Lebanon Pro-Syria PM to Quit, Cannot Form Gov't

AP ^ | 3/29/5 | Lin Noueihed

[SmithL]

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's pro-Syrian prime minister said on Tuesday he would step down because he could not persuade anti-Syrian opposition figures to join a national unity government to lead the country to elections due in May.

In a move that could delay those polls, Omar Karami told reporters he was not willing to lead a cabinet that did not include both pro-Syrian loyalists and opposition.

"I am not willing to form a government of this sort and I came to put the speaker in the picture," he said after meeting Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. "I am going to see the president to inform him of this decision."

Karami resigned as prime minister a month ago after coming under immense popular pressure from Lebanese angered by the killing of his predecessor Rafik al-Hariri. But he was reappointed by parliament to form a national unity government.

Lebanon's opposition, which blames Syria and the Lebanese security agencies it backs for Hariri's death, has refused to join any government until after elections it believes will give it a majority in a chamber now largely allied to Damascus.

Once officially informed of Karami's decision, President Emile Lahoud will have to consult with deputies once again to choose a new prime minister, a process that could delay the general election much to the ire of the opposition.

Opposition figures accuse Karami of procrastinating to avoid elections and had urged him to form a government without them. His old cabinet still holds office in a caretaker capacity.

Karami and Lahoud had been expected in Cairo on Wednesday to meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but Lahoud's office said no such meeting was planned.

Hariri's killing in a Feb. 14 bombing prompted the biggest street protests in Lebanon's history and plunged the tiny country into its most serious political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war that divided it along sectarian lines.

Christian, Druze and Sunni Muslim opposition figures, many of them wartime foes, seized upon popular anger to demand Syria withdraw forces it first poured into Lebanon early in that war.

SYRIAN PULLOUT

Facing immense international pressure, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has promised to withdraw all troops, intelligence agents and equipment from its neighbor.

Damascus has completed the first stage of a two-phase withdrawal plan, pulling back to the Bekaa valley and withdrawing nearly half the 14,000 troops it kept in Lebanon.

More than 2,000 Syrian troops have left in the past week, inching Syria closer to ending its 29-year military domination.

About a dozen Syrian vehicles crossed the border on Tuesday, witnesses said. More were packing in the southwest of the Bekaa.

"Assad has given instructions for the withdrawal to happen quickly," Lebanese Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mrad told Reuters. "But nothing has been set."

A Syrian-Lebanese military committee is due to meet next week to set a timeline for withdrawing the remaining forces.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he expects Syria to complete the pull-out before elections.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to discuss this week ordering an international probe into Hariri's death in line with the results of a U.N. fact-finding mission to Beirut.

Karami told reporters he was sticking to an earlier promise to only head a broad national unity cabinet and was not willing to form a cabinet of relatively non-partisan figures both sides could accept -- a formula the opposition is pressing for.

"It is obvious they were wasting all this time, a month and a few days, so as not to form a government and avoid elections," Druze opposition lawmaker Ghazi al-Aridi told Reuters.

"The talk is now of a government of 10 people, trusted, credible people, able to hold parliamentary elections," he had said before Karami's widely expected comments.

But pro-Syrian Environment Minister Wiam Wahhab had also earlier said he did not see a quick end to the deadlock.

"We have entered a long stage," he said. "No one has to give them (opposition) a government they are comfortable with ... If they want elections they must enter a national unity cabinet."

[Patrick_k]

Well if you are not knowledgeable in that matter, better ask someone, not the biased media. I'll try to be short in the explanation.
Think that in 1975, Henry Kissinger was in love with the personnality of Assad. It was a trend with that distorded mind to give away something he does not own to someone everybody hates. Lebanon was an example, at the same time East Timor was another one.
Syria has a long history in thinking that Lebanon is its backyard and that it is an ownership. In 1958, it took a president like Eisenhower to land the Marines in Lebanon at a time King Faysal of Irak was toppled by pan-arab units in the army, at the same time arms were flowing in Lebanon from Syria to arm the insurgency.
Starting 1965, Syria sent thousands of irregular palestinians to promote chaos in Lebanon. It peaked in 1973. In 1975, it was an open interference in Lebanese affairs, political and military. A pure blackmail operation, imposing political will in exchange of some short cease-fires. Take and ask for more, until it culminated on Oct. 13, 1990. Then George Bush gave the green light for the Syrians to take control of all Lebanon using their aviation, in exchange of the syrian cooperation in the Gulf War.
Syria played the pyromanical fireman since 1975.
Destro you are distorting History.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[jveritas]

Great post.

[Mr. K]

P.J. O'Rourke once said that if you want to follow where the next successful political movement will be happening then watch for the hot babes.

I am finding this to be true much more often than not.

[iceemonster]

All together now: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[iceemonster]

Question. How are the district lines for Parliament drawn? Have the Syrians forced them to be favorable to Damascus' interests? When all these Cedar Revolution folks vote, will they be able to give rise to the opposition or are the lines drawn so their strength will be totally diluted?

[Destro]

Seeing as how you were born and raised in Lebanon, I think you might enjoy this free online book with an introduction by Danny Thomas (click for link):

I posted a chapter @ PRESENT LEBANESE PROBLEMS ("What's the difference between Syrian and Lebanese?")

Those who had been known for decades in America as Syrians now had new options. While many of the early immigrants had come to America from Damascus, Aleppo and those cities of Greater Syria which remained unchanged in the political divisions, most of the Arab-Americans in Cleveland and neighboring Ohio cities found their ancestral ties within the newly declared country of Lebanon. To these people, the home cities and villages of which they had often spoken with warm remembrance and longing, those towns of Aramoon, Kuba, Khirbet, Zahleh, Aiteneet, Saghbein, Mazraha and Ma'asghura, were no longer in Syria, but in the new country, Lebanon. Therefore, they would now be called Lebanese, thus confusing their less-informed fellow Americans even more than themselves.

"What's the difference between Syrian and Lebanese?" their neighbor would ask.

"Well, you see, there's this new country now, and they have been fighting for independence for a long time."

"From the Syrians?"

"Well no, from the Turks, and then from the French -- from the Mandate."

"Well, if you were Syrian before, and you spoke Arabic, what do you call your language now, Lebanese?"

"No, you see, there is no Lebanese language; we all have Arabic as a common language. All over the Middle East, and in North Africa, the language of the Arab countries is Arabic."

Then would come the questions about language, history, nationality, who is Arab and who is not, what is Phoenician and why -- questions which continue under discussion today, the answers based on personal preference, emotion or bias, and not always on fact.

It would be difficult to understand the basis for the attitudes and political sympathies of most Lebanese Americans if we did not first glance at the complexities of the long, tragic history of the Lebanese struggle for independence. Since most of their forebears came to America during the period of occupation of the mother country by the Turkish Empire, the first generations were raised in that deliberately divisive social environment established by the Turks, the previously mentioned millet.

[SuziQ]

In a move that could delay those polls, Omar Karami told reporters he was not willing to lead a cabinet that did not include both pro-Syrian loyalists and opposition.

Good, now get out of the way and let some REAL Lebanese run their country.

[SuziQ]

It's Lebanese belly girls! ;o)

[SuziQ]

Wow - Syria did a better job of setting up a functioning republic than America has in Iraq.

Considering the fact that they've occupied Lebanon since the 80's, I'd say they've had plenty of time. They didn't seem to have crushed the spirit of the Lebanese people though.

The US doesn't intend to rule Iraq. It only wants the government there to treat all its people the same, and not export terrorism throughout the world.

[jveritas]

The last Parliamentary election was held based on what they call "Mouhafaza" which is like a State or a Province.

Lebanon has five provinces.

The Syrian forced the elections to be held on the Province level because it is easier for them to control the elections via intimidation by their secret services.

The opposition was calling for this recent parliamentary elections which scheduled this May to be held on the "county" level, they call it "Kadaa". The county level the politics become more local and the Syrian intimidation will greatly diminish.

When the Syrian will be forced to end their occupation of Lebanon in the next few weeks, and more importantly remove all their oppressive secret service from Lebanon, the opposition will win somewhere between 60% to 70% of the seats regardless if the elections are held on Province level or a country level.

[Destro]

Let us hope we leave from Iraq in as good a shape as the Syrians have left Lebanon in....a functioning republic with some mild violent elements but not enough to threaten most everyday activities.

[SuziQ]

Yeah, but I hope that Syria takes its Secret Police with them. It is they who have kept the 'violent elements' down, through violent intimidation of their own.

[Destro]

Yeah, but I hope that Syria takes its Secret Police with them. It is they who have kept the 'violent elements' down, through violent intimidation of their own.

Keeping the 'violent elements' of Lebanon on a leash by Syria is a bad thing now? Using twisted logic there.

[dangus]

What a sweetie.

But I've never before seen a woman with three cubic meters of hair!

[iceemonster]

When the Syrian will be forced to end their occupation of Lebanon in the next few weeks, and more importantly remove all their oppressive secret service from Lebanon, the opposition will win somewhere between 60% to 70% of the seats regardless if the elections are held on Province level or a country level.

So, you're basically saying that provided the Syrians are made to leave, district lines don't matter at this point. Am I right?

[jveritas]

Correct.