UN TO BEGIN TRIBUNAL FOR HARIRI'S ASSASSINS

UK GUARDIAN:The ticking timebomb: UN tribunal gears up to try Lebanon PM's killers

Hague court has caused panic among some Syrian officials, say analysts

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, is expected to announce soon that the tribunal is finally ready to start work.

"The aim is to send a political and legal message that criminals will not escape punishment," he declared.

Underlining the quickening pace, Daniel Bellemare, who is leading the UN investigation into the murder, is to submit a report to the security council today.

IT'S FREAKIN ABOUT TIME!

LEBANON 'S DUELING MEMORIALS: HARIRI VERSUS MOUGHNIYAH

Nothing could display the disparate contrasts and deep divisions within Lebanon more than the upcoming memorials for two of Lebanon's most well-known sons - one good and one evil: HARIRI VERSUS MOUGHNIYAH.

BOTH WILL BE COMMEMORATED ON THURSDAYS, (coincidentally Valentine's Day).

TVNZ: Hezbollah to hold mass funeral - [FOR THE EVIL MOUGHNIYAH]

Feb 14, 2008 12:23 PM

Lebanon's Hezbollah holds a mass funeral for its assassinated commander Imad Moughniyah, one of the United States' most wanted men, in Beirut to calls of revenge against its sworn enemy Israel.

Big crowds are expected in Beirut's Shi'ite Muslim southern suburb to bid farewell to Moughniyah, a guerrilla seen as a legend by Hezbollah but on the US most wanted list accused of killing hundreds in attacks on Israeli and Western targets.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, accused Israel of killing Moughniyah on Tuesday by planting a bomb in his car in Damascus. Israel denied any links to the attack while Washington welcomed his death.

Reflecting deep divisions in Lebanon, Moughniyah's funeral will take place a few hours after a rally by the anti-Syrian ruling coalition to mark the third anniversary of the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut.

OMAN OBSERVER: Lebanese set to mark Hariri killing

BEIRUT — The streets of Beirut a day before a scheduled mass rally to mark the February 14, 2005 assassinaton of then-premier Rafik Hariri, were tense on Tuesday and anger could be heard in peoples’ comments about the political speeches they hear daily from the country’s leading rival parties.

“We want to be governed by the state and not by religious warlords, sheikhs, or priests,” shouted Ahmed Mortada, a moderate Lebanese Shiite in one of Beirut’s streets. “Both the opposition (led) by Hizbullah and the majority are now threatening each other with war ... as if we (people) are their war toys and they can play with us as they like,” said Souad Hamdan, a Muslim who does not belong to any rival party.

“The political life in this country has gone below zero. The leaders are using radio and television to lash at each other, and the streets are boiling (over) with their followers,” she added. Souad was referring to fiery speeches by the head of the ruling majority, Saad Hariri, and his ally Walid Jumblatt, who threatened the opposition “if you want war...we are ready for it.”

The tough rhetoric has ignited tensions between the followers of both parties in a country already tense over a long-standing political deadlock. Clashes between followers of the late Hariri and those loyal to Hizbullah have erupted here and there. At least two people were wounded on Sunday in a gunfight between Druze supporters loyal to Jumblatt and a pro-Syrian Druze group in Aley, east of the capital.

The streets also witnessed clashes between Hariri supporters and followers who support parliament speaker Nabih Berri. Christian opposition leader General Michel Aoun has accused the ruling majority of having created “a climate of fear” which can trigger clashes at any moment and push the situation out of control.

BAHRAIN TRIBUNE/AFP:

Lebanon braced yesterday for a mass rally by supporters of the Western-backed government to commemorate the third anniversary of ex-premier Rafik Hariri’s murder amid mounting street clashes with the opposition.

Pro-government leaders have called on hundreds of thousands of supporters to converge today on Martyr’s Square in central Beirut, near the beachfront site of the car bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others on February 14, 2005.

The rally was to be held on the same day that the Lebanese resistance group Hizbollah, an important member of the opposition, was to bury one of its top commanders killed on Tuesday in Syria, in a car bombing blamed on Israel.
The Hariri anniversary protest comes amid high tension in Lebanon which has been without a president since November, in its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.

Street clashes between the government and the opposition camps and mudslinging among rival politicians have raised fears of civil strife...

STRIFE OR WAR.

• THERE'S ONLY ONE GOOD WAY TO END THESE STARK DIVISIONS WITHIN LEBANON: DESTROY HIZBALLAH - (WHICH IS AFTER MERELY ALL A BUNCH OF GENOCIDAL JIHADO-STOOGES FOR ASSAD AND IRAN).
• THESE TWO MEMORIALS MAY VERY END IN VIOLENCE AND RE-IGNITE LEBANON'S CIVIL WAR.
• HOPEFULLY, THIS TIME IT WILL END WITH HIZBALLAH BEING UTTERLY DEFEATED.

FRANCE HALTS DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH SYRIA

BBC: France to halt links with Syria

President Sarkozy wants Syria to use its influence in Lebanon

France is to suspend diplomatic contacts with Syria, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced.

Links will be restored only when France has proof that Syria is not blocking progress towards installing a consensus president in Lebanon, Mr Sarkozy said.

Lebanon has been without a president since November, as rival pro- and anti- Syrian factions argue over who should fill the post.

• THIS IS PROGRESS, BIT LET'S FACE IT: ASSAD SHOULD HAVE BEEN WHACKED ALREADY.

• AT LEAST THE WEST LOOKS LIKE WE'RE UNITED AND WE'RE GONNA STOP PUSSY-FOOTING AROUND.

SYRIA THREATENS SPAIN

Yahoo/AFP:

Syria's secret service has reportedly threatened Spanish soldiers in Lebanon in a bid to block the extradition of suspected arms dealer Monzer Al-Kassar to the United States.

The Spanish intelligence service, according to a memo cited by the newspaper El Mundo, fears that troops on UN deployment in south-east Lebanon could be targeted if the Spanish cabinet ratify a judicial verdict and send Kassar to the US.

General Assef Schawkat, chief of Syrian military intelligence, wrote to his opposite number in Spain: "If you think we are going to ignore the affront inflicted by north-American henchmen on our brother (Kassar), you don't really know us and [you] are no friends of the Syrian people."

Dated end-July, the note also refers to Schawkat delivering a thinly-veiled threat during a discussion with Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Around 1,100 Spanish soldiers serve in the UN interim force in Lebanon installed after the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Six Spanish soldiers were killed during a bombing there in June.

Syrian native Kassar, known colloquially as the "Prince of Marbella" where he has been based for the last decade, is wanted in the US on suspicion of arranging arms deals for leftist FARC rebels in Colombia.

• ASSAD IS A PUTINESQUE THUG WHO SHOULD BE NEUTRALIZED.
• HE THREATENS MORE THAN SPAIN AND THE UN; HE THREATENS LEBANON AND ISRAEL.
• IT SEEMS TO ME THAT BUSH AND RICE HAVE REALLY BEEN SUCKING UP TO ASSAD INSTEAD OF CONFRONTING HIM.
• IT SEEMS TO ME LIKE BUSH AND RICE HAVE BEEN SURREPTITIOUSLY FOLLOWING THEIR BUDDY BAKER'S ISG PLAN, MORE OR LESS...
  

OUR FOREIGN POLICY NEEDS LESS BAKER AND MORE BOLTON!

ASSAD'S DAYS ARE NUMBERED

DAILY START (BEIRUT:)

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon sent a letter to the president of the Security Council informing the council of his intention to appoint judges Mohammad Amin al-Mehdi, Erik Mese and Nicolas Michel as members of the selection panel for the judges and prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon covering the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a UN statement said on Thursday.

Pursuant to a document annexed to Security Council Resolution 1757, the judges and the prosecutor are to be appointed by the secretary general upon the recommendation of a selection panel he has established, after indicating his intentions to the Security Council. The selection panel will be composed of two judges, currently sitting on or retired from an international tribunal, and the representative of the secretary general.

Mehdi and Mese are distinguished jurists. Mehdi, an Egyptian, formerly served on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Mese, a Norwegian, currently serves on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Michel is the United Nations undersecretary general for legal affairs.

WE WILL GET HIM THIS WAY - OR ANOTHER MORE KINETIC WAY... BUT EITHER HE WILL BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.

BECAUSE BUSH HAS NOT BEEN AGGRESSIVE ENOUGH, IT'S TAKEN LONGER THAN IT MIGHT HAVE - LIKE IRAQ...

MORE HERE.

SYRIAN EXILE TO VISIT KNESSET

An exiled opposition leader from Syria has been invited by one of the Likud members to visit the Knesset:

Syrian exile and opposition leader Farid Gadry, of the Syrian Reform Party, is expected to visit the Knesset. He was invited by MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud), former chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Gadry, who is expected to speak before the committee on June 11, will be the second Syrian expatriate to address it this year. Last month, the committee heard Syrian-American businessman Ibrahim Suleiman. He discussed his contacts with Alon Liel, former Foreign Ministry director general, on a proposed peace deal.

Unlike Suleiman, who is rumored to be in contact with Syrian President Bashar Assad, 51-year-old Gadry is the founder of a political movement aimed at bringing down Assad's regime. The Syrian Reform Party, founded in exile in the U.S. in 2003, aspires to replace Assad's Alawi minority rule with a democratic system that puts power in the hands of the Sunni majority.

This could be a good way of letting people know that no matter what the left and the MSM want people to think, Assad is not interested in making peace with Israel. His father was not, and it's unlikely that Bashar is any different.

IRONY IS DEAD AND ASSAD KILLED IT

We don't ask for much from Assad. Just the tiniest bit of self-awareness. A minimal recognition of the rhetorical and political position that he's speaking from. No such luck:

Syrian President Bashar Assad said Thursday that the Israeli government was too weak to make peace with Syria, stressing that negotiations must resume from the point they had last reached in 2000... Assad said, addressing the first session of the parliament's 9th legislative four-year term. He warned [about] "weak governments in Israel"

In fairness to Israel, it's much harder to have a "strong government" when you're not enforcing ideology by rounding up dissidents. But then again, we can't all inherit police states from daddy.

[Cross-posted to Mere Rhetoric]