In Lebanon, as elsewhere in the Arab world, groups calling for greater democracy are being branded as agents of Western intervention. Mohalhel Fakih reports from Beirut The rapidly growing anti-Syrian opposition movement in Lebanon warned the authorities in Beirut against clamping down on its key figures ahead of legislative elections in May in which Syria's military presence is a key feature. The regime and Syria are under heavy international pressure to allow free and fair elections but the opposition is accusing the pro-Syrian government of stalling and wants it to step down, drawing charges of treason. "They are crossing all boundaries -- Syria and the nationalists in Lebanon are not weak -- we will show them," Prime Minister Omar Karami said. He served notice to the opposition, spearheaded by Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblatt, that its mounting calls for an end to Syria's involvement in Lebanese politics will not go unchallenged. "Karami's threat was clear. We have no confidence in the authorities. We are concerned that they could declare a state of emergency, annul the elections, or curb liberties. The authorities do not fear an attack on public freedoms, but the opposition is unified and is ready for any scenario," Wael Abu Faour, a Progressive Socialist Party executive member and a top aide of Jumblatt, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Abu Faour hammered details of a groundbreaking alliance recently between Jumblatt and former army commander General Michel Aoun at a meeting in his Paris exile. Jumblatt is expected to meet the staunchly anti-Syrian opposition leader in France soon. Aoun had already stepped up efforts to unify the opposition at a meeting with Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir in Paris. The head of the influential Maronite Church came out supporting UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which demands the withdrawal of Syrian forces, disarming Hizbullah and holding free elections, in which Aoun declared he will end 14 years of exile and return home. General Aoun, who describes the presence of 14,000 Syrian troops as occupation, is a staunch backer of the UN resolution. He faces judicial charges if he returns to Beirut. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan dispatched his personal envoy, Terje Roed- Larsen, to Damascus and Beirut, to discuss implementation of Resolution 1559 with defiant Lebanese leaders. Significantly, Larsen is expected to visit French President Jacques Chirac to update him on the results of his talks. Chirac will reportedly discuss the resolution with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Paris before receiving Larsen. The US and France co- sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 1559 in September in a failed bid to prevent Syria from amending Lebanon's constitution to keep President Emile Lahoud in office. "Lebanon and Syria are targeted -- in Lebanon there are two forces now, the opposition and loyalists -- one is an Arab line and the other is Western, it bets on 1559," Defence Minister Abdul-Rahim Murad said. He argued that the government is committed to the Taif Accord and "extraordinarily close" ties with Syria. The opposition contends that it too is attached to the 1989 agreement, which ended Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and called for the withdrawal of Syrian forces to the Bekaa Valley by 1992 and for a joint Syrian-Lebanese decision on a full pullout of the Syrian military from Lebanon. "Their mafias and local clients have been milking Lebanon," Druze leader Jumblatt said about Syria's intelligence services based in the Bekaa Valley town of Anjar. Jumblatt and a growing multi-confessional opposition association dubbed the Bristol Gathering have been breaking taboos in Syrian-Lebanese ties, calling for the creation of diplomatic ties between Damascus and Beirut. Jumblatt went a step further this week and said Lebanon should have a separate track in the peace process with Israel and must activate the 1948 truce with Israel. "You are not out of reach," head of the Lebanese branch of the Syrian Baath Party warned Jumblatt. Describing the one-time Syrian ally who joined the opposition as a "foreign spy", Labour Minister Assem Qanso also charged Bristol Gathering members of "awaiting American and Israeli tanks" to lead them into a Lebanon that "is stripped of its resistance and Arabism". Pro-Syrian politicians accuse Israeli officials of helping draft Resolution 1559, which did not name Damascus and Hizbullah by name, but Secretary-General Annan who is due to produce a crucial report on its implementation specified by name Syria and the Muslim Shia group in a Security Council document. The opposition rejected government charges. "It seems that they have gone back to the language of threats but I remember that it was the Baath gangs who killed Kamal Jumblatt," the opposition leader responded, in reference to his late father who was assassinated in 1977. Blaming Syria for the late leader of a Muslim-leftist alliance that opposed Damascus at the time, Jumblatt drew charges of treason and massacres during Lebanon's civil war. "Will there be new assassinations?" Walid Jumblatt asked a gathering in Beirut on Sunday, citing an October attempt on the life of his top ally, former minister Marwan Hamadeh, who survived a car bomb attack that killed his body guard. Jumblatt held intelligence services responsible for the blast. Still recovering, Hamadeh said the era of "tutelage has ended", and warned of "any attempts to muddle with the electoral law and to control the media". He voiced concerns of the opposition that a clause in the proposed electoral law for parliamentary elections banning electoral propaganda, with punishment of a permanent shut down of media outlets. The law was seen as targeting former prime minister and political heavyweight Rafiq Al-Hariri, who was forced out of office in a power struggle with President Emile Lahoud following his re-election. Al-Hariri was also considered the target of a division of Beirut into three separate voting districts in the proposed electoral law, although the opposition had welcomed the draft law because it carved the smallest possible voting districts for upcoming ballots. The opposition, especially the Maronite Church, advocates smaller districts that are more representative. The support of Jumblatt and the influential Christian Qornet Shehwan opposition bloc for the draft electoral law but their backing of Al-Hariri in his rejection of Beirut's division outraged the government, prompted Interior Minister Sleiman Franjieh to warn that the entire bill could be scrapped and larger voting districts be adopted. Franjieh, like other key pro- Syrian officials, accuse Al-Hariri of being the "patron" of the opposition. Pro-Syrian officials also warn that the implementation of Resolution 1559 will endanger stability in Lebanon and lead to another civil war partly on grounds that the fate of Palestinian refugees, many of them armed, remains unresolved and that Israel continues to violate Lebanese sovereignty, by sea and air violations. Hizbullah, which controls the border with Israel, warned the opposition against serving Israeli "interests" by backing 1559. The group vowed not to disarm. "The only difference among opposition ranks is whether Hizbullah operations against Israel should continue. This should be settled after the creation of a national unity government, following legislative elections. We should sit at the table with Hizbullah to agree on the nature of the conflict with Israel," Jumblatt ally Abu Faour told the Weekly in Beirut. "Threats of a civil war are unfounded. Loyalists are only scaring the Lebanese and want them to believe that opposition demands will lead to civil war. The war will not return, not one Lebanese will allow the war to return. The authorities are the only source of danger," he added. Abu Faour, a draftsman of rapprochement between General Aoun and Jumblatt, said the Druze leader does not support 1559 and that the implementation of the Taef Accord serves as an alternative. Aoun, who had launched a so-called war of liberation against Syrian forces leading to his exile at the end of the civil war, and the Bristol Gathering agreed to put aside their differences on Hizbullah and focus on unifying the opposition in the run up to May elections. As Aoun wants Hizbullah disarmed; nonetheless he kept the door open for political dialogue with the group, dubbed a terrorist organisation by the US and a target of Resolution 1559. However, Aoun and the Bristol Gathering sent clear messages to Hizbullah that they do not oppose the group. The US has been vocal in its criticism of Hizbullah and calls for Syria to exit Lebanon. Last week Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said, "it's not our policy to destabilise Syria. It should not be their policy to destabilise Iraq, or Lebanon for that matter." Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield earlier told US-funded Radio Sawa, "we are now interested in seeing fundamental change indicating that Syria is willing to comply with (UN) Security Council Resolution 1559." Some government officials in Beirut accused the opposition of operating in tandem with Satterfield's remarks. But Jumblatt's ally, Abu Faour, told the Weekly, "the authorities and Syria are the ones trying to draw the US into the scene. Syria wants a deal with the US that will allow it to remain in Lebanon in exchange for stripping Hizbullah of its arms," he said, pointing out that Damascus had "entered Lebanon with a US green light". The Leftist Democratic movement, an opposition group in Beirut, also accused Syria of "trying to keep its tutelage over Lebanon in return for a deal over the Iraqi border, and in Sharm El-Sheikh, or the Golan front, and through the call for a resumption of negotiations with the Israeli enemy without conditions." But Prime Minister Karami said Syria is today alone defending Arab causes. "We will not sell Syria -- Syria which is standing today alone to face all the conspiracies and plots... at a time when those (opposition) are driven by American and Israeli dictates," said Karami.
