Hezbollah vows to continue campaign to bring down govt
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, today vowed to continue the opposition campaign led by his militant group to force Prime Minister Fuad Saniora to share power or step down.
Speaking at a rally in a southern Beirut Hezbollah stronghold today, Nasrallah said he was confident of eventual triumph, claiming the militants had the resources for it.
“No one should imagine that the opposition’s coffers have emptied,” he said. “If the (demands) are not met, the opposition will continue its actions by means which it finds appropriate.”
The Hezbollah-led opposition has been campaigning with protests and sit-ins since Dec. 1 in downtown Beirut – just outside the prime minister’s office – to try to force him to resign or share power in a national unity Cabinet that would give the opposition veto power.
US-backed Saniora has refused and has managed to resist the pressure by the encampment virtually on his doorstep.
However, Nasrallah insisted his Shiite Muslim followers would not incite a conflict that could degenerate into a civil war. Saniora is backed by the country’s Sunnis.
“Civil war is a red line,” Nasrallah said, an expression he also used last month after scuffles between pro- and anti-government supporters turned into Shiite-Sunni sectarian clashes that killed eight people.
Those clashes – which threatened to slide into an all-out conflict – reflected Lebanon’s volatility and underscored the limitations of the opposition’s actions to force a government change without plunging the country into violence.
Nasrallah, whose Iranian- and Syrian-backed group is joined in the opposition by other Shiite, some Christian, Druse and Sunni factions, has urged bilateral meetings with the government to help end the crisis.
The opposition wants to give the opportunity for a settlement, Nasrallah has claimed, accusing the government side of paralyzing the country.
The Western support which has sustained the government will not last long, the black-turbaned Shiite cleric also said. “The opposition will achieve its goal and will triumph sooner or later.”
Nasrallah’s speech – followed by fireworks and celebratory gunfire – raised hopes for an easing of the months-long political deadlock as Saniora had earlier in the day also repeated a call for dialogue. Saniora said the opposition’s encampment in downtown Beirut was futile.
Nasrallah spoke on the anniversary of the assassination of his predecessor, Sheik Abbas Musawi, in an Israeli attack. Musawi, his wife, young son and five bodyguards were killed on February 16, 1992, when two Israeli helicopter gunships attacked his motorcade in south Lebanon with wire-guided missiles in an aerial ambush.
A government seizure last week of a Hezbollah truck weapons shipment has added to the friction between the two sides. The army has refused to return the weapons, saying they would be kept for the military in case of an Israeli attack.
“We are ready to give manyfold to the army out of good will, but we will not accept a bullet being seized from us,” Nasrallah said referring to the seizure.
He also dismissed warnings issued by his opponents that the guerrillas may attack UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon.
Nasrallah said it was not in the “interest of Lebanon, the south and the resistance to have trouble with” the United Nations’ 12,000 strong troops monitoring the cease-fire that ended a summer war between Hezbollah and Israel.
