FPM raps LF chief’s ‘isolationist policy’
By Wassim Mroueh
Daily Star staff
BEIRUT: Head of the Lebanese Forces (LF) Samir Geagea said that attempts to abolish a UN-backed tribunal probing the assassination of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri were part of a coup against the Lebanese state, stressing the March 14 coalition’s determination to thwart such a coup.
“We meet today and those planning a coup are on the doors. Despite several titles and pretexts, one thing is demanded: this state, this republic, even the tribunal has become a target attached to this bigger target,” said Geagea.
The LF leader was addressing masses that gathered in the Fouad Shehab stadium in the coastal city of Jounieh, north of Beirut, on Saturday to take part in prayers held to commemorate “The Martyrs of the Lebanese Resistance.”
A number of Ministers and MPs including those from the Future Movement were in attendance along with an array of state officials, media figures, diplomats and clerics.
Prior to Geagea’s speech, Bishop Roland Abu Jaoudeh led prayers and delivered a sermon on behalf of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.
Geagea stressed that attempts to overthrow the state would hit dead ends.
“It is true that those seeking a coup are on the doors, but the doors are not wide open this time, as there is a Cabinet with a sovereign nature and a sovereign prime minister along with official institutions including judiciary, army and Internal Security Forces protecting the state,” he said.
“We will not let the republic fall another time, we will not let freedom disappear,” he pledged.
Geagea warned that “if the other side succeeds in its coup, then there will no more be a Lebanon or a republic but we will end up in a province.”
“Your martyrdom and sacrifices will not be wasted, this nation will not die. Martyrs, my comrades, no human being will be able to [destroy] what you have built,” said Geagea, addressing LF and March 14 coalition martyrs.
Geagea said the STL would probe witnesses it considers have misled investigations.
“The worst phase in the process of destroying the tribunal is that of false witnesses that were fabricated and promoted in media to the highest level by the other side, who then tied the whole matter to them,” said the LF head.
“If this is the case, we will be the first side calling for trying false witnesses after identifying them following the end of investigations,” he said.
March 8 and March 14 forces have been bitter rivals since 2005, the year that saw Hariri’s killing.
Hizbullah and its allies from the March 8 coalition have dismissed the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) – established to try those involved in Hariri’s killing – as an Israeli project.
They also said that probing false witnesses which accused of misleading investigations into the murder was the key to unveiling the truth about the crime.
Fears of the eruption of civil strife in the country have mounted after Hizbullah expected that “rogue members” of the party would be indicted by the STL.
Geagea said that having to choose between the STL and civil peace in Lebanon, he would desire both.
“There is no real civil peace without putting an end to criminal acts and criminals,” he said, adding that “the attempt to cancel the STL is a crime bigger than all crimes that have been committed so far.”
Geagea called upon all Christian factions to embrace the state and agree on the “minimum level of political principles based on historical Christian principles in Lebanon.”
He extended “an honest and direct call for young men and women in the Free Patriotic Movement [FPM],” urging them to return to the common principles with the LF.
“We shared 15 years of mutual struggle when together we were persecuted, chased, oppressed and jailed for the sake of several beliefs that we adhered to … So let’s embrace them again and continue what we have started,” he said.
The FPM has been allied to Hizbullah since early 2006.
Energy and Water Resources Minister Gibran Bassil, an FPM official, labeled Gaegea’s comments as calls for “political assassination.”
“Just as Geagea strangled people physically and financially and is still strangling Christians through his isolation, he also wants people to isolate themselves,” Bassil said in comments published by An-Nahar newspaper on Sunday.
“The FPM youth will not adhere to this isolationist policy,” he added.
The minister said the FPM did not struggle alongside Geagea, “but he and [Former Syrian Military Intelligence Chief in Lebanon] Ghazi Kanaan used to kill the FPM youth, his call is a deadly one.”
Several politicians responded to Geagea’s address on Sunday as well.
FPM leader, Kesrouan MP Michel Aoun, said that Geagea did not respect the agreement reached by the two in 2005 to overcome the deadly war that the LF and the Lebanese army headed by Aoun fought against each other in 1990.
“We offered to build the future together with Geagea, but he preferred the Phalange and [Christian gathering] of Qornat Shehwan. We won and they lost for the right only wins,” he said in reference to alliances hammered out during the 2005 parliamentary polls.
“Some forget their criminal history and that of thefts and coercive payments which they imposed on people to build palaces and castles,” said Aoun, addressing supporters at the southern town of Jezzine.
Also, the Syrian daily Al-Watan said that Geagea’s address adhered “to a course that accused others of betrayal and lacked any initiative.”
In response to Bassil’s stance, Batroun MP Antoine Zahra, also an LF official said that Geagea’s speech addressed “the honorable strugglers of the FPM, and not the opportunists that forge history.”
Zahra said the fact that Bassil’s response coincided with that of Al-Watan indicated that they came from the same source.
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