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Mon Mar 7 03:34:57 PST 2005

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 Hezbollah To Protest U.S. Stance On Lebanon

 By Scott Wilson

  BEIRUT, March 6 -- The leader of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite Muslim movement that for weeks has stood on the sidelines of Lebanon's political upheaval, called Sunday for national demonstrations against what he characterized as foreign influences seeking to expel Syria, a key sponsor of the party, from the country.

 Hassan Nasrallah, a Shiite cleric who serves as Hezbollah's secretary general, was critical in particular of the United States and France. His announcement dashed the hopes of Lebanese opposition leaders that the large, disciplined movement would join their cause to drive Syrian troops and intelligence services from Lebanon. 

 The first demonstration is scheduled for Tuesday in Beirut, along an avenue near the central square where Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition movement has staged round-the-clock protests since the Feb. 14 assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

  Nasrallah appeared after what he called an "emergency meeting" of more than 30 political parties aligned with the Syrian government, which is facing international pressure and a popular uprising here to end its 30-year presence in Lebanon. The meeting was convened hours after Syrian President Bashar Assad outlined a gradual shift of Syria's 15,000 troops in Lebanon to the countries' common border, a plan criticized by U.S. and French officials who have demanded an immediate withdrawal of Syrian forces.

  Lebanese officials said Sunday that the redeployment would begin after a meeting on Monday between Assad and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud in Damascus, the Syrian capital, to set a timetable.

 "Freedom means that we decide for ourselves the best way to address what we see today as clear intervention of the United States and France in Lebanese internal affairs," Nasrallah said at a news conference in the Shiite suburbs of south Beirut. "The opposition must give us explanations regarding the foreign intervention. We must convince each other that only true sovereignty means independence."

 Nasrallah's defiant position comes as an emerging Lebanese alliance of Christian, Druze and Sunni Muslim parties has turned its attention to winning parliamentary elections scheduled for this spring in the hopes of forming a government free of Syrian influence. Nasrallah appeared to serve notice that Hezbollah and a variety of smaller pro-Syrian parties intended to mount a unified campaign to prevent a government hostile to Syrian interests from emerging after the elections.

 The Lebanese opposition movement has lacked large numbers of Shiites, who account for a plurality of Lebanon's 4 million people. But the movement's leaders said Sunday that they were heartened by Nasrallah's call for peaceful demonstrations and promises to respect political differences.

 "In the end we are calling for a democratic country, and so these demonstrations should be allowed," said Ghattas Khoury, a member of parliament who belongs to Hariri's legislative bloc. "If they win the elections, we will go along with them. If we win, then they should go along with us."

 With an extensive social services network and an armed wing celebrated here for helping end the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah is perhaps the most formidable player in the power-sharing system among religious-based parties. Linked to the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, Hezbollah is now recognized as a legal political party in Lebanon and controls a 12-seat bloc in parliament. The United States has placed Hezbollah and its satellite television channel on its list of terrorist organizations, and the European Union is considering adopting a similar designation.

  Nasrallah's ability to mobilize perhaps hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah followers for demonstrations, in addition to other large Shiite, Sunni and pan-Arab parties that will likely take part, threatens to expose a deep gulf in Lebanese society that Syrian officials have warned could widen into the kind of sectarian strife that fueled Lebanon's 15-year civil war.

 Assad, in a speech to parliament Saturday, said: "We should not remain in Lebanon one day after there is a Lebanese consensus over our presence," something Hezbollah's counter-demonstrations are likely to show does not exist.

  Syria, which first sent troops to Lebanon in 1975 at the invitation of its embattled Christian president, has long served as the gatekeeper for Iranian-supplied arms and money flowing to Hezbollah. The party, in turn, has become a proxy army for Syria against Israel along Lebanon's southern border.

 A U.N. Security Council resolution approved last year with U.S. and French support called on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and for Hezbollah to rapidly disarm. Under the 1989 peace accord that ended Lebanon's civil war, Hezbollah was allowed to keep its arsenal of small weapons and rockets because Israel at the time still occupied parts of southern Lebanon.

 Five years after the Israeli occupation ended, Hezbollah continues to claim the 100-square-mile Shebaa Farms area as part of Lebanon. The United Nations considers the Israeli-occupied Shebaa to be a part of Syria, whose peace talks with Israel have been dormant for five years.

 Nasrallah, known even among his opponents as one of Lebanon's shrewdest political operators, was careful to characterize the demonstrations as protests against foreign interference in Lebanon, not rallies in support of Syria, whose longtime presence here he praised. Instead of the party's distinctive yellow banner bearing a fist clenching an AK-47 rifle, the red-and-white Lebanese flag served as the backdrop for Nasrallah's news conference. It is the same symbol of national unity being used by the opposition.

 Nasrallah said the international pressure against Syria and Hezbollah, which increased sharply after the assassination of Hariri, was designed to further Israel's political goals, and he has called on several important Arab governments that have aligned themselves with the U.S. position to change course. Some Lebanese opposition leaders have called openly for Lebanon to recognize the 1949 armistice with Israel signed after the first Arab-Israeli war, a position Hariri was believed to have supported at the time of his assassination.

 Assad used those comments to evoke a decision by the Lebanese parliament in May 1983 to authorize President Amin Gemayel to pursue a peace agreement with Israel. The agreement was never concluded. Gemayel, a Christian, is now a prominent figure in the opposition. Addressing his supporters in Lebanon, Assad warned: "I'll tell them that another 17th of May is looming on the horizon. I want you to be prepared to bring it down."

 In recent days, Israeli media have reported that Lebanese opposition figures have appealed to Israel to use its diplomatic clout to pressure Syria to withdraw -- reports that Khoury, the member of parliament, called "the stupid and dirty game" of intelligence agencies. Nasrallah Sfeir, the Maronite Christian patriarch who holds decisive political sway within Lebanon's largest Christian sect, said Sunday that "Lebanon would be the last country to sign a peace agreement with Israel."

 Assad, in pledging to withdraw forces to the eastern Bekaa Valley and then to the Syrian border, essentially agreed to comply with Syria's commitments under Lebanon's peace agreement, known as the Taif accord. The 1989 agreement called for Syria to pull back its troops to the Bekaa Valley within two years, and consult with the Lebanese government on a timeline for a full withdrawal. 

  At their meeting Monday, Assad and Lahoud  are to set a timetable to conclude the first phase of the redeployment before the spring elections.

  But Egypt and Saudi Arabia, among other Arab states, have called on Syria to go further by complying with the stricter U.N. resolution, something Nasrallah said Sunday would not happen. 

 "Many of them are following U.S. demands," Nasrallah said. "But I ask them to take a minute and contemplate that the U.S. demands are a photocopy of Israeli demands."

 Saudi Arabia, in particular, holds financial and political influence in Syria and Lebanon. Hariri held Saudi as well as Lebanese citizenship and was a close friend of the kingdom's ruling family. Many Lebanese blame his assassination on the Syrian intelligence services.

 There is little doubt here that the Hezbollah demonstrations will be enormous, given the party's size and discipline, and will likely dwarf those held by the anti-Syrian opposition, which helped force the resignation last week of Prime Minister Omar Karami. Amal, Lebanon's second-largest Shiite party, was represented at Sunday's meeting along with many smaller parties. Chiding the media, Nasrallah asked Sunday for the same "tight zoom" from television cameras that he said has made opposition rallies look larger than they are.

 Wael Abou Fadour, a young Druze who will be part of an opposition delegation scheduled to meet Nasrallah, said the Hezbollah leader is "asking for some guarantees about the future of the resistance. . . . About the best we can hope is that he will maintain the same position."

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