Crowds slam Syria which retorts by calling gathering a "phoney rally"
Beirut (AsiaNews) A phoney rally in Beirut is how SANA, Syria's state news agency, called this afternoon's huge mass gathering in the Lebanese capital to commemorate the first anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The agency's press release said that the many Lebanese political leaders who took part in the event making anti-Damascus speeches failed to remember the past and are guilty of preaching loyalty while being themselves disloyal. For SANA, the "memory of the many Syrian martyrs who died during the Lebanese war must be kept alive".
In Beirut today about a million Lebanese chose instead to meet in Martyrs' Square to remember the assassination that a year ago changed Lebanon's history. The car bomb that killed Hariri on a seaside road set in motion a process that led to the pullout of Syrian troops two months later and thus ended Syrian military presence in Lebanon.
In Martyrs' Square, now renamed Freedom Square, Sunni Muslims, Christians and Druze were united under the same Lebanese flag. They did so despite rumours that circulated on the eve of the gathering about possible incidents. With attacks on February 6 against Christian churches and places of worship, such rumours could not be dismissed.
At 12:55 pm, a minute of silence marked the same moment when a year ago the bomb went off. The country's top political leaders were present at the ceremony, and despite attempts to prevent people from coming crowds were huge. There have been reports in fact that fuel was poured on some roads causing several car accidents.
Still, people came by any means: some on the 2,000 or so buses leased for the occasion; others in 50,000 cars; still many more on foot.
Some banners held high in Freedom Square read "Hariri shall not die"; others said "Lahoud Go Away"; some said "Thank You Syria for Uniting the Lebanese Under One Flag", and "Bashar al-Assad: Your Time Has Come".
In his speech, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said: "Hariri is our martyr and we all want to know the truth about the crime of the century".
Back from a six-month self-imposed exile, Rafik Hariri's son Saad thanked the crowd and reiterated his compatriots' firm willingness to fight the Syrian regime "because the time to overthrow totalitarian regimes is near".
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt did not mince words in his attack against current Lebanese President Émile Lahoud whom he said "bears sole responsibility for the country's deteriorating situation and the breakdown of Hariri's plan for Lebanon's renaissance." Jumblatt also criticised Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whom he called "a slave to regional interests".
Former Lebanese President and Lebanese Phalange leader Amin Gemayel stressed the need to honour not only the memory of the slain former prime minister, but also of "lawmaker Basel Fleihan and journalists Samir Kassir, Georges Hawi, and Gibran Tueni . . . not to mention the martyrs still alive".
Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Cardinal Sfeir thanked God that today's rally went off without any hitch. Sfeir highlighted the positive value of the demonstration and congratulated all Lebanese for "gathering to defend a common cause, that of the man in the day of loyalty."
Although he could not attend the event, Christian leader, General Michel Aoun, said it was necessary for "all social components of Lebanese society to engage in honest talks". He also said that Patriarch Sfeir was the only honest broker who could reconcile all Lebanese.
Pro-Syrian Hezbollah send a delegation to the gathering but its leader Hassan Nassrallah criticised it. He also used the occasion to restate his party's traditional position against disarming its militias as long as the Sheba'a Farms remain under Israeli occupation.
.png)
