Presidency and Hezbollah's weapons are top issues that need solving, say Maronite bishops
Beirut (AsiaNews) The Maronite bishops' seventh appeal released today focuses on two main issues which negatively affect the country's ability to cope with war and peace and handle reconstruction, namely President Émile Lahoud's refusal to quit the presidency and one faction's power to make decisions for all. Although unnamed, Hezbollah is singled out for the harshest of criticisms. By contrast, support for a democratic state centred on parliament is openly admitted.
On the day Israel announced the end to its blockade because of international and Lebanese pressuremarking a success for Prime Minister Siniora's government, the bishops have called on the country's 18 groups to respect its sovereignty.
Meeting in Bkerke under the chairmanship of Card Nasrallah Sfeir, patriarch of the Maronite Church, they noted that many times "international and regional powers have interfered in Lebanon's internal affairs backing one community or another. In the last fifty years, every time some group acted unilaterally the nation paid a heavy price in terms of the security, prosperity and welfare of its children".
In this appeal, the seventh since 2000, the bishops analyse the deep crisis the country is going through and urge the population to join forces to face the difficult moment. In their view, President Lahoud and Hezbollah are part of the problem.
Mr Lahoud's steadfast refusal to quit despite parliament's demand for his resignation (his term of office was extended under a law imposed by the Syrian occupier) has created an imbalance in the country's political institutions and generated international hostility. For this reason, the bishops call on the Lebanese to find a solution to this issue.
Similarly, in condemning all forms of unilateralism by Lebanese groups with ties to foreign powers, the bishops have taken the issue of Hezbollah head on.
"In violation of the 1989 Taif accords, one group has unilaterally decided to keep its arsenal after most of southern Lebanon was freed in 2000," the appeal says. "This group has turned itself into a politico-military-religious organisation that brought upon us the July 12, 2006, War."
The appeal also remembers the human and material losses of this war, including the many people who were forced to leave the country, especially among Christians. But "it is a consolation that the Lebanese have faced the aggression and crisis together. . . . Residents in unaffected areas took in fellow Lebanese whatever their community. Inter-Lebanese brotherhood was thus able to best express itself".
It is with this spirit, that we must face the future, a future that belongs to a state that is democratic. Only the state can "restore trust and peace of mind" to its citizens.
"It is necessary that the Lebanese understand that nothing can save them if they don not have a strong and just state led by well-educated men and women whose moral national qualities are above suspicion."
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