By Hussein Dakroub
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BEIRUT: Lebanon’s highest Shiite religious authority has slammed the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon as a political tool designed to target Hezbollah and called on the Lebanese government not to cooperate with it.
A statement issued Monday, after a meeting of the Higher Shiite Islamic Council’s religious and executive committees chaired by the council’s Vice President Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan said the council considered the STL to be “null and void.”
The statement was set to further deepen the split between rival Lebanese factions over the STL, which is probing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. In addition to clergymen, the council also comprises Shiite Cabinet ministers, lawmakers and former ministers and lawmakers.
“The council sees that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which has lost constitutional and national legitimacy, has been turned into a tool to settle political accounts instead of revealing the truth,” the statement said.
“The [media] leaks about the indictment, [whose contents] have been known in advance, and the documented facts in the issue of false witnesses confirm that the tribunal is politicized and is targeting Lebanon and its resistance.”
The participants said they considered the Netherlands-based STL “null and void.”
“Therefore, the council calls [on the Lebanese government] to reject any cooperation with it because it has bypassed the state, the constitution and the people,” the statement said.
Hezbollah and its allies in the March 8 alliance have dismissed the STL as “American and Israeli tool” designed to incite sectarian strife in Lebanon. They have for months been prodding caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the slain leader, to end Lebanon’s cooperation with the tribunal.
The long-simmering dispute between March 8 and March 14 groups over the court eventually led to the toppling of Hariri’s national unity Cabinet on Jan. 12 when ministers of Hezbollah and its March 8 allies resigned. The STL has been at the root of rising political tension between March 8 and March 14 groups for months, threatening to destabilize Lebanon.
According to Arab and foreign media leaks, the STL’s indictment is widely expected to implicate some Hezbollah members in Hariri’s assassination, raising fears of sectarian strife.
The Shiite council’s statement was apparently in response to recent statements from Hariri and the Higher Islamic Religious Council, Lebanon’s highest Sunni body, in which they reiterated support for the STL in the face of repeated demands by Hezbollah and its allies to sever all links with the tribunal.
In a statement issued after its meeting on Feb. 10 chaired by Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, the Higher Islamic Council called on Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati to uphold ties with the STL and implicitly accused Hezbollah of using its weapons to achieve political ends. It warned against impeding the course of justice over Rafik Hariri’s assassination by cutting ties with the tribunal.
Similarly, at a rally on Feb. 14 commemorating the sixth anniversary of his father’s assassination, Hariri unleashed the March 14 coalition’s opposition against the government to be formed by Mikati and expressed strong support for the STL. Hariri also lashed out at Hezbollah, accusing it of using it weapons to settle internal political disputes and rejected the group’s accusation that the tribunal was an American or Israeli tool. He said confronting Hezbollah’s weapons will be at the top of national priorities.
At its Monday meeting, the Higher Shiite Council highlighted Hezbollah’s role in defending Lebanon against any possible Israeli attack and recalled the Hariri Cabinet’s policy statement which emphasized this role.
“The council affirms that the escalating Israeli threats to attack Lebanon and the continued Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty reveal that our country is still being targeted by the Zionists. This calls on the Lebanese to uphold the army, people and resistance equation which has proved its capability to protect Lebanon,” the council’s statement said.
The participants also called for a quick formation of a national government, saying its policy statement must confirm “integration between the army, the people and the resistance in such a way as to safeguard Lebanon’s immunity, stability and sovereignty,” according to the statement.
They hailed the Arab people’s uprising and revolution against “injustice, tyranny and corruption” that has so far led to the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. They said the peaceful protests should not be confronted with repressive and violent response by governments. Massive public protests demanding a regime change and political reforms have so far erupted in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Sudan and Djibouti.
“The council welcomes the Arab street protests which reflect the peoples’ need for change and reform and reveal their yearning to express their opinion freely,” the statement said.
Congratulating the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples for the success of their revolution, the council strongly condemned “the acts of suppression and mass executions carried out by the Libyan regime against its people after kidnapping Imam Musa Sadr” and his two colleagues during a trip to Libya in 1978. It renewed its call for releasing Sadr and his two colleagues and for punishing the Libyan regime for the crime.
Before his disappearance, Sadr was the president of the Higher Shiite Islamic Council and the founder of the Shiite Amal Movement now headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
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