BEIRUT, 14 November 2006 — Lebanon’s political crisis deepened yesterday as a depleted Cabinet approved draft UN statutes for an international tribunal to try the killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri despite the resignation of six pro-Syrian ministers.
Official sources said the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora would now send the draft back to New York and wait for the final text on the special court to return.
“We tell the criminals that we will not give up our right, no matter what the difficulties and obstacles are,” Siniora told reporters after the three-hour meeting. “Our aim is to achieve justice and only justice. Without it — and without knowing the truth — the Lebanese will not rest and we cannot protect our democratic system and political freedom now or in the future,” he said.
Hariri was killed along with 22 others in a massive suicide truck bombing in February 2005. The assassination sparked large anti-Syrian protests in Beirut and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, ending a 29-year military presence. Subsequent elections brought an anti-Syrian majority to power in Parliament and the Cabinet.
The move coincided with a political storm that threatens to spill into street confrontations.
Environment Minister Yacoub Sarraf, loyal to President Emile Lahoud, resigned shortly before the Cabinet met. Five Shiite ministers from Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal movement, quit Saturday over the collapse of talks on their demands for effective veto power in the government.
Nine of the Cabinet’s 24 members must resign for it to fall. A Sunni Muslim minister quit in February, though his resignation was not accepted, leaving 17 ministers in the Cabinet. Politicians and analysts said the crisis was likely to spill into street confrontations that could shatter stability and damage efforts to recover from a devastating war with Israel.
“It’s hard to see how this situation will be resolved without there being some violence,” Andrew Exum, research fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. “The hope is that if there is a clash it will shock everyone back to the negotiating table before it gets out of hand.”
The anti-Syrian majority coalition has accused Hezbollah of implementing a Syrian-Iranian plan to overthrow the government and to foil efforts to set up the tribunal to try Hariri’s killers.
Sarraf, a Christian, said in a letter to Siniora that he was resigning “as I can’t find myself part of any constitutional authority that lacks representation from a whole religious sect.” Siniora has rejected all the resignations but a senior source close to the ministers said they stood by their decision.
