Lebanon was on a knife-edge on Wednesday, with the assassination of another leading anti-Syrian politician adding to fears the country may be again torn apart by civil strife.
Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, scion of one of the country’s most prominent Christian families, was gunned down on Tuesday in an attack that drew condemnation from world leaders while angry voices in Lebanon laid the blame on neighbouring Syria.
United States President George Bush called for an investigation and immediate United Nations action over the killing of Gemayel, the fifth politician slain in a wave of assassinations in Lebanon over the past two years.
”Today we saw again the vicious face of those who hate freedom,” he said. ”We strongly condemn the assassination today in Lebanon of Pierre Gemayel.”
Bush accused Iran and Syria of promoting ”instability” in Lebanon, but did not tie them outright to the killing, which occurred on the eve of the 63rd anniversary of Lebanon’s independence.
The death of Gemayel (34) added to already heightened tensions in a country where the Syrian-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah is working to bring down the Western-leaning government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
”Assassinations will not terrorise us. We will not let the criminal killers control our fate,” Siniora told journalists. ”It is time for all Lebanese to unite.”
The attack came on the day the UN Security Council endorsed plans to set up an international court to try suspects in the February 2005 murder of former Lebanese billionaire prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
Hezbollah, which has called for mass rallies to push for reform in the Siniora government, said the assassination was aimed at returning Lebanon to civil war, which ripped it apart between 1975 and 1990.
”There is no doubt at all that those who committed this crime want to push Lebanon into chaos … and civil war,” said the powerful fundamentalist group, which is also backed by Iran.
Lebanon’s state news agency said Gemayel, a member of the anti-Syrian majority in Parliament, was killed ”by gunshots on his convoy near the Mar Antonios church in the region of Jdaideh”.
Security sources said his car was rammed from the front, and that gunmen stepped out and shot him point-blank in the head. His bodyguard was also killed.
Gunmen also opened fire on the Beirut office of another anti-Syrian figure, the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Michel Pharaon.
People from across the political spectrum called for calm among a populace divided between allies and opponents of Syria, the country’s former powerbroker, while angry young men burned tyres in Beirut’s Christian district of Ashrafiyeh.
”Don’t let one family’s latest tragedy become that of a whole country,” the English-language Daily Star said on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who led a devastating war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer, voiced hope the assassination would not destablise the region.
After news of the murder, panic spread across the capital Beirut. Cars horns honked amid giant traffic jams, as many people rushed to go home.
Tyres were burnt, cars damaged and posters of Christians allied with Hezbollah were torn apart in Beirut and in Gemayel’s mountainous hometown of Bikfaya, east of the capital.
Prominent Christian leader Samir Geagea called for the immediate resignation of Damascus protégé President Emile Lahoud, who himself denounced the killing as a ”terrorist act”.
Rafiq Hariri’s son and now the head of the anti-Syrian majority in Parliament, Saad Hariri, accused Syria of ”trying to kill every free person” in Lebanon.
”The cycle [of killings] has resumed,” he said, referring to a series of assassinations and attacks in the past two years including the massive Beirut bomb blast that killed his father. ”We believe that the hands of Syria are all over the place.
”This is not a time to give up. Blood has been shed to free our country from the hands of the regime, from the regime that was involved in killing Rafiq Hariri, in killing a lot of people,” he said.
A UN probe has implicated senior Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariri’s murder, which sparked protests that forced Damascus to end nearly three decades of military domination in Lebanon.
The establishment of the international court must also be approved by Lebanon, and is another issue that divides the government and the pro-Syrian forces led by Lahoud.
Syria has denied any responsibility in the Hariri killing.
And its official Sana news agency condemned Gemayel’s murder as ”a crime aimed at destabilising Lebanon and disturbing the civil peace in the country”.
In Washington, the Syrian embassy issued a statement expressing ”outrage” at the killing, saying it was ”no coincidence” it occurred on the day the United Nations was examining the court plan.
”This charade of blaming Syria for every malicious event in Lebanon has been exposed a long time ago and is, simply, losing all credibility,” it said. ”It is obvious that whenever the world attention is focused on Lebanon, a terrible crime occurs in an attempt to accuse Syria.”
Gemayel was the first anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated since journalist Gibran Tueni was killed by a bomb last December.
He was the nephew of Bashir Gemayel, who was murdered in 1982 at the height of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, only nine days before he was to be sworn in as president. Amin Gemayel replaced him, serving until 1988.
A three-day period of national mourning has been announced and independence day celebrations have been called off.
The anti-Syrian camp in Lebanon, known as the ”March 14” group, called for a massive turnout at Gemayel’s funeral on Thursday and for a total shutdown of businesses nationwide.
”The entire world will hear in the next few days the real voice of Lebanon, the voice of freedom, sovereignty and independence,” said former MP Fares Sahed.
”Sadness has turned into anger. We will go after the criminals and all those who cover this crime … The blood of Pierre Gemayel will not go in vain.” – Sapa-AFP