Syrian officer involved in Hariri death killed

Israel seems to be trying to distance itself from the Damascus car bombing. Following the oblique accusation in the recent Reform Party of Syria circulated article - the RPS are now circulating this item which links the whole thing to the Hariri death. A bit far fetched perhaps. Their original police implied that Israel did it to get at Syria's nuclear team. They can't have it both ways. What next? They could coved r all their bases and say the Russians did it.

A Syrian intelligence officer who was involved in the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in February 2005 was killed in the car bomb attack in Syria on September 27, Syrian opposition representative Sheikh Abdullah Hamidi told Israel Radio on Sunday.

Preserve Lebanon’s democracy and independence

Farid of the US based Syria Reform Party sends this item. Personally I should think there would be a lot of Lebanese who'd like to see Syria back in control and an end to Western meddling - but am I wrong?

Washington DC, July 18, 2007/William Harris - Now Lebanon/ -- In the contemporary world it is fashionable to represent conflicts as involving various shades of gray among contending parties, with clear moral choices being problematic. In the current Lebanese crisis, however, the choice is clear – it is between day and night, between light and darkness.

Above all, Lebanon’s future depends upon the survival and consolidation of its recently renewed democracy and independence. This requires agreement among political leaders on a new president committed to democracy and independence, implementation of the Lebanese state’s rightful monopoly of force on all its territory, and total cooperation with the international community in the proceedings of the coming UN murder tribunal. The Syrian/Lebanese security apparatus that commanded Lebanon until 2005, an apparatus still headed by Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Emile Lahoud, remains the prime suspect in the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Until the culprits for this crime and a succession of plainly associated murders and attempted murders of Lebanese critics of the Syrian regime are apprehended, political murder will rule supreme and Lebanese democracy cannot be secured.

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Rice breaks the ice with Syria, but not Iran

· Iraq conference backdrop for high level discussion
· US praises Damascus's counter-insurgency effort

Ian Black in Sharm el-Sheikh
Friday May 4, 2007
The Guardian

Efforts to stabilise Iraq by involving its neighbours in talks brought Condoleezza Rice together with Syria's foreign minister yesterday for an ice-breaking meeting but talks with her Iranian opposite number, Manouchehr Mottaki, failed to happen.

The US secretary of state's session with Walid Moualem on the margins of an international conference on Iraq followed rare praise from the US military that Syria was doing more to seal its border with Iraq to foreign fighters joining the Sunni insurgency.

The high-profile diplomatic encounter in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh was the first of its kind since Syria, Iran's only Arab ally, was accused of being behind the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. It denies the charge and is resisting calls for a UN tribunal to investigate the killing.

TO READ FULL STORY CLICK HERE

Farid Ghadry, from the Syrian opposition, has sent us the following opinion piece on the Rice meeting, posted on the Reform Party of Syria website.

A Safe Iraq is the Purpose
Farid Ghadry, RPS,Washington DC
May 4, 2007
With Iraq becoming the center of gravity of US foreign policy in the Middle East, the Syrian opposition is witnessing some disturbing events taking place that look like a reversal of the past policy by the US in its approach to dealing with the Assad regime. But a closer look may reveal a different perspective...

After the meeting yesterday, the White House spokesman Tony Snow downplayed its importance when he said: "Any conversations would not be bilateral discussions. They would not be formal negotiations." He added: "The one and only topic, again, in Sharm el- Sheikh is to say: 'It is time now to step forward and support the government of Iraq. ' That is the strong message that is being sent." It is obvious from the narrow goal that precipitated this meeting to take place that Iraq and only Iraq was the central issue...

TO READ OPINION PIECE IN FULL CLICK HERE

Rafik Harriri

Farid sends a note of a March 20 (today) Wall Street Journal article - by William Harris. We summarise with the caveat that this issue needs burying to enable progress:

A crucial turning point has arrived in the U.N investigation into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, in February 2005.

A report by the chief of the investigation, Belgian Serge Brammertz, presented to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on March 15, establishes that the specific motives for the assassination were strictly political.

The next step should be to establish the special mixed international/Lebanese tribunal envisaged in U.N. Security Council resolution 1664 of March 2006, to prosecute Hariri's murderers and their instigators. All Security Council members approved the draft protocol, detailing the tribunal's authority, after protracted negotiation between Lebanese and U.N. legal experts.

Syria and Hezbollah wish to neuter the tribunal protocol.

War-Weary Beirut Marks Hariri Death With Peaceful Rally

The Independent
By Robert Fisk

So the Lebanese survived. The civil war did not begin. The second anniversary of the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri was more a festival than a vow of revenge.

Even the coffee stall and crisps concessions were cheerful. Villagers from what journalists like to call the "hardy warrior race" of the Druze - mountain men from the Chouf - and their families stood shoulder to shoulder with Christian Maronite women in the centre of Beirut to honour the man whose murder provoked a UN Security Council revolution that demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon (dutifully adhered to) and the disarming of the Hizbollah militia (dutifully un-adhered to).

Despite the three deaths in Tuesday's bus bombing in the Metn hills, there were no calls for revenge, no ill will, none of the viciousness that those murders were presumably intended to provoke. Many of the young men quite literally danced in the streets to their own music and families sat in Martyrs' Square - site of the hanging of Lebanese patriots by the Turks in 1915 and 1916 - with picnics...

For the full article please click on the title