Posted on 03/14/2005 6:42:28 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
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EIRUT, Lebanon, March 14 - Lebanon's anti-Syria opposition regained the momentum on Monday as hundreds of thousands of Lebanese jammed Beirut's central square to demand the end to Syrian control of their country.
Seemingly every available space around the heart of the city overflowed with people waving the red-and-white striped Lebanese flag, in a showing that easily rivaled a pro-Syria rally last Tuesday organized by the radical Shiite party Hezbollah.
"We don't want Syrian spies and secret police; we don't want any foreign intervention," said Noha Dahir, a veiled 18-year-old Sunni Muslim student who came by bus from the northern city of Tripoli. "Those Lebanese who want the Syrians to stay can go live in Syria. There are plenty of Lebanese here to fill the country."
The most notable element in the demonstration in Martyrs' Square was that it represented an exceedingly rare moment in which a broad cross section of Lebanese from every main sect - Christian, Druse, Shiite and Sunni Muslims - were all rubbing shoulders in the same space.
"They can say that they represent a wide spectrum of Lebanese factions, including some Shiites, and they have been able to bring the Sunnis into the streets, which is not easy," Ghassan Salamé, a former minister of culture and political science professor, said by telephone from Paris. "They have an upward momentum now after a week that was full of uncertainty."
In the main mosque, still under construction, demonstrators even crammed the tiny balconies hundreds of feet up on the four minarets, vestiges of a time when the call to prayer was done orally. A few daredevils inched their way out along a huge construction crane looming over the building to drape a Lebanese flag at the end.
The opposition experienced some doubts about the extent of its appeal after the Hezbollah demonstration in a nearby square in downtown Beirut on Tuesday. There have been rallies in the city center every Monday since former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated Feb. 14, a Monday, but organizers were determined to make this one especially large in response to the pro-Syrian march.
"This will counterbalance last Tuesday, and now we can sit and talk," said Mazen al-Zain, a 30-year-old financial analyst, noting that he himself was a member of an illustrious Shiite clan from southern Lebanon. "What is really important after today's gathering is that we all sit down at the same table."
The presence of such a large number of Lebanese put added pressure on the government of Syria to announce a serious timetable for the withdrawal of both its thousands of troops and its secret police officers in the country. Although President Bashar al-Assad has promised a withdrawal into the Bekaa region by the end of March and a further discussion with a joint Lebanese-Syrian commission in early April, there is still no clear timetable for a complete withdrawal.
The United States and other Western nations have said they want all Syrians out before new parliamentary elections, tentatively scheduled for May, and many Lebanese experts say they believe that the Syrians may be dragging their feet to influence the choice of a new Parliament.
There were numerous calls on Monday for President Émile Lahoud to resign, although it is not a broad demand by the opposition. It would rather wait to try to gain a majority in Parliament, which chooses the president. Since there is no cabinet now as Prime Minister Omar Karami tries to form one, many feel that the country cannot afford to be without a president.
Syria forced through a three-year extension to Mr. Lahoud's term last August, the opening move in the struggle that culminated in Mr. Hariri's assassination and the current popular movement.
Still, Mr. Lahoud incensed many over the weekend by suggesting that the demonstrations should end because they might engender violence that would reignite the civil war that tore this country apart from 1975 to 1990. Opposition supporters are also angry that he reinstated Prime Minister Karami, who was forced to resign on Feb. 28 by a giant opposition protest.
"We kicked him out the door, and he came back through the window," said Marwan Kayrouz, a 33-year-old real estate investor who, like many, dismissed the possibility of a renewed civil war. "Who is going to fight whom? All the factions are here."
Organizers of the demonstration said the opposition would meet this week to try to figure out how to press their demands further. But much of the attention about political developments will probably shift to the United Nations.
The United Nations envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, was due to report back to Secretary General Kofi Annan about the exact promises delivered by the Syrians in talks on Saturday. A United Nations team of senior police officers from Ireland and Morocco sent here to assess the investigation into Mr. Hariri's assassination is also due to report to Mr. Annan.
Finally, the influential Maronite Christian patriarch, Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, was heading to New York and Washington, where he is expected to meet with President Bush.
Participants in the Monday protest were convinced that the size of the opposition meant that the withdrawal was only a matter of time.
Speaking of the Syrians, Samer Khoury, 32, a manager in the Virgin Megastore overlooking Martyrs' Square, where the demonstrators gathered, said, "They are trying to prove they are still strong to their nation while they are retreating."
The store's former parking lot is now the burial place of Mr. Hariri and the bodyguards who died with him in a huge car bombing. Honoring his memory was a key draw for many of the participants.
The demonstration turned into an all-day affair, with participants gathering in midmorning, hours before the official 3 p.m. starting time, and the last speakers still going strong at 6 p.m. Banks and schools closed early, and offices around the capital emptied, all swelling the crowds.
The crowds were so thick that many demonstrators fainted, and ambulances with sirens wailing slowly inched their way through to rescue them.
Marwan Hamade, the first speaker, a Druse member of Parliament who survived a car bomb in October, addressed some of his words to Mr. Hariri, the slain prime minister. "Your dream came true today, and the horrendous crime failed," he said, before going on to repeat the opposition demand that all the leaders of the half dozen intelligence agencies resign for their failure to protect Mr. Hariri. Given the close ties such organizations keep with Syria, many Lebanese suspect that one or more of the secret services might have had a hand in the crime.
Bahiya Hariri, Mr. Hariri's sister and also a member of Parliament, used her speech to reach out to both Hezbollah and its godparent Syria, which has long seen Lebanon as its last negotiating card to retrieve the occupied Golan Heights from Israel.
"We will stand by Syria until its land is liberated and it regains its sovereignty on the occupied Golan Heights," she said, prompting boos from the crowd. As for Hezbollah, she said, "We insist on building together with them the future of a great Lebanon."
A few of the banners cemented the theme of unity by displaying both a cross and a crescent. Many also displayed a certain wit. "Long Live the Syrians in Syria," one read.
The pro- and anti-Syria camps use the rally sizes as a sort of referendum, so both sides have been exaggerating the numbers into the millions - highly unlikely since the country's population is probably less than four million.
The demonstrators have adopted light blue as the color demanding the truth from the investigation into Mr. Hariri's assassination, and the light breeze off the sea occasionally lifted two long light blue scarves draped around the necks of two figures in the renowned statue in Martyrs' Square commemorating more than a dozen anti-Ottoman activists who were executed by the Turks in 1916. The square was more or less flattened during the civil war, and the restored statue was returned last summer with many of the bullet holes intact.
Some political analysts and demonstrators suggested that the demonstration also marked - to some extent - an end to the long decades of political apathy in Lebanon and perhaps the wider Arab region.
"I feel a certain kind of grandeur today," said Tarek Hamade, the chef at the rooftop Virgin Restaurant. "The Lebanese people are finally saying what they wanted to say for years, and they are saying it out loud."
We now have a new rule on Free Republic: any thread discussing Lebanon MUST show pictures of the Lebanese Protest babes.
(It's an emanation of a penumbra from the Ann Coulter/Belly Girl/Laura Ingraham rule.)
Yahoo!! The Lebanese immigrants that I know here in the US of A are wonderful, hard working folks, my friends happen to be Catholic. How ironic is that?
GO LEBANON!!
My question is why is Michel Jackson getting so much more coverage than this? There is barely any coverage of this on radio or television.
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OK....found a BBC Video report also:
Click button on the right side under
BBC NEWS: VIDEO AND AUDIO
See the huge crowds gathered for the protest
Bush's fault.
Take THAT Syria! And FOX and others should be ASHAMED for being scooped by CNN and NBC!
REAL Lebanese in the streets today. Not folks intimidated, bribed, threatened or bussed in from Syria and Iran. Take THAT Assad.
And Here
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050315/D88R41OO0.html
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Hundreds of thousands of anti-Syrian demonstrators flooded the capital Monday in the biggest protest ever in Lebanon, surpassing the turnout for an earlier pro-Damascus rally organized by the Islamic militant Hezbollah. In a show of national unity, Sunnis, Druse and Christians packed Martyrs' Square as brass bands played and balloons soared skyward.
It's just sick to see what important to the MSM
All drama, all Jacko, all the time!!!
And here again
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-14-lebanon-syria_x.htm
More than 800,000 opposition demonstrators poured into the heart of Beirut demanding an end to nearly three decades of Syrian military domination Monday.
Thousands of Lebanese opposition protesters wave their national flags as they gather during a demonstration in Martyrs Square, central Beirut, Lebanon, Monday March 14, 2005. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people answered an opposition call for a massive protest to demand a full Syrian troop withdrawal, resignations of security chiefs and an international investigation into the death of former Premier Rafik Hariri.(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)
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One of these days I'm going to learn how to post 'picts
Great Post
I can understand some coverage of it; his accuser admitted denying that Jackson had molested him. Victims of abuse often deny it to others, and to them selves.
However, even if he had said that no abuse had ever occurred and all his accusations were fabricated, it would not have been nearly as important a story of between 800,000 and 2,000,000 people protesting in Lebanon this is nearly unprecedented and the failure of the MSM to adequately cover it is discusting.
How the event affecting million of people the world over is not covered by the MSM. In the meantime, Jacko's trial only provides entertaining purpose for the rest of us becomes so important to the MSM.
It's sickening!!!
In an ideal world, all the democratic nations of the Earth would take this moment to unanimously tell the government of Syria; "The people have spoken. Get out of Lebanon TODAY or be thrown out TOMORROW."
This is not an ideal world, and the number of nations on the side of democracy is disappointingly small, but we need to take names of the nations who are now silent and remember who supports the status quo.
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