Daily Report

June Wednesday 28-2000

Nasrallah: Resistance’s victory over “Israel” was entire country’s

Berri calls Hizbullah to be a part of post-election government…(1)

“Speaker Nabih Berri cemented his alliance with Hizbullah in the run-up to this summer’s parliamentary polls on Tuesday, calling for the party to be accorded a key role in the post-election government.
Berri made the comments after meeting at his official residence in Ain al-Tineh with Hizbullah’s secretary-general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
“I nominate Hizbullah to be part of a coalition government which would include representatives of all parties,” the speaker declared during a meeting with a delegation from the Journalists Union.
He added that Hizbullah had enjoyed a political role since 1992, when it first contested parliamentary elections, and said that the issue of its participation in a government had been discussed during the days of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s administration.
The resistance leader affirmed after meeting Berri that the alliance between  Hizbullah and the speaker’s Amal movement in this summer’s parliamentary elections was not in doubt.
“I’d like to assert that the ties between Amal and Hizbullah are solid,” Nasrallah said. “We were partners in resistance and liberation and we’ll be together in the next parliamentary race.
“We’ll continue together as a symbol of national unity, the same topic I discussed with the president,” he added.
“Today we’re in dire need of this unity more than ever,” he warned. “The “Israeli” media, as well as some local media, are causing trouble between the state and the resistance movement.
“But the resistance movement is not an alternative for the state,” he said. “What is needed is harmony, complementary work, and cooperation in order to serve our greater goals.”
Nasrallah, who on Monday paid his first-ever visit to Baabda Palace, said that his visits with senior politicians were aimed at confirming his party’s intention to cooperate with the government and asserting that the resistance’s victory over “Israel” was the entire country’s.
“We were honored to visit Speaker Berri as part of our tour of leaders,” said Nasrallah, who is scheduled to visit Prime Minister Salim Hoss on Wednesday.
“We’re here primarily to extend congratulations on Lebanon’s victory,” he explained, “which we have called a victory for all Lebanese, and which does not belong to a single sect, party, group or movement.”
Berri stressed that the Amal-Hizbullah electoral alliance would be more “serious” than the last-minute arrangement in the South in 1996. “Sayyed Nasrallah and I resolved this issue in a meeting four months ago, before liberation,” he told the delegates from the Journalists Union.
“The new coalition has to be stronger and more serious and will include the whole of Lebanon,” he said.
Berri stressed that the coalition would extend to Beirut but hinted that the two sides could find themselves on opposite sides in Baabda-Aley.
With regard to the capital, Berri denied that the coalition with Hizbullah would cause problems because both sides were negotiating alliances with Hariri’s campaign.
Berri indicated that Amal and Hizbullah would each name a candidate in the two Beirut districts that contain a Shiite seat, adding that each party would secure votes for the other.
However, for the two Shiite seats Baabda-Aley, Amal is expected to join forces with Aley MP Talal Arslan, while Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt has been courting Hizbullah.
Asked whether Jumblatt had allied with Hizbullah in Baabda-Aley, Berri said he had no information on the subject but added that he told Jumblatt and Arslan that he did not oppose a Hizbullah-Jumblatt alliance, but that he could not give his final decision.
“I discussed the alliance with Jumblatt, who visited me two weeks ago, and I told him that the issue was premature because I wanted to meet my allies in Hizbullah and discuss it with them,” he said.

Nasrallah received Jumblatt…(2)

Hizbullah Secretary General H.E. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah received a delegation from the Progressive Socialist Party, headed by Jumblatt. Jumblatt congratulated Nasrallah on the withdrawal, which he described as “an earthquake which will leave its mark on the conflict with “Israel” and on Arab positions.”
Jumblatt said his visit tackled the “need to beef up national unity and bolster the alliance with Syria in order to confront the challenges ahead,” particularly the upcoming elections.

UN recognizes irregularities

Lahoud: Lebanon has fenced its borders with blood of martyrs…(3)

“Lebanon welcomed the UN Security Council’s recognition of six “Israeli” border violations on Tuesday, confirming Beirut’s complaints about “Israel’s” failure to remove all its forces from parts of the country that it had occupied for 22 years.
“This constitutes an international acknowledgment of “Israel’s” incomplete implementation of Resolution 425,” President Emile Lahoud said in a statement from Baabda palace.
He expressed “his relief regarding the Security Council’s acknowledgment of the “Israeli” violations along the Lebanese border,” the statement said.
The Security Council admitted on Monday that “Israeli” forces still remained on Lebanese soil in six locations along the border. The violations were included in a report compiled by UNIFIL and delivered to UN headquarters in New York.
Lahoud hoped that international efforts would force “Israel” into pulling out of all 14 border violations recorded by the Lebanese team working with the UN.
“Lebanon has fenced these borders with the blood of its martyrs,” Lahoud said, while affirming Lebanon’s readiness to cooperate fully with the UN.
Speaker Nabih Berri said the Security Council’s report “proved that the policy we’ve followed was sound. This also proves that we need to win the political battle not just the war.
Addressing members of the Journalists’ Union in Ain al-Tineh, Berri said that the violations “were in fact many more than the Security Council admitted and we must follow up on this issue closely ... We must maintain the highest level of vigilance and awareness.”
He also reiterated that Lebanon would continue to regard the withdrawal as incomplete as long as the Shebaa Farms remain under “Israeli” occupation. Any settlement with “Israel”, he insisted, must be based on 1923’s internationally recognized border, and include a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
He called the “Blue Line,” which UN cartographers were using to confirm withdrawal an “imaginary boundary,” which Lebanon would not accept.
Prime Minister Salim Hoss was briefed on the Security Council’s meeting by Lebanon’s Ambassador to the UN, Salim Tadmuri.
Hoss contended that the work of the Lebanese team was not final because “Israel” was still occupying 14 positions inside Lebanon.
The UNIFIL report said that most violations consisted of “Israeli” Army patrols on roads that entered Lebanese territory. One runs for 150 meters inside Lebanon. The UN instructed “Israel” to block off the road and construct a new route for patrols. It made the same request for another patrol road inside Lebanon for a distance of half a kilometer and some 25 meters north of the Blue Line.
A third road runs above the withdrawal line for 420 meters. The “Israelis” had blocked off this road, but at the wrong places, the report found.
UNIFIL also found three “Israeli” machine gun posts and some observation equipment were wrongly situated on the Lebanese side of the withdrawal line.
The fifth violation witnessed some “Israeli” soldiers deployed in trenches on Lebanese territory, with their tent on the “Israeli” side.
The UN rejected one Lebanese complaint, concerning a strip along the border holding an unoccupied “Israeli” observation tower, and it said an alleged 780-meter border infringement by another “Israeli” patrol track needed further investigation.
Meanwhile, the UN’s border verification team resumed inspections along the “Israeli” side of the frontier on Tuesday, checking whether the “Israelis” have carried out the instructions contained in the UNIFIL report.
There was no word on Tuesday night whether the violations had ended.
Lebanon’s withdrawal verification team, headed by General Amin Hoteit, awaits the results of the UN’s inspection on the “Israeli” side of the frontier before carrying out a final confirmation from the Lebanese side.
Tadmuri said on Tuesday that the UN and Secretary-General Kofi Annan are working hard to resolve “Israeli” border violations as soon as possible.
“The secretariat and special bodies are trying to wrap up the violations issue as soon as possible, but “Israel”, as usual, is procrastinating,” he said .
“The mood at the UN suggests that the secretariat, and the secretary-general in particular, want to end the affair as certain steps pertaining to UNIFIL’s mandate and the implementation of Resolution 425 need to be taken,” he added. “But there is hope that the violations will be resolved as the secretariat is making appropriate moves”

“Israeli” soldiers throw stones at Lebanese border demonstrators…(4)

“ A Lebanese man was hurt Tuesday when “Israeli” soldiers threw stones at a group of youths gathered by Fatima gate on the border, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Ali Taleb needed seven stitches for a head wound suffered as he visited the site, which has become a popular assembly point since the “Israeli” withdrawal from southern Lebanon May 24.

Until this incident, stone throwing over the barbed wire fencing on the border was restricted to the Lebanese side, this being the first time “Israeli” soldiers have reacted with stones instead of rubber bullets.

Since the “Israeli” withdrawal, 13 people have been wounded by “Israeli” fire at the Fatima gate, six Palestinians, four Jordanians, and three Lebanese.

“Israeli” government opens probe over Arab deputy who praised Hizbullah…(5)

“The “Israeli” government's legal counsel has ordered an enquiry into the case of an Arab MP who made statements praising Lebanon's resistance movement, Hizbullah. "It has been decided to open a policy enquiry against Deputy (Azmi) Bishara for incitement to violence and support of a terrorist group," said a statement from the office of Elyakim Rubinstein, who is also “Israel’s” solicitor general. Hizbullah led the armed resistance campaign to oust “Israeli” occupation troops from south Lebanon. Rubinstein's instructions have been turned over to the police, which are to act on them, the source said. Bishara won a seat in the Knesset (parliament) in last year's elections as head of the Balad list, which gained two seats. Shortly afterwards, his partner in that group, Ahmad Tibi, an advisor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, broke away.
Bishara said in May, prior to the “Israeli” withdrawal, that Hizbullah had "become, thanks to its firmnmess and its sacrifices, a symbol in the modern Arab world because of the struggle it conducts against the “Israeli” occupation of southern Lebanon."   Two other “Israeli” Arab MPs have also spoken out in favor of Hizbullah, but no measures have been taken against them. One of them, Taleb al-Sanaa, called for the Nobel peace prize to be awarded to Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for forcing an end to the “Israeli” occupation of south Lebanon.
There are 10 MPs from Arab parties in “Israel”, which has an Arab community of around one million people. 

Footnotes:

1-       The Daily Star, 28-6-2000.

2-       Same source.

3-       Same source.

4-       AFP, 27-6-2000.

5-       Future TV, 27-6-2000.