTS
The redeployment began after a Syrian-Lebanese military committee agreed on the details at a meeting in Damascus.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud agreed Monday to shift Syrian troops to eastern Lebanon by March 31. A statement said the Syrian and Lebanese military would then decide how long the Syrians stayed.
A Syrian official source in Damascus said Syrian security and intelligence men would leave along with the troops.
This would meet a key demand by the United States and its allies, as well as the Lebanese opposition, for the departure of Syrian intelligence officers they accuse of calling the shots in Lebanon behind a facade of Lebanese state institutions.
The United States has dismissed the Syrian plan for failing to set a deadline for a full withdrawal.
Hizbollah, dubbed a terrorist group by Washington, began as an anti-Israel militia but is now also a party with deputies in parliament and a network of charities.
Bearded young men in black took charge of security at the rally, searching streets and manholes for suspect objects.
"Thank you, Syria's Assad," a large banner said. "No to foreign interference," read another.
Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt called for dialogue with Hizbollah, but said Syria must declare a withdrawal deadline.
"We want a clear-cut timetable for the pullout of Syrian troops," the Druze chieftain told reporters after meeting German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in Berlin.
Syrian forces are credited with helping end the 1975-90 civil war that tore Lebanon apart. Christian, Muslim and Druze militias fought each other. Battles also erupted within rival communities. About 150,000 people are thought to have died.
Reuters
Nadim Ladki
Hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese flooded central Beirut Tuesday for a pro-Syrian rally called by Hizbollah that dwarfed previous protests demanding that Syrian troops quit Lebanon.
Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah urged the Lebanese opposition to join a national unity government and to reject a U.N. resolution demanding Syrian troops leave Lebanon.
"We call...for the formation of a government of national unity and we ask the opposition to join it," he told the rally.
Nasrallah said no one in Lebanon feared the United States, whose troops left Lebanon in 1984, a few months after a suicide bomber killed 241 Marines at their Beirut headquarters.
"We have defeated them in the past and if they come again we will defeat them again," he said, drawing chants of "Death to America" from the demonstrators.
As the mainly Shi'ite Muslim crowds thronged Riad al-Solh square, a security source said Syrian forces had begun moving eastwards under a phased withdrawal plan announced Monday.
"The redeployment to the Bekaa Valley has started in line with the first phase," the Lebanese source said.
The huge Hizbollah rally was the first major show of popular support for Syria in Beirut since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri touched off daily anti-Syrian protests, mainly involving Maronite Christians.
Those protests, which drew tens of thousands Monday, take place in Martyrs Square, just 300 meters (yards) from the scene of the gathering organized by Hizbollah and its allies.
The rival demonstrations, each using the Lebanese cedar flag to show patriotism, reveal deep rifts in Lebanon over Syria's role and international demands for Hizbollah to disarm.
Hizbollah officials and a pro-Syrian security source said one million people attended the rally and witnesses said the crowds were certainly in the hundreds of thousands.
Nasrallah said he had no problem with a Syrian pullout under the terms of the 1989 Taif Accord that ended the civil war, but would have no truck with a U.N. resolution demanding that foreign forces leave Lebanon and militias lay down their guns.
"If the mechanism for Syria's stay or withdrawal is within the Taif Accord then we are agreed," he told the rally.
"But those who insist on (resolution) 1559, we say to them your insistence is a revolt against the Taif Accord... and that means a revolt against national consensus," he declared.
Shi'ites, Lebanon's largest community, condemned Hariri's killing but few joined Christian, Druze and Sunni Muslim critics of Syria's dominant role in the country.
Shi'ites and many other Lebanese are proud of Hizbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran (news - web sites), for forcing Israel to end its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000.
"I am here to express my opposition to resolution 1559 because it demands the disarming of the resistance. Hizbollah is not a militia. It deters Israeli aggression against Lebanon," 30-year-old demonstrator Mona Srour told Reuters.
Popular agitation in Lebanon, combined with intense world pressure, has prompted Syria to announce plans to end its 29-year military presence in its smaller neighbor.
The Lebanese source did not say which positions the Syrians were vacating, but witnesses reported troops on the move in several places on mountain ridges east of Beirut.
SYRIAN INTELLIGENCE AGENTS
The redeployment began after a Syrian-Lebanese military committee agreed on the details at a meeting in Damascus.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud agreed Monday to shift Syrian troops to eastern Lebanon by March 31. A statement said the Syrian and Lebanese military would then decide how long the Syrians stayed.
A Syrian official source in Damascus said Syrian security and intelligence men would leave along with the troops.
This would meet a key demand by the United States and its allies, as well as the Lebanese opposition, for the departure of Syrian intelligence officers they accuse of calling the shots in Lebanon behind a facade of Lebanese state institutions.
The United States has dismissed the Syrian plan for failing to set a deadline for a full withdrawal.
Hizbollah, dubbed a terrorist group by Washington, began as an anti-Israel militia but is now also a party with deputies in parliament and a network of charities.
Bearded young men in black took charge of security at the rally, searching streets and manholes for suspect objects.
"Thank you, Syria's Assad," a large banner said. "No to foreign interference," read another.
Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt called for dialogue with Hizbollah, but said Syria must declare a withdrawal deadline.
"We want a clear-cut timetable for the pullout of Syrian troops," the Druze chieftain told reporters after meeting German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in Berlin.
Syrian forces are credited with helping end the 1975-90 civil war that tore Lebanon apart. Christian, Muslim and Druze militias fought each other. Battles also erupted within rival communities. About 150,000 people are thought to have died.
Reuters
Nadim Ladki
posted by R7 | 3/08/2005 10:57:00 AM
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