Posted on 02/18/2005 9:35:02 AM PST by HAL9000
Do you how many ten of thousands Lebanese Christians were killed by the Syrian Allawite Baath terrorist regime? As a Lebanese Christian who was born an raised in Lebanon during the civil war, I will tell without any doubt that the vast majority Lebanese Christians hate the Syrian regime and its puppet government in Lebanon.
You are exactly spreading the Syrian regime utter lies and propaganda who claim that they are protecting the Christians in Lebanon where in reality they are the absolute enemies for the Lebanese Christians.
Give me a break man, give me a break.
I don't want to see what happened to Iraqi Christians happen to Lebanese Christians.
You are a liar - examples of Syrians repressing Christian religous freedoms in Lebanon?
Syria killed thousand of Lebanese Christians who opposed their occupation of Lebanon since 1976. I was not talking about them oppressing our rights to pray but they sure killed thousands of Christians because they oppose them politically and want Lebanon to be free from their occupation. Yes they took away the Lebanese Christians political freedom and that is a very bad and very evil thing, do you agree?
Add Saddam Hussein allowed the Christians in Iraq to worship freely but no one was allowed to oppose him politically else he will be killed. The same goes with the Syrian terrorist regime when they deal with Lebanese Christians or any other faction in Lebanon and Syria
What type of logic are you using? This is just unbelievable.
How? What restrictions on their Christianity have the Syrians enacted to make them enemies of Christians? You may have not chosen your words correctly. If you mean syria is willing to kill to maintain power - I agree - Syria is a dirty dicatorship.
If you are pushing the line that the Syrians kill Christians because they are Christians you are incorrect. In reality the SYrians klled Lebanese nationalists who happened to be Christians - the Syrians would kill Sunnis on that basis as well.
I don't think it's wise of us to ignore Arabist tyranny just because it happens to be secular. Every man who wishes to be free is on our side no matter what group they belong to.
All I care about is the preservation of Christian life. I don't care who rules what dirt as long as Christians are free to be Christians.
Did not say we should ignore tyranny - especially a hostile to America tyranny - just be careful what our "democracy" policy will mean to minority Syrian and Lebanese Christians. No Iraq repeat of ignoring Christians - I want contigency plans for their protection and empowerment (key word) if America decides to take these Syrian Ba'athists out.
Then your interests diverge strongly from those of us who see all human beings as created equal, and also from those of us who are primarily concerned about the resulting security threat to American interests. I do care who rules what dirt if that dirt is being used to prepare terror strikes against innocent people, especially Americans.
The Lebanese Christians are over 35% of the population in Lebanon, own over 60% of the wealth in that country, and they are more educated than the Lebanese Muslims, and have much more relationship and ties to the west than any other faction in Lebanon. On the other hand the Iraqi Christians are only 3% of the population in Iraq and they have little wealth, and historically they did not have strong ties with the West.
He has a very twisted logic on this issue and he is making an extremely weak argument that is not supported by any facts.
Are you real? This is the most twisted logic I have ever seen. What about freedom of speech, political speech, does this count in your dictionary?
"You nailed that one on the head."
Kinda made myself chuckle on that one.
Thanks
Exactly. I've seen his incessant and twisted logic. Because the President requested help was not an invitation to occupation. Later the Syrians turned viciously against the Lebanese Christians and in fact encouraged and abetted a de-Christianization of Lebanon and a permanent occupation to fulfill their vision of Greater Syria.
How in the world you arrive at this logic is beyond me. Get an education. The Syrian army commited mass slaughter against the Christian forces. Syria could care less about Christians in Lebanon and indeed the existed as a stumblingblock to "Greater Syria":
Operating however transparently under the name and guise of the Arab Deterrent Force authorized by the Riyadh Summit in October 1976, Syrian troops acted to disarm some Lebanese militias at the same time that the national army of Lebanon disintegrated to the diminutive size of 3,000 troops. By 1977, the number of Syrian troops exceeded 30,000, with over 200 tanks. After fighting the Palestinian and other leftist forces, Druzes and Sunnis in particular, the Syrian army then confronted the Christian Lebanese Forces. Indeed, if Syria was to control and pacify Lebanon, it would of necessity need to reduce the core Christian community that gave Lebanon its special national distinction. For three months, during “the 100 Days War” in mid-1978, Syria bombarded Christian East Beirut, specifically Ashrafiyya, which led to the flight of 300,000 people; at this time Syrian forces were also capturing Batroun and Besharre areas in the heart of the mountain area. A flood of Christian refugees and the execution of many Lebanese civilians were the direct result at this stage of the intensification and extension of Syria’s ruthless conquest of Lebanon.
For the article:
The Syrian Occupation of Lebanon
Mordechai Nisan
Executive Summary
The struggle of Lebanon to preserve its national identity and political independence has, in particular, faced the hegemonic ambition of Syria. Since the 1970s, Damascus has succeeded to implement an incremental, yet systematic policy of occupation over Lebanon that has transformed the political, social, and economic character of the country. The Syrian occupation, calling it by its proper appellation, was consummated in 1989 with the Taif Accord and in 1990 with the removal of General (and Prime Minister) Michel Aoun from the Ba’abda presidential palace and with the full conquest of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital.
Syrian occupation employed a wide range of policy means to transform Lebanon into a “client state” and a Syrian political satellite. By means of military control and political penetration, media repression and alien colonization, Lebanon has lost its independence. Under foreign rule within the matrix of a foreign-manipulated police state, the Lebanese suffer from Arabization and Syrianization that deny the people, especially the Maronite Christians, their freedom and dignity. Many have been forced into exile across the countries and continents of the Lebanese diaspora.
Syria’s occupation regime in Lebanon suggests comparison with the Anschluss of 1936, the Munich capitulation of 1938, and the setting up of the Vichy regime of 1940. Stalinism as a terror state model is also evocative of Lebanon’s pitiful subjugation about which, however, the international community shows hardly any concern.
The collapse of a free Lebanon is part of the expanding sweep of Islamic power and the decay of Christian civilization in the Middle East. Perhaps, under circumstances of upheaval in Syria, Israeli military policy, and revivalism among the Lebanese, foreign occupation of Lebanon may come to an end.
http://www.gotc.org/syrian_occupation_of_lebanon.htm
Syria War Crimes In Lebanon (January 1976 Till October 13, 1990)
At the beginning of January 1976
In Damour and Jieh, two Christian towns south of Beirut, the Palestinians and Syrians went so far as to cut the fingers of Christian children to ensure that they never would be able to pull a gun's trigger. In Damour, at least 300 inhabitants were killed and their churches profaned.
May 31, 1976 The Syrians invaded Lebanon and established their rule. The invaders pillaged the towns and villages they went through and humiliated the Lebanese population. The Syrians shelled all the regions under Muslim domination. There must have been over 500 victims, mostly civilians.
March 16, 1977 the Syrians murdered Mr. Kamal Joumblatt, they sent Druze to attack Christian villages. The result: At least 1000 people were massacred. The village of Deir Dourit was erased, with 273 dead.
February 7, 1978
hostilities started between the Lebanese Army and the Arab Force of Dissuasion, the FAD, with its Syrian majority and under the command of the Lebanese lieutenant Sami Khatib, as a result of the installation of a Syrian barrage near the Fayadieh Barracks, the seat of the Lebanese military commander of Mount Lebanon. The Syrian soldiers insisted on controlling all Lebanese military vehicles entering the Fayadieh Barracks. They shelled the residential quarters with Stalin Organs and opened fire on the barracks with MBT guns. Mention must be made that as of that period, Sami Khatib is one of the best Syrian agents in Lebanon. He is responsible for the incarceration of thousands of Lebanese and the disappearance of hundreds of others following their torture.
June 27, 1978
Elements from the "special Syrian forces" dragged out of their beds 30 young men from the villages of Kaa and Ras_Baalbeck and executed them without any form of trial. The man who headed and completed this job was none other than the Syrian officer Ali Dib.
July 1, 1978
The civilian population of East Beirut and its suburbs were shelled by Syrian artillery and started with the residential quarters of East Beirut. The private militia of Rifaat Assad, brother of the Syrian President, circled the free regions around Beirut. The shelling lasted five days and five nights. Heavy caliber shells were used, from heavy cannon to Kaytusha rockets and including all kinds of mortars (up to 240 mm), rockets and missiles. According to some obbservers, all sorts of weapon were used, except for aerial bombing. Sixty civilians were killed and over 300 injured.
Beginning 1979
The Syrians bombed East Beirut and the adjoining Christian regions. 82, 120 and 160 mm shells fell on the targeted sectors.
August 1979
The Syrians shell the villages of Niha, Deir Bella and Douma in North Lebanon.
February 24, 1980
Mr. Selim Laouzi, owner and director of the al Hawadess revue, was kidnapped by the Syrians on the road to the Beirut airport. The mutilated and decomposed body of the journalist was found in the Aramoun forest ten days after his abduction. He was shot twice in the head after having been tortured horribly: the ribs on his right side had been crushed by repeated blows with a bar and his right arm was lacerated to the bone, from his armpit to his elbow.
July 23, 1980
Riad Taha, president of the press, was killed at Chourane (Raouché) by the Syrians. His car had been sprayed with bullets. Taha was hit by seven bullets in his face, the back of his head and his breast. September 4, 1981, Louis Delamarre, the French Ambassador to Lebanon was murdered by the Syrians in West Beirut. France remained indifferent to this murder.
March 1981
The towns of Zahlé in the Bekaa and East Beirut were shelled. In Lebanon, even the Red Cross was a target for the Syrians. Sister [Nun] Marie Sophie Zoghbi was one of the Red Cross ambulance drivers since the beginning of the war. She had forced her way through the front to the south of the town of Zahlé on the Saadnayel road. Alone at the wheel of her ambulance, she'd gone to fetch the dying in Zahlé. The Syrians shot the vehicle, killing her on the spot. The town's hospital was eradicated by thousands of shells which fell on it during one night. Water, food, and medicines grew rarer and the corpses of some of the wounded who'd died under the shelters couldn't be evacuated. In all, the fighting had left some two hundred dead and five hundred wounded in Beirut alone. The Palestinians, too, had participated actively in the Zahlé shelling. The Palestinian military commander was Ahmad Ismail.
February 1982
In the Syrian city of Hama, an insurrection by the Moslem Brothers was suppressed with rare brutality in modern history. The Alawite army isolated the city, cutting off any contact with the outside, and opened a ground and aerial bombing. According to Amnesty International, the Syrian military had placed rubber pipes at the entrance of buildings where insurgents were said to be hiding and pumped in poison gas. It is claimed that there were some 30,000 dead in Hama. The Alawite army attacked the entire population, both Christians and Moslems.
April 3, 1982
The murder of Yacov Barsimentov, third secretary at the Israeli Embassy in Paris. The murder was claimed by the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Fractions (FARL), a small terrorist group created and manipulated by the Syrians.
April 22, 1982
A booby trapped car exploded Rue Marbeuf in Paris. Two Syrian diplomats were expelled, and the French Ambassador recalled for consultation.
May 24, 1982
A Syrian attack against the French Embassy in Lebanon. At eight AM on a Monday morning, Anna Comidis, secretary at the commercial service of the French Embassy in Beirut entered the gate of the compound at the wheel of her Renault R12. The car exploded at that very moment. Anna Comidis' body was shredded to pieces. Ten additional people were killed and over twenty were injured. The explosion, estimated as some fifty kilograms of inflammable fuel, was operated from a distance at the moment the car was entering the grounds of the embassy.
September 14, 1982
Syria murders the Lebanese elected president, Bechir Gemayel. The Syrians used Habib Chartouni as an assassin. The murder was perpetrated at the military HQ of the Phalangists in Achrafieh. Habib Chartouni had belonged to the pro-Syrian party the PSNS, since 1977, and was recruited by Assaad Hardane, head of the pro-Syrian party in Lebanon. Elie Hobeika, head of the Phalangist security had recruited Habib Chartouni. Hobeika acted in accordance with the Syrians. Ali Douba, chief of the Syrian intelligence services supplied Chartouni with the explosives. Chartouni received half a million Lebanese pounds (700,000 FF at the time). Twenty six people were killed in addition to Bechir Gemayel in that explosion. The Syrian consider Chartouni a hero, and they liberated him in October 1990 when they invaded the two Metn. Elias Hraoui, second post Taif president, announced ironically, following the liberation of Chartouni, that inquiry would be opened to find Gemayel's murderers.
December 1982
The Syrians destroy the town of Tripoli in Northern Lebanon. The fighting between the Sunnites of Tripoli and the Syrians started at the beginning of December. The Baal Mohsen quarter was held by the Syrians and their allies while the Bab Tebbanne quarter was controlled by the anti-Syrian Lebanese militia. The Syrians formed a militia loyal to them, the Arab Democratic Party, whose general secretary was Nassib Khatib, though directed by the Alawite Ali Eid. The fighting lasted three years. Tripoli had become a second Beirut.
September 1983
Over 110 villages or Christian quarters in the Chouf were ethnically cleansed of their Christian inhabitants: Throats were slit, bodies hacked apart with axes, many were burned alive over fire red, iron bars. Syrian soldiers and members of the Druze community of Lebanon took part in these massacres. Likewise, on November 8, 1982, Israeli Druze officers allowed the Lebanese Druze to massacre the Christian population in certain villages such as Kfarnabrakh, at the foot of the cedars of Mount Barouk. Walid Joumblatt, the leader of the Lebanese Druze, gave the order to massacre the Chouf Christians.
September 1983
a commando of Khomeinist Iranians emerged from its Baalbeck hideout, arrived at Rayak in the Bekaa, and after praying at the mosque exploded a residential building inhabited by Christians, leaving behind dead and wounded. The Syrians present on the premises prevented the Lebanese Civil Defense from removing debris burying two screaming survivors. Assayed Ahmad Al Fihri, appointed by Khomeiny to head the Hezbollah in the Middle East, is responsible for this massacre at Rayak. The Iranian ambassador in Syria, Ali Akbar Montachami, and the military attaché, Colonel Haromi Zadem, had been placed at Al Fihri's service.
October 23, 1983
250 American soldiers and 70 French soldiers were killed at their HQs in West Beirut. Lebanese and Iranian Islamists supported by Syrian logistics headed the operation. According to certain military sources, both buildings had been packed full of dynamite, which explains the high number of casualties. France and the USA remained indifferent to these massacres. In the wake of this, the soldiers of both countries were repatriated because Beirut had turned into a dangerous city, even for the mightiest fighters of all times.
1983_1984
the Syrians shelled and lay siege to the city of Tripoli in Northern Lebanon. The overt objective was to evict the PLO Palestinians. The Syrian army had mobilized militants from Tripoli to take part in that job. According to the evidence of former Lebanese militiamen who participated in the battle on Tripoli on the side of the Syrians, the latter shelled residential zones inhabited by Lebanese civilians and where no Palestinians ever dwelled. The Lebanese militiamen who refused to take part in the destruction of their city were systematically arrested, tortured, and then executed.
February 1984
Occupation of West Beirut by Amal, the pro-Syrian Shi'ite militia. On February 6, 1984, Amal supported by Syrian troupes, attacked the Lebanese army stationed in West Beirut. The fighting left at least one hundred dead and over 400 injured. Nabih Berri, Head of Amal, and Ghazi Kanaan, commander of the Syrian forces in Lebanon, are responsible for this slaughter.
March 1985
Exodus of tens of thousands of Christians from Iklim El_Kharroub and the eastern part of Saida. The Palestinians and Lebanese Druze laid siege to, pillaged and burned over twenty Christian villages. Walid Joumblatt, Yasser Arafat and Syrian officers, planned these massacres.
January 1986
Cancellation of the tri_partite agreement by a war between Amine Gemayel's phalangists and Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces which opposed the agreement on the one hand, and Elie Hobeika's partisans on the other hand. Hobeika found refuge among his Syrian friends. Following the failure of the tri-partite agreement, car bombs started to appear in Beirut and its eastern suburb: - On Tuesday, March 21, 1986, 11 hours 35, a car bomb exploded in Furn_El_Chebback (East Beirut), leaving 30 dead and at least 132 injured. - On May 20, 1986, the French Prime Minister Chirac announced that he was in favor of strengthening ties between France and Syria. He added that a solution for Lebanon could only be found together with Syria. - On May 21, 1986, a car bomb exploded in the Christian sector, leaving 7 dead and over 100 injured. - On July 29, 1986, a Mercedes exploded on the Wadih Nahim Street in Ein el Remmaneh, a Beirut suburb, with 31 dead and 128 injured. - On July 30, 1986, a booby trapped Mercedes exploded in Barbir, West Beirut. The result: 22 dead and 163 - injured. Syria and Elie Hobeika instigated these terrorist cases.
September 17, 1986
an explosion took place in the Rue de Rennes in Paris, in front of the doors of the Tati store. Three women and two men were killed, and over 52 were injured. The French Secret Services accused Colonel Ghazi Kanaan of acting as the terrorist chief. Colonel Kanaan manipulated the killers within a framework of operations determined jointly by Iran and Lybbia under the aegis of Damascus. The operation having concluded successfully, Colonel Kanaan was promoted to the rank of General.
September 1986
Colonel Christian Gouttiére, French military attaché in Lebanon was killed near the French embassy in Mar Takla, in the region of East Beirut. In Damascus, far more rapidly than was their custom, the Syrians hastened to condemn the murder of the French military attaché.
1987
The provocation of the Druze-Shi'ite inter-faith war and the occupation of West Beirut. Since the beginning of 1987, the tension between Joumblatt and Berri was reaching its apex. For over a year, the two rival militias shared everything in West Beirut, thefts, racketeering and crimes. This tension culminated in the most violent fighting ever seen in West Beirut. These fights, well orchestrated by the Syrians, lasted for a long time, with neither of the two militias managing to gain the upper hand. The Syrians entered West Beirut in February 1987. The Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss and other political and Moslem religious leaders approved the Syrian decision, preferring an Arab army to the Lebanese Army. Hafez el Assad later got rid of the Sunnite Mufti Hassan Khaled on the day the Mufti requested the Syrians to leave Lebanon. The Syrian secret services placed 200 kgs of explosives under his car.
On May 8, 1988
An inter-Shi'ite war is provoked between Amal and Hezbollah. The fighting lasted three weeks, in the course of which the Amal militia, financed and manipulated by Damascus, collapsed before the rival militia. This war enabled the Syrians to deploy their forces in the southern Shi'ite suburb of Beirut, having done so a year before in the western suburb.
March 1989
The Syrians shell the eastern regions of Beirut. At the end of February 1989, the Lebanese Prime Minister, General Michel Aoun, decides to close all the illegal ports in Lebanon that allow for drug traffic. The Syrian response was rapid: A shelling of the regions controlled by the Lebanese army, with an average of 6000 shells per day. The Syrian forces used for this fight totaled about 20,000 men who were under the command of Generals Gazi Kanaan and Ali Hammoud.
The Syrians killed the Spanish ambassador to Lebanon. In their wild shelling of the Lebanese population, the Syrian hit the residence of Mr. Pedro Manuel de Aristegui, Spanish Ambassador to Lebanon. A shell exploded and destroyed the building where the diplomat's residence was located, killing the ambassador, his father-in-law, his sister-in-law, and the Lebanese writer Toufic Youssef Aouad. Despite the confirmation that the 240 mm shell had come from the Syrian lines, the official circles in Madrid refused to accuse the Syrians.
November 22, 1989
It was 13 hours 50 in Beirut, when the armored Mercedes of René Moawad, accompanied by Syrian soldiers was blown into pieces. Two hundred kilos of TNT had exploded under his car. In addition to Moawad, 17 Syrian soldiers perished as well. This is how the life of a traitor who had entered Syria's service ended. It is to be noted that René Moawad's wife never submitted any complaint against the Syrians. Worse still, she continues to this day to collaborate with the Syrians, her husband's murderers.
October 13, 1990
in Beirut, the Syrian Air Force begins to bomb the free regions. The bombing lasted until 14.00 hours, five hours after the surrender of the Lebanese Prime Minister.
October 13, 1990
The Syrians liquidated the Sayah family in the village of Bsous. Coletter Sayah, aged 18, awoke one morning to the noise of Syrian airplanes. The Sayah family hastened to take shelter in a ground floor room. Shortly before 8 AM, Colette heard the first bursts of an automatic and the rumble of tanks in the village streets. Outside, men were shouting: "Out! Out! You dogs, you!" One by one, the members of the Sayah family left their shelter. In the street, in the house, there were many tens of Syrian soldiers. They took away Colette, her mother and her aunts into an adjoining building under construction. They'd barely arrived there when they heard a series of shots. The Syrians had just killed all the men of the family. The father and a cousin with a bullet in their heads, one of the brothers was shot through his heart. Another brother was still breathing. Colette asked them to call an ambulance, but the Syrians preferred that the boy die. He will die in his sister's arms. Emile and Joseph, the two uncles, were executed in a staircase. The corpses will lie in the middle of the road until evening, surrounded by a humming cloud of flies and bees. The Hraoui government announced that there had been no massacres.
The massacre of Dahr al_Wahch. The people of the village of Dahr al_Wahch saw Syrian soldiers push a column of Lebanese prisoners who were walking in their shorts towards some unknown destination. A nun, a nurse at the governmental hospital of Baabda, saw the arrival of corpses and of the Red Cross ambulances. "I counted between 75 and 80, she explained. Most of them had a bullet in the back of their heads or in their mouth. The corpses still carried the mark of cords around their wrists." The rigidity of the corpses fixed their crossed arms behind their backs. They were naked, wearing only shorts. Some ten of them had their eyes gouged out, another ten had an arm or leg cut off. All had been shot in their heads. There can be no doubt about their execution. The Hraoui government announced that there had been no massacres.
Torture "made in Syria"
All the world organizations that struggle to defend the Rights of Man have published documents about torture in Syria. The following is a document published in Geneva in May 1984 by the "Swiss Association for the Defense of the Liberties of Political Prisoners in Syria." This document, entitled "The Rights of Man in Syria" refers to the treatments reserved for political prisoners held by the Damascus secret services.
1. The prisoner is stripped naked. 2. His whole body is shaved. 3. Cigarette butts are extinguished over the more sensitive places of his body 4. They burn his scalp. 5. They pull out his nails. 6. They tie his genitals with a nylon thread that they secure to a nail on the wall after transfixing the prisoner to a ring fixed on the opposite wall. Then, one of the tormentors strikes the taut nylon thread repeatedly with a stick. 7. They flog the soles of a prisoner's feet with lashes of a whip, a cane, or a plastic pipe, a minimum of two hundred lashes a time. 8. Then, stretch out the prisoner inside a container of cold water. 9. They invert the prisoner into a car's tire’s rim and then strike him all over (the process: they insert a leg into the middle of the tire, followed by the head and the arms in such a manner that the prisoner is bent over and immobilized in the form of a U inside the tire's circle). 10. They hang the prisoner by his feet with his head down. 11. They force the prisoner to remain standing during several days while preventing him from sitting down or falling asleep by ordering him to raise his arms fully stretched and very straight. 12. They force the prisoner to stand for long periods of time on one foot, administering blows each time he lowers his raised foot. 13. They force the prisoners to run while carrying heavy loads and sustaining blows until utterly exhausted or in a faint. 14. Pour all of a sudden boiling water over the prisoners. 15. They force the prisoner to sit on a stake. 16. They force the prisoner to sit on the neck of a bottle. 17. They subject the prisoner to electric shock by using an alternative electric current and tying the wires to the more sensitive parts of the body, especially to the genitals. 18. They force pump water or air into the prisoner. 19. They force sexual intercourse with the prisoner. 20. They tear out chunks of the prisoner's flesh from various parts of his body with the help of pliers. 21. They rope the prisoner to a car and drive it full speed until death occurs or till the victims' bodies are torn apart and then the victim’s bodies are desecrated by gouging an eye or cutting an ear, the tongue, the fingers and in some cases the genitals, and by sticking them into the victim's mouth. 22. They force the prisoner to run around a large room surrounded by torturers who strike him with diverse instruments of torture 23. . Force the prisoner to drink his own urine. 24. They throw the prisoner into a basin of electrified water. 25. They tie the prisoner's genitals to prevent him from urinating after forcing him to drink diuretic liquids.
Syrian Prison Imprisoned Syrian Human Rights Activist at Risk of Death SHRC IFX Annual Report 1999 (Syria) Names of Lebanese Prisoners in Syria
http://www.lebaneseforces.org/remember/re_syria.php
Opposition demands 'intifada for independence'
Feud with government escalates as protesters continue to take to the street
BEIRUT: Lebanon's political opposition has called for an "intifada for independence" as it stepped up it attacks on the government.
In a significant escalation of its feud with the government in the wake of the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, the opposition added that all parliamentary business is on hold until Hariri's murderers are identified.
Speaking from Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt's residence in Clemenceau Qornet Shehwan Gathering member Samir Franjieh said: "In response to the criminal and terrorist policy of the Lebanese and Syrian authorities, the opposition declares a democratic and peaceful intifada [uprising] for independence."
He added: "We demand the departure of the illegitimate regime."
When asked why the opposition didn't resign from Parliament as many people had expected, Samir Franjieh said: "We will not grant the authorities our resignation. The parliamentary seats are the people's property."
Prime Minister Omar Karami responded by calling the opposition's demands "a project to topple the government."
Speaking after Friday's Cabinet session, Karami said: "If the Syrian security apparatus leaves Lebanon, it would create chaos."
The escalation of the current row comes at the same time as Lebanese Tourism Minister Farid Khazen resigned from the Cabinet, saying the government was not capable of running the country at this crucial period.
Khazen said his resignation was due what he called his "personal convictions and my sense of national responsibility." Khazen said there is no substitute for dialogue based on the Taif Accord. He was replaced by Wadih Khazen, who is not an MP.
Monday's upcoming parliamentary session looks set for chaos as the opposition insisted it will not discuss the draft electoral law until a full debate is held on Hariri's murder and the attempt on the life, last year of Chouf MP Marwan Hamade and Syrian troops are withdrawn from Lebanon.
The refusal to discuss the electoral law could delay this May's parliamentary elections.
Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh was dismissive of the opposition but still took time to warn them against inciting tensions in the wake of this week's tragic events.
He said: "Should security be tampered with, the government will not stand unmoved, and the army will be given the order to act."
But despite the warning he added: "It is not worth announcing a state of emergency."
The opposition statement followed a meeting of opposition groups at Le Bristol Hotel in Beirut. Sources close to opposition leader Jumblatt said he did not attend the meeting for "security measures" after receiving what they described as "direct threats."
In his latest direct attack on President Emile Lahoud, Jumblatt said: "He should be removed from Lebanon in a Syrian truck."
He added: "They cannot assassinate the one or even two million people who support us."
Jumblatt again accused Lebanese and Syrian security services of being behind Hariri's murder. He said: "We ask for an international investigation not involving the Lebanese regime."
The Bristol meeting was attended by around 44 MPs, including some members of Hariri's parliamentary bloc and a dozen of political parties, including exiled former army commander General Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement.
The attendants wore red and white ribbons in support of Lebanon's independence.
Opposition members also asked Lebanese expatriates to organize sit-ins and demonstrations in front of Lebanese embassies.
Samir Franjieh said: "We ask Lebanese expatriates' political and financial support for our cause. We demand the United Nations' support to protect the Lebanese people."
Hariri's grave in downtown Beirut has become a shrine since his burial last Wednesday and Samir Franjieh urged the Lebanese people to continue their presence and prayers there.
On Friday, hundreds of Lebanese marched from Phoenicia Inter-Continental Hotel, where Hariri was assassinated, to Gemmayzeh chanting slogans against Syria and calling for "freedom, sovereignty and independence."
Some students threatened to march "everyday at 7 p.m. until the government resigns."
Opposition members called for the formation of an "interim government as a supreme national necessity to protect the Lebanese people and ensure the immediate and complete withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon."
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