Towards a "watered-down" resolution on Lebanon attacks
The UN will extend the mandate of the commission of inquiry into Hariri's murder, but will not permit it to autonomously investigate the other assassinations. Mehlis thinks the tension between Syria and Hariri provided a "good motive" for the attack on the Lebanese leader. There is a new "black list" of politicians to kill.
Beirut (AsiaNews/Agencies) The work of the international commission of inquiry into the murder of the former prime minister Rafic Hariri will go ahead. But there will be only "collaboration" with entities set up by the Lebanese authorities to investigate attacks which took place after 1 October 2004. In all likelihood, this will be the text of a new resolution the UN is set to approve tomorrow, after the presentation of the second report of the ccommission led by Detlev Mehlis. In an interview with the Beirut daily newspaper L'Orient Le Jour, the top UN investigator said the 19 suspects linked to the attack "are only Syrians and Lebanese" and he expressed the conviction that the "tension between Syria and the Prime Minister Hariri may have been a good motive for the murder of the Lebanese leader."
While refusing to trace any possible links between the timing of the presentation of his report and the assassination attack which cost Gebran Tueni his life "I could only make speculations and this is not my task" Mehlis recalled that already three months ago, he had mooted the possibility that the An Nahar director may be killed.
"A witness had spoken to us about a list of people targeted for attacks which was mentioned also by the press. We were not really sure whether the information came from him, or whether it was the fruit of what he had read. Anyhow, we passed the information onto the Lebanese authorities and I was convinced they had taken the necessary measures to guarantee Tueni's safety." The hit-list, according to the news story referred to by Mehlis, includes also the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, the Druze leader Walid Joumblatt and the head of the Lebanese Forces Movement, Samir Geagea. Today, however, the daily newspaper Al-Balad, citing parliamentary and governmental sources, supplied a new "black list" which includes, together with Joumblatt, the MPs Marwan Hamadé (Druze), Waël Abou Faour (Druze), Samir Frangié (allied to Saad Hariri's Future Movement), Elias Atallah (democratic left) and Farid Makari (Future Movement).
Meanwhile, expectations are growing in Beirut about the new resolution of the UN Security Council, which tomorrow will turn its attention once again to the Country of the Cedars. In New York, there is talk of "watering down" the proposal submitted by France and backed by the USA and Great Britain. It calls for the extension until 15 June 2006 of the commission's mandate regarding Hariri's murder, enlarging its brief to tackle other political homicides subsequently committed in Lebanon. This was the request put forward by most of the Lebanese MPs, which received a boost with Tueni's murder. The proposition to enlarge the commission's brief however met with opposition from Russia, China and Algeria. It was to the "friendship" of these countries that the Syrian President, Bashar al Assad appealed: he urged them to oppose western "manouvres". The government agency Sana in Damascus wrote again today: "The Mehlis report is against the truth, political and it does not bear evidence."
The new version of the motion provides for the continuation of the Commission's works, giving it the go-ahead to render only "technical assistance" to the Lebanese government in its inquiries into the terrorist attacks conducted in Lebanon after 1 October 2004.
.png)
17/01/2006
