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Lebanonese protests fill the streets against syria Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Anti-Syrian Protesters Fill Beirut Streets
Thousands of Anti-Syrian Protesters Fill Beirut's Streets Ahead of Key Debate in Parliament
By BASSEM MROUE
The Associated Press
Feb. 28, 2005 - Defying a ban on protests, about 10,000 people demonstrated against Syrian interference in Lebanon on Monday, as opposition lawmakers sought to bring down the pro-Damascus government two weeks after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hundreds of soldiers and police blocked off Beirut's central Martyrs' Square, but there was no violence, even as protesters evaded the cordon, waving hundreds of Lebanese flags, climbed the martyrs' statue and prayed before candles at the flower-covered grave of Hariri, which lies at the piazza's edge.
Protest leaders urged their followers not to provoke the security forces, who refrained from trying to disperse the crowd. About 3,000 people spent the night in the square to beat the ban on demonstrations, which took effect at daybreak Monday.
The assassination of Hariri has intensified world and Lebanese opposition pressure for Syria to withdraw its 15,000 troops from Lebanon. Those soldiers came to Lebanon as peacekeepers during the 1975-1990 civil war.
"We want no other army in Lebanon except the Lebanese army!" protesters chanted.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview published Monday that those soldiers will remain until he received a guarantee of peace.
"Under a technical point of view, the withdrawal can happen by the end of the year," he told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. "But under a strategic point of view, it will only happen if we obtain serious guarantees. In one word: peace."
Syrian officials said last week the troops would withdraw from mountain and coastal areas in Lebanon in line with a 1989 agreement.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield met Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud on Monday and said afterward that all Syrian forces should leave Lebanon, as "the time has come for the Lebanese people to be able to face their own national decisions."
By Monday, there was no sign that the redeployment had begun.
Assad also denied involvement in Hariri's killing, telling La Repubblica that would have been an act of "political suicide" for Damascus.
Opposition legislators sought to bring down the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami in Monday's confidence debate. It was the first time the legislature discussed the Feb. 14 assassination of Hariri, who was killed with 16 other people in a massive bomb blast.
"The assembly seeks answers to one question: 'Who killed Rafik Hariri?'" parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri said as he opened the debate, calling on the government to expedite its investigation.
Many Lebanese say Karami's administration and Syria were behind the attack a charge both governments deny.
"I accuse this government of incitement, negligence and shortcomings at the least, and of covering up its planning at the most ... if not executing" the bomb attack on Hariri, lawmaker Marwan Hamadeh told parliament, his words broadcast on television and by loudspeakers to the demonstrators.
Hamadeh demanded the dismissal of three chiefs of Lebanese intelligence, the head of the police and the commander of the Presidential Guards.
The session began with a moment of silence for the slain legislator.
Then Hariri's sister, legislator Bahiya Hariri, addressed the parliament and called on the government to resign.
"All the Lebanese want to know their enemy, the enemy of Lebanon who killed the martyr Rafik Hariri, those who took the decision, planned and executed it, those who ignored and prevented the truth from coming out," Bahiya Hariri said, struggling to hold back tears.
Karami asked parliament for a vote of support, outlining his government's accomplishments and promising to hold elections as scheduled in April and May.
Shortly before Satterfield met with a Sunni Muslim spiritual leader Monday, about a dozen plainclothes gunmen carrying assault rifles appeared on a Beirut street, Lebanese security officials and witnesses said.
An advance team of U.S. security guards detected the gunmen and alerted the Lebanese military, the officials said. Lebanese troops went quickly to the Aisha Bakkar neighborhood where the country's Sunni Muslim grand mufti, Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, has his offices.
By the time soldiers arrived, the gunmen had left, Lebanese security officials said on condition of anonymity.
Hariri was seen as quietly opposing Syria's control over Lebanon and had been expected to oppose Karami in the elections.
Opposition leader Walid Jumblatt urged legislators to vote against the government Monday, saying a vote of confidence in the government would be "another assassination of Hariri."
Speaking on local TV, Jumblatt said Lebanese were not hostile to Syrians, "but we tell them: 'Leave us. Leave us. Leave us.'"
"We don't want Lebanese and Syrian intelligence controlling Lebanon. We want to know who killed Rafik Hariri," said the leader of Lebanon's Druse.
He spoke from his ancestral mountain palace in Mukhtara, 19 miles southeast of Beirut, where he has been holed up for days for fear of assassination.
Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh banned protests on grounds of "supreme national interests and maintaining national peace." He ordered all security forces to take "all measures necessary to maintain security and order and prevent demonstrations and gatherings."
Security forces did manage Monday to stop protesters from reaching the prime minister's office, which was cordoned off by soldiers, anti-tank obstacles and barbed wire.
Hundreds of troops, many in armored personnel carriers, set up roadblocks at entrances to central Beirut, turning back flag-waving teenagers, reducing traffic to a trickle and making the city appear as if it were under siege.
The debate in parliament began late as many legislators were delayed by the traffic jams. Many commuters abandoned their cars on the side of the road and walked through the roadblocks to the city center.
Associated Press reporter Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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