Uitzending: Een potje domino in Libanon

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Uitzending: Een potje domino in Libanon

zondag 23 oktober 2005 20:55 Net 3
zaterdag 29 oktober 2005 11:00 Net 3 (Herhaling)

Vorige week werd de Syrische minister van Binnenlandse Zaken, generaal Ghazi Kanaan dood aangetroffen in zijn kantoor. Volgens de Syrische autoriteiten zou het om zelfmoord gaan. De minister, die jarenlang fungeerde als Syrië's sterke man in buurland Libanon, vond de dood aan de vooravond van de verschijning van een VN-rapport over de moord op de voormalige premier van Libanon, Rafiq Hariri. Hierover werd Kanaan onlangs ondervraagd.

De 'zelfmoord' van Kanaan licht een tipje van de sluier van de problematische verhouding tussen Libanon en Syrië die ontstaan is sinds het einde van de Libanese burgeroorlog, en waarbij Syrië Libanon steeds meer in haar macht kreeg. Aan de Syrische overheersing kwam een einde toen begin dit jaar de Cederrevolutie uitbrak en miljoenen Libanezen de straat op gingen om het vertrek van de Syrische troepen op te eisen. Wat was de aanzet tot de Cederrevolutie? Programmamaker Shuchen Tan reisde voor Tegenlicht af naar Libanon om ter plekke zicht te krijgen op de complexe werkelijkheid achter de Cederrevolutie. Welke rol claimt Amerika, wat vinden de Libanezen, wat is de betrokkenheid van Syrië?
Lees verder op de site >> http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/24506286/

Achtergronden: Libanon en de dominotheorie
De Cederrevolutie in Libanon begon nadat oud-premier Rafik Hariri door een bomaanslag om het leven kwam. Syrië trok haar troepen terug, terwijl de Verenigde Naties onderzochten wie er achter deze aanslag zat. Op de website van Tegenlicht een reconstructie van de gebeurtenissen omtrent de moord op Hariri. Daarnaast meer informatie over de dominotheorie van de neo-conservatieven in de regering Bush. Is Libanon het bewijs dat de verspreiding van de democratie werkt, of juist niet?
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/24506286/items/24580859/
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleveringen/24506286/items/24580861/

bron: vpro

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UN Hariri probe implicates Syria

There are fears the report could add to Lebanon's political turmoil
A UN inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri says many leads point to the direct involvement of Syrian officials.
UN investigators said they had also found evidence of Lebanese collusion in Mr Hariri's death last February.

The report, prepared at the request of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, says the car bombing was carried out by a group with extensive organisation.

Both Syria and Lebanon have denied the allegations of official involvement.

Syria's Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah condemned the findings as "politically biased" deceptions and said the report was "far from the truth".

The Lebanese presidency issued a statement denying that a suspect implicated in Hariri's assassination had called President Emile Lahoud minutes before the truck bomb exploded.

UN report in full (488K) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/21_10_05_mehlisreport.pdf)

"The press office in the presidential palace categorically denies this information, which has no basis in truth and is a part of a pressure campaign against the president," it said.

A spokesman for the US state department meanwhile said the report was "deeply troubling".

Many in Lebanon blamed Syria for the killing, a claim denied by Damascus.



Troops have been deployed in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and other cities in case of violence in the wake of the inquiry's findings.

'Lebanese collusion'

The UN team's report said there was "converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act".

The question for us all now is what sanctions can we bring against the guilty?

Ian, Whitwick, England


Hariri report: Your views
Mr Hariri's assassination - for which the likely motive was political - was complex and had obviously been planned for months, the report says.


As such, it "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organised without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services".

The inquiry established that "many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination".

The investigators, led by German magistrate Detlev Mehlis, say the Syrian authorities co-operated only to a degree and accuse several interviewees of "trying to mislead the investigation".

They also say a letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara to the commission contained "false information".

The investigation is not complete, the report said, with several lines of inquiry still to be pursued.

'Impending crisis'

The UN Security Council will be briefed on 25 October by Mr Mehlis, who handed over the report to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday.

John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, said several countries had been consulting on what steps to take based on the report's findings.


Hariri and 20 others died in the car bomb attack on 14 February

"We're going to study it very carefully, and based on what's in there, decide what our next course of action might be," he said.

The BBC's Ian Pannell in Damascus says it is widely believed that the Syrian authorities were angered by Mr Hariri's growing opposition to their influence in Lebanon.

Although Syria's President Bashar al-Assad constantly denies any involvement in the killing, the report will add to the sense of impending crisis felt in the country, our correspondent says.

Syria finds itself almost completely isolated, with little support from other Arab nations, and faces the prospect of crippling UN sanctions, he adds.

Syria was the main power in Lebanon until its military withdrawal earlier this year.

Since Mr Hariri was killed on 14 February, a series of bomb attacks have targeted anti-Syrian journalists and politicians as well as Christian areas in Lebanon.

Mr Hariri's son, Saad, has said he wants those implicated by Mr Mehlis' report to be tried by an international court

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Syrian 'suicide' sparks theories
By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst

The official Syrian News Agency announced Ghazi Kanaan's suicide without attempting to explain it.
It said cryptically that the authorities were carrying out the necessary investigation.

But, given Mr Kanaan's long and intimate connection with neighbouring Lebanon, many will regard his death as suspicious and will link it to the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February.

The Hariri saga is becoming more and more like the plot of a bizarre political thriller.

The assassination prompted immediate suspicion of Syrian involvement given its dominant position in the life of its tiny neighbour, and strenuous denials from Damascus.

But from Syria's point of view, it has brought nothing but trouble.

Withdrawal

The killing of Hariri led to Syria's international ostracisation and to mass political protests in Lebanon.

The combination of the two forced the Syrians to make a humiliating military withdrawal from a country it had occupied for almost 30 years.

Worse still, it antagonised the Bush administration in Washington, already angry over Syria's alleged support for insurgents in Iraq.

Many will now suspect that Ghazi Kanaan was a sacrificial lamb, who is now conveniently out of the way ahead of the UN report into the death of Mr Hariri which is due to be published later this month.

The Hariri killing and its aftermath are posing a serious challenge to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.

If the UN report were to implicate senior Syrian officials - people close to the president - Syria would become even further isolated and face the possibility of UN sanctions.

And there are some in Washington who would seize the opportunity to press even harder for something they have always wanted - "regime change" in Damascus.