herebelow please find my reply
to the daily star re above item
Amazing how stupid and naive
Addoum's Master is proving to be : Aoun is "Undermining
Lebanon's relationship with a
sisterly country "
- read Syria ,the fatal big sis-
Such an accusation did not surprise us at all because it was engineered
by a desperate regime that is still insisting to stick its head in the
sand . We were aghast to learn though that Aoun is also accused of
"setting Lebanon in danger of terrorist acts". This nasty joke proves that
the Syrian officer incharge of Lebanon's affairs is really going haywire.
We are still eagerly waiting for the outcome of Addoum's investigation of
ex minister Marwan Hamadeh's assassination attempt . Who knows, we might
get the answer before Aoun's verdict is out…
Anwar Wazen
Brussels
By Majdoline Hatoum
Special to The Daily Star
Wednesday, November
10, 2004
BEIRUT: The Beirut Criminal
Court has set Feb. 8, 2005 for the trial of Former Army Commander Michel
Aoun on the charge of undermining Leb-anon's relations with Syria.
Aoun, who was acting prime
minister in 1990, is charged with "undermining Lebanon's relations with a
sisterly country and putting Lebanon in danger of terrorist acts."
The charges stem from his
testimony before U.S. Congress in September 2003, during discussions of
the Syria Accountability Act and Restoration of Lebanese Sovereignty, when
he accused Syria at the time of "two decades of occupation and hegemony."
In a telephone interview on
Tuesday from exile in Paris, Aoun said the judiciary was "a puppet in the
hands of politicians."
The accusations against him, he
said, were "just more proof that the Lebanese judiciary has turned into a
politicized tool for the ruling regime."
Aoun also said that he would
never show up for a trial conducted by "illegal representatives of the
Lebanese people."
The commander compared his
situation to that of French General Charles de Gaulle, when he was working
from London to liberate France from German occupation during World War II.
"During that time, a French
judge name Duval - who cooperated with the German occupation - issued a
ruling for the execution of de Gaulle. However, after the occupation
ended, Duval was the one to be executed," Aoun said.
"Tell Abou Arraj (the ruling
magistrate in Aoun's case) not to give in to the political pressure that
is being exerted on him ...
"Regrettably, the Lebanese
judiciary has been violated by the corrupt political system," he said,
adding that the "ruling figures" in Lebanon were also submissive to the
Syrian presence.
"They're all sellouts, and
they've betrayed Lebanon to hold on to their positions," he said. "Change
is coming," he said. "They will not be able to rely on their Syrian master
for much longer."
Aoun said he believed that the
international pressure on Lebanon and Syria - which manifested itself in
UN Security Council Resolution 1559 - will drive the Syrian presence out
of Lebanon soon.
Issued in September, the
resolution calls for - among other things - the withdrawal of Syrian
troops from Lebanon. This has been the main demand of Aoun and other
Christian opposition groups in Lebanon since the end of the civil war.
"No occupation will last
forever," he said, in reference to the presence of about 15,000 remaining
Syrian soldiers in Lebanon and the strong Syrian influence in Lebanese
politics. "It will end soon, and the very same people who are seeking to
put me on trial now will be the ones to face the consequences."
New Justice Minister Adnan
Addoum expressed his disappointment Tuesday over the one year lapse
between Aoun's testimony, and the decision to set a trial date. "I'm
surprised that this date was not set earlier," he said. "The trial
should have started a long time ago." |
