BEIRUT, 23 March 2005 — Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance group accused Washington yesterday of pitting Lebanese factions against each other under the banner of anti-Syrian opposition demands for “freedom, sovereignty and independence”.
“America really contradicts itself, it says it is helping Lebanon to achieve freedom, sovereignty and independence and that’s a lie, a deceit, a slander,” the Syrian-backed group’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, told reporters. “It’s helping some Lebanese to put pressure on Syria to get out of Lebanon and is trying to give some Lebanese the upper hand over others and incite some Lebanese against each other. “It is carrying out actions that will not lead to freedom, sovereignty and independence,” Nasrallah said.
Political divisions in Lebanon deepened over the weekend when opposition leaders dismissed Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud’s call for talks between the two sides after a Beirut bomb injured 11 people and raised fears of further bloodshed. Buoyed by protests against Syria since the Feb. 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, opposition leaders believe they can win elections due in May.Prime Minister Omar Karami is trying to put together a national unity government to lead Lebanon to elections due in May. But opposition figures have refused to join and say he must form a Cabinet without them. Last month, Karami resigned under opposition pressure but was reinstated to form a government. Nasrallah called again for dialogue, and defended Hezbollah’s right to bear the arms it kept when other militias disarmed at the end of the 1975-90 civil war so it could fight Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000.
Main opposition leader Walid Jumblatt said on Sunday the opposition was in dialogue with Hezbollah and also said disarming the guerrillas was a domestic issue.
“On the subject of Hezbollah’s weapons, this is an internal subject. We hope that we will reach a result through dialogue in time, but, at this time, this subject of weapons is not under discussion,” the Druze leader said in Cairo.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Lebanese youths staged a spirited demonstration near the US Embassy here yesterday against US policies in the Middle East and a UN resolution demanding that Syrian troops quit Lebanon. About 1,500 students marched to a point three kilometers from the embassy grounds where they were met by Lebanese army units and rolls of barbed wire.
The rally was organized by youth movements belonging to Lebanese parties sympathetic to Syria. Speakers proclaimed “No to foreign interference, no to dismantling the resistance and no to 1559.”
