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Gemayel Accuses Opposition Of Planning For 'regime Change'
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A key member of Lebanon's ruling March 14 coalition accused the Hizbullah-led opposition on Monday of plotting to overthrow the government and obstructing the implementation of an Arab League initiative aimed at ending the country's power struggle, now in its second year.
Former President Amin Gemayel, who heads the Phalange Party, told a press conference that the refusal of Hizbullah and its allies thus far to accept the Arab plan were tantamount to a coup against both the Constitution and the Taif Accord, which ended the 1975-1990 Civil War.
The dispute between the government and the March 8 opposition camp has blocked the election of a new president, leaving the country without one for nearly two months.
A three-point plan proposed by the Arab League earlier this month seemed to have hit the wall after the organization's secretary general, Amr Moussa, left Beirut on Sunday without achieving any breakthrough.
The plan calls for the election of the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, General Michel Suleiman, to the presidency, the formation of a national unity government and a new electoral law.
'We are certain they want to change the regime,' Gemayel told reporters from his residence in Sin al-Fil. 'And we believe this is a coup against Taif and the constitution.'
'We are certain, and we have information that if we grant the opposition veto power or [a cabinet in which each of March 14, March 8 and the president pick 10 ministers], it will find other exits to block any settlement,' he added.
Gemayel also said that March 14 has dropped its insistence on an absolute majority in a unity government in return for the opposition's giving up its demand for veto power. He also reiterated the majority's support for electing Suleiman.
He added that March 14 has agreed that he and parliamentary majority leader MP SaadHariri would represent the majority in talks with the opposition sponsored by Moussa.
'Does the vacuum serve the interests of Hizbullah's state-within-a-state?' he asked. 'What is the objective of hampering the implementation of the Arab initiative? Is it the return of Syrian influence in Lebanon?'
His comments came a day after Hizbullah MP Mohammad Raad slammed the Arab proposal, saying that it serves as a pastime until the US, the ruling majority's strongest supporter, can figure out what it wants to do.
'The Americans don't know what they want. They just want to back [Prime Minister Fouad] Siniora's government because it proved willing to serve its schemes,' Raad told Hizbullah supporters in the town of Jebaa in Iqlim al-Tuffah.
'The Arab initiative's text can only be understood as proposing a three-way split in the government,' Raad added. 'Today the majority wants to give the president's share of cabinet ministers from those of the opposition. Why?'
Moussa has said Sunday that the opposition was suggesting 10 seats for March 14, 10 for March 8 and 10 for the new president, while the majority was for a 14+10+6 formula.
The Arab League chief discussed the latest developments in Lebanon with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Monday, an Egyptian presidential spokesman said in a statement without elaborating.
'No humiliating agreement will be imposed on the opposition,' Raad vowed, adding that only solution the opposition would accept is one that would grant it veto power.
Druze leader and MP Walid Jumblatt said the opposition's position was a clear indication of nefarious intentions.
'The opposition is seeking the destruction of the state in order to be able to establish their own,' he said during a farewell dinner on Sunday for US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, who is scheduled to leave Lebanon at the end of the month.
'They have occupied Downtown Beirut and caused the closure of hundreds of companies and stores, and the discharge of thousands of employees,' Jumblatt said. 'This is a continuation of the 2006 July war [with Israel], which caused the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure and a major economic crisis,' he added.
In an op-ed column to be published Tuesday by his Progressive Socialist Party's Al-Anbaa mouthpiece, Jumblatt launched another attack against Hizbullah, writing that that comments by the party's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, during Ashura commemorations on Saturday were a war declaration against Israel.
Nasrallah has said that the resistance was in possession of the body parts of several Israeli soldiers left behind on battlefield in South Lebanon following the 2006 war. Nasrallah also said his group was ready for any conflict with Israel, warning that if the Israelis attacked, 'we promise them a war that will change the face of the entire region.'
Meanwhile, Speaker Nabih Berri dismissed accusations by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. 'We wish for the election of a president on a consensual basis,' Sarkozy said during an interview with Al-Jazeera television on Sunday. 'We cannot accept the ongoing closure of the Parliament by its speaker.'
'He who has called for dialogue sessions and an election session 14 times cannot be accused of locking Parliament,' berri said in response.
'I hope you [Sarkozy] are aware that Lebanon is an independent and sovereign country,' the speaker added. |
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