February 28, 2005

Lebanon's government quits as opposition holds mass rally

Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami announced his government's resignation Monday, prompting a cheer from more than 25,000 flag-waving opposition demonstrators protesting the government and its Syrian backers a few hundred meters away.
[...]
The assassination of Hariri has intensified world and Lebanese opposition pressure for a withdrawal of Syria's forces, who came to Lebanon ostensibly as peace-keepers during the 1975-90 civil war.
[That's right; the Syrian troops have been in Lebanon for 30 years!
(And no-one calls that a "quagmire!")--Jen]

Hundreds of soldiers and police ringed the square early Monday in a bid to enforce the government's ban on protests. But they made no serious effort to disperse the demonstrators, many of whom had slept in the square. Some soldiers and police even sympathized with the demonstrators, and were seen advising newcomers on how to evade the cordon.
[...]
Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government dominates its Lebanese neighbor, said in an interview published Monday that a withdrawal from Lebanon required a settlement with Israel.
[Why on earth would that be the case, Bashar?]
[...]
Hundreds of troops, many in armored personnel carriers, set up roadblocks at entrances to central Beirut, turning back flag-waving teenagers,
[Uh-oh! If the teenagers are behind this, Syria's days of hegemony are probably over!]
reducing traffic to a trickle, and making the city appear as if it were under siege.
[...]
Opposition and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt vowed to continue protests until the government falls.

"We want the truth. Who killed Rafik Hariri?" he said in a telephone interview on Hariri's Future television. He urged the people to "go down today, tomorrow, for a month or two months until the regime falls."
[IOW, let Kiev be your model.]

Syria said Thursday it would pull its forces eastward toward its border but will not bring them home. There has been no visible Syrian military movement to the eastern Bekaa Valley in line with a 1989 Arab-brokered agreement that ended the 1975-1990 civil war.

This is pretty heady stuff!
(Who knew that this would all come barely a month after President Bush's 2nd Inauguration ("Freedom and democracy on the march.") and his powerful SOTU address ("Freedom on the march" Part II)?)
The crowds keep getting bigger and bigger...and they're peaceful, for the most part, if eager and excited.
I wonder what Assad's going to do next?
I don't think this thing's going away anytime soon--apparently, the Lebanese have had enough of being a Syrian satellite.
Good for them!
Let Freedom reign in Lebanon again!

Tip of the fedora to the peerless RogerLSimon.