Hizbullah criticizes UN bias, demands just trials for collaborators

Hizbullah Secretary General his Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah charged that "the UN attitude seems to reek of bias in favor of Israel," trying to pressure Lebanon into making concessions towards "Israel" on border questions.

Speaking at a rally in Haret Hreik to commemorate the martyrdom of 11 resistance fighters killed in operations against the "Israeli" occupation forces during their three-day withdrawal last week, Sayyed Nasrallah said, "These martyrs are the luckiest because they witnessed both the honor of the victory and the honor of martyrdom," drawing loud cries of Allahu Akbar (God is Great) from tens of thousands who had gathered for the event.

The fight against "Israel" will continue so long as one inch of the Shibaa Farms remains occupied, even if the United Nations rules that the "Israeli" entity has indeed implemented Resolution 425, Sayyed Nasrallah declared on Friday.

Hizbullah will "make no compromises," he added.

"As far as Shibaa or any other patch of Lebanese land is concerned, we, Hizbullah, are not interested in the UN resolutions. We have fought to liberate our land unconditionally," he said.

"Pressure, both open and hidden, is being put on Lebanon... but we shall not give up one grain of sand," Sayyed Nasrallah said.

"All Lebanese officials taking part in the negotiations must know that we are with them, that the whole of Lebanon backs them," he added.

"We have been saying the same thing since 1982, that as long as there is occupation, there will be resistance. As long as one inch of land remains occupied, there will be resistance," he said.

"Anything we do not obtain now, we will never obtain. What we have obtained now, we obtained thanks to the resistance. We will not obtain anything later by way of negotiations," he added.

"The situation is calm," said Sayyed Nasrallah, but warned it might not remain so.

"Can the United Nations, the United States or the whole world imagine that we in Lebanon could remain silent about part of our land remaining under occupation on the pretext that that was the result of the line" drawn by UN cartographers? he asked.

While he said it was the government's prerogative to either accept or repudiate the border demarcation by United Nations experts, Sayyed Nasrallah advised people to carefully monitor the process and support the government in its struggle to recover Lebanese territory.

Hizbullah's secretary-general also cautioned against leniency toward militiamen who served in the "Israeli" occupation's militia during the occupation, saying they would have to either be locked up in rehabilitation centers or sent abroad, but not allowed back to southern villages.

He added that the resistance had forced the "Israelis" to change their withdrawal plans, transforming what was supposed to be a "strategic pullout into a chaotic rout."

He warned against postponing critical issues for future negotiations with the "Israeli" entity, including the Shibaa Farms and the fate of detainees in "Israeli" prisons.

"We don't care about the political translation of Resolution 425 or 242, what we care about is that we want the Shibaa farms, which are part of our land," he said.

He advised the Palestinians that they should not count on negotiations if they want to compel "Israelis" to return their land.

"I assure you that negotiations will not lead anywhere," he said, adding that "Israeli" prime minister Ehud Barak "always says that al-Quds (Jerusalem) is the eternal capital of Israel and is not willing to give up one street of it."

Jerusalem, he said, lay at the heart of the Arab-"Israeli" conflict.

He noted that 1967 and 1982, the dates of the "Israeli" occupation of al-Quds and Beirut respectively, were years that were engraved in the memory of all Arabs.

"We're even with the "Israelis" on the second count because our land has been liberated, and we're still waiting for the liberation of al-Quds to erase the memory of 1967," he said.

Sayyed Nasrallah said the issue of the defunct "Israeli"-allied militiamen was delicate and was creating a culture of fear among some pockets of the community. He added that it was the government's duty to assuage these fears.

"The president, the premier, the speaker, MPs and ministers ­ all of them tried to tell these people not to worry," he said.

"But we should be careful not to go to the other extreme, though, and start promising that the collaborators will be released soon," he added.

To do this, he continued, would be a slap in the face to those who had known militia oppression and were counting on justice to be served.

"We've heard of a group of Lebanese lawyers who are planning to defend militiamen members before the Lebanese courts, and it's shameful to find in Lebanon people willing to defend them," he said.

"All militiamen, no matter what their religion, are collaborators in the crimes that occurred, and they should get the punishment they deserve," he added, though he assured his listeners that Hizbullah members would not seek revenge.

"Whenever one of us sees a collaborator, he has orders to inform either military intelligence or the Internal Security Forces," he said.

"We're counting on the judiciary to make sure that no mother sees the killer of her son walking free in the village."

Sayyed Nasrallah cautioned politicians against trying to pressure the judiciary into freeing the militiamen, and said that if any of the collaborators were released they should be barred from returning to their villages.

"Let the government send them abroad, or put them in a rehabilitation center. But don't allow them to go back to their homes," he said.

Manar TV, 3-6-2000.