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Government Revokes Anti-Hizbullah Measures

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Thursday, 15 May 2008

Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's cabinet has approved a key Hizbullah demand for ending a week of sectarian violence and halting its campaign of civil disobedience which has virtually closed Beirut's airport and port and sent expatriates fleeing by road or sea. The decision announced late Wednesday by the country's rump Western-backed cabinet prompted celebratory gunfire across the Hizbullah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut. The daily As Safir on Thursday, citing anti-government sources, said the opposition has decided to end its civil disobedience and reopen Rafik Hariri International airport in Beirut. But by midday both directions of the airport highway were still closed to traffic. As Safir said the government was not in a hurry to make the announcement on Wednesday, but that Druze leader Walid Jumblat insisted that the cabinet revokes its decisions at once or else he would ask his ministers to resign. It said not only that, but Jumblat has also informed a delegation of Arab foreign ministers that he was willing to resume talks in Beirut or Doha based on a three-point agenda presented by Speaker Nabih Berri -- election of army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman president, formation of a national unity government and the 1960 electoral law. As Safir said Jumblat's stance did not represent that of the majority March 14 coalition, adding that the Druze leader insisted on discussing Hizbullah arms "calmly" after presidential elections and formation of a new government. The move by the Lebanese cabinet, which formalized a decision already taken by the army, came as the Arab delegation shuttled between the rival sides in a bid to end sectarian gunbattles that have killed at least 65 people and driven the country close to renewed civil war. "In order to facilitate the negotiations of the Arab League delegation and to preserve national unity and the security of citizens, the government has decided to accept the decisions of the army" concerning Hizbullah, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said after a lengthy cabinet meeting which ended shortly before midnight. Last week, the Lebanese government decided it would investigate into a telecommunications network set up by Hizbullah and reassign the chief of security at Beirut airport on suspicions he was close to Hizbullah. Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said he regarded the moves as a declaration of war and sent his Shiite militants into Sunni areas of west Beirut prompting the sectarian fighting in which 200 people were also wounded. Although the opposition withdrew at the weekend after the army moved in, it had refused to lift its blockade on Beirut airport unless the government revoked its measures against Hizbullah and returned to the negotiating table. After the cabinet meeting, an opposition official said the airport road was likely to reopen on Thursday morning. He said the Arab foreign ministers would continue their negotiations on Thursday in search of a package deal that would include an agreement by the government side to return to the negotiating table. An 18-month-old deadlock between the two sides since six pro-Syrian ministers quit the Saniora cabinet has left the government unable to implement its legislative program and the country without a president for the past six months. The government had been insisting that it would not negotiate under the gun, an act of defiance for which it received strong support from Western governments. But Hizbullah countered that it was the government that had provoked the fighting with its controversial measures against facilities that the Shiite group regards as essential to its defenses against Israel with which it fought a devastating war less in the summer of 2006. The Lebanese parliament is scheduled to convene on June 10 for what will be its 20th attempt to elect a president to replace Damascus protégé Emile Lahoud who stepped down at the end of his term of office in November. The government and the opposition have agreed on army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman as a compromise candidate for the presidency but remain at odds over the details of a proposed government of national unity and a new electoral law for parliamentary polls due next year. The Arab League has repeatedly failed in recent months to mediate an end to the long running standoff.(AFP-Naharnet) (AP photo shows Lebanese children playing soccer in front of a road-block on the highway leading to Beirut airport)

 

 

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