Translated material
Murder for the holiday
The death of another minister will bury the Lebanese government
Lebanon, a war-weary small country with a population of 4 million, has once again become a victim of big politics. The increasing frequency of political murders, the inevitability of which was predicted by the Vremya Novostey newspaper, brought this once rich state, this Switzerland of the Middle East, to the brink of a new civil war, similar to the one that lasted from 1975 to 1990. This comes after more than a month of war this summer between the Lebanese group Hezbollah and neighboring Israel.Today two blocs are fighting for Lebanon: on the one hand, the West and Israel, on the other, Iran and Syria. It is still impossible to predict which of them will pull Beirut into their camp. The Lebanese themselves, with Israel supporting them from the south and Syria looming from the east, most of all want all their neighbors to leave them alone and let them live peacefully and independently.
Today in Beirut, in the church on the Square of the Dead, with a large crowd of people and increased security measures, the funeral service of 34-year-old Pierre Gemayel will take place. The Minister of Industry and Member of Parliament died the day before yesterday in the eastern part of the capital. The killers in a car caught up with Gemayel's car, where two more of his bodyguards were, and shot everyone with machine guns.
Because of this tragedy, three days of mourning were declared yesterday in Lebanon. In Beirut, the parade in honor of the 63rd anniversary of the country's independence, celebrated yesterday, was canceled. Yesterday afternoon the Vremya Novostey editorial office received a call from the Lebanese Embassy in Moscow with a message that the reception planned for the evening in honor of the holiday had been cancelled. The embassy told us that a book of condolences would be opened there on Friday.
The father of the victim, Amin Gemayel, yesterday accused Syria of killing his eldest son. “We don’t have conclusive evidence yet, but everything points to Syria. Something like this has happened before,” said Gemayel Sr., who served as Lebanon's civil war president from 1982 to 1988. He said he already had evidence implicating Damascus in the September 1982 murder of his 33-year-old brother Bashir Gemayel. He was also president, but only served in this post for a little over a month. Bashir established secret contacts with the American CIA and the Israelis, although officially Syria and Lebanon still do not maintain any relations with the Jewish state.
The Gemayel family is a famous aristocratic family in Lebanon. These are the leaders of local Christians, because in the diverse Lebanon there live Muslims (Shiites and Sunnis) and Christians (Catholics and Orthodox), representatives of other religions. The grandfather of the deceased minister, his namesake Pierre Gemayel, created paramilitary groups of Christians in 1936. Then they took part in the civil war.
The murder of a young politician from this clan appears to be part of a conspiracy aimed at removing the current pro-Western Prime Minister Fuad al-Siniora. They don’t like him in Syria, especially because he is an active supporter of the creation of an international tribunal for the murderers of the Lebanese ex-Prime Minister, Sunni Muslim Rafik Hariri. It was blown up in February 2005 in Beirut. The then leaders of Lebanon's intelligence services are suspected of the terrorist attack, which killed 22 more people. Perhaps they acted at the behest of their Syrian colleagues, since Syria has traditionally been influential in Lebanon.
A few hours after the murder of Pierre Gemayel, the UN Security Council in New York unanimously, including Russia, approved the creation of the tribunal. Now the founding documents will be sent to Beirut for re-approval by the government and then by the Lebanese parliament. The documents will then be submitted for signature to President Emile Lahoud, considered a protege of Damascus.
It is clear in advance that the pro-Syrian president will not sign the documents. However, VN's sources in Beirut, citing lawyers, claim that formally the presidential signature is not required. Lahoud will have 15 days to review the documents, after which, regardless of his verdict, the papers will again go to the government, where the final decision will be made.
The problem is the government itself, which will automatically fall if it loses a third of its 24 cabinet members. Six pro-Syrian ministers (mostly from the Shiite group Hezbollah) defiantly walked out of the cabinet in mid-November to protest the same tribunal. After the murder of Pierre Gemayel, a supporter of the creation of an international court, the government has already lost seven ministers. All that remains, and in the conditions of troubled Lebanon this is a very real scenario, kill one more minister - and the required third will be reached. The government will fall. The creation of the tribunal will be delayed. Although, just in case, yesterday Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad already stated that his country, “not accused by anyone,” “has nothing to do with such a tribunal,” especially since “during its creation, the opinion of Damascus was not taken into account.”