Now Lebanon - Lebanon cannot fund STL “conspiracy,” says Layoun - Seotember 05, 2011

Culture Minister Gabi Layoun said in a reference to the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) that the government “cannot fund conspiracies.”
“Lebanon cannot fund [foreign] plots sought against it, and no one can ask us to do so,” the minister said in an interview with Al-Balad newspaper published on Monday, after the international court indicted Hezbollah members for ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s 2005 murder.
When asked about the Syrian crisis, Layoun voiced his support for “the people’s calls for freedom and reforms.”
However, he said that the “western and Islamist fundamentalist parties are backing armed groups [against the regime] in Syria.”
“The mobilizations in Syria are not peaceful. [Most demonstrators] are backed by the West and by fundamentalists.”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have cracked down on protests against almost five decades of Baath Party rule which broke out mid-March, killing over 2,200 people and triggering a torrent of international condemnation.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the STL indicted last month four Hezbollah members for Rafik Hariri’s murder. However, the Shia group ruled out the arrest of the four suspects and labeled the tribunal as “a US-Zionist conspiracy.”
The Hezbollah-led March 8 parties – which currently dominate Lebanon’s cabinet – have opposed a clause in the Lebanese annual state budget, which pertains to the funding of the tribunal.
Lebanon contributes with 49 percent of the STL’s annual funding.