Pro-Syrian parties call Lebanese demonstration against UN resolution

khaleejtimes.com /AFP ^

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

BEIRUT - Lebanon’s pro-Damascus political parties have called a mass demonstration for Tuesday in Beirut against UN Resolution 1559, which demands the pullout of Syrian troops and disarmament of the Shiite Hezbollah militia.

Plans for the demonstration, which Prime Minister Omar Karameh said could bring a million people -- one quarter of Lebanon’s population -- onto the streets of the capital, were announced on Monday by a grouping of “national parties”.

These included the Hezbollah movement, the Shiite Amal movement, the Syrian Socialist National Party, and the Lebanese branch of the Baath party, which is the ruling party in Damascus.

The organisers said they called the demonstration “to prove to the entire world that the immense majority of Lebanese is against the application of Resolution 1559, is for the Syrian presence and against disarmament of Hezbollah”.

Pro-Syrian MP Nasser Kandil told reporters that the demonstration was to show the anti-Syrian opposition it did not have a monopoly on the streets.

“We have not reacted before to anti-Syrian demonstrations so as not to pour oil on the flames. But our moderation has been seen as a sign of weakness. On Tuesday, we are going to show the entire world on which side are the Lebanese people,” he said.

Earlier this month, on the eve of Lebanon’s independence anniversary, some 2,000 students demonstrated against Syria’s presence in the neighbouring country.

The opposition now accuses the Lebanese authorities of mobilising administration resources to mount Tuesday’s demonstration.

UN Security Council Resolution 1559, sponsored by the United States and France and passed in September, called for the withdrawal of Syria’s estimated 14,000 troops from Lebanon, an end to Damascus’s perceived interference in its smaller neighbour’s politics and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s Information Minister Elie Ferzli said last week the disarmament of Hezbollah, which still controls much of southern Lebanon after Israeli forces ended their 20-year occupation there in 2000, would be impossible without “overall regional peace, which remains our strategic objective”.

Ferzli said Resolution 1559 was of “Zionist” inspiration, as Israel’s declared aim was to “put pressure on Syria in order to break the Lebanese-Syrian relationship and reach a separate peace deal” with Lebanon

[nw_arizona_granny]

“national parties”.

These included the Hezbollah movement, the Shiite Amal movement,
the Syrian Socialist National Party, and the Lebanese branch of the
Baath party, which is the ruling party in Damascus.

---

Interesting muslim communist (so called socialist) connection.