Lebanon parliament endorses Siniora-led government

By Alistair Lyon

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s parliament voted confidence in
the new government on Saturday, endorsing a program that vows
balanced ties with Syria but does not mention a U.N. demand
that Hizbollah guerrillas disarm.

The cabinet led by Fouad Siniora, finance minister under
assassinated ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri, won the support of 92
members of the 128-seat assembly. Fourteen voted against and
two abstained, Speaker Nabih Berri announced.

A score of deputies stayed away from the session of the
parliament, elected recently and dominated for the first time
since the 1975-90 civil war by opponents of Damascus.

The lawmakers who voted against belong to the opposition
bloc led by Michel Aoun, also a foe of Syria’s intervention in
Lebanon, who has demanded an explicit government commitment to
U.N. resolution 1559.

Syria’s pullout from Lebanon in April fulfilled part of the
measure, but Hizbollah and Palestinian factions reject its
other main demand — the dismantling of all militias in the
country.

Siniora, who won the vote after a sometimes stormy
three-day debate, said he would travel to Damascus on Sunday to
try to improve relations strained since the Syrian troop
withdrawal and the anti-Syrian street protests that preceded
it.

“We want good, correct relations based on respect … and
the balanced interests of the two countries,” he told the
assembly.

One of his main objectives will be to persuade Syria to
loosen tough new border controls that have brought Lebanon’s
overland exports to a near-standstill in recent weeks.

Damascus says the curbs are a security measure, but many
Lebanese see them as retaliation for the wave of anti-Syrian
sentiment unleashed in Lebanon by Hariri’s killing in a
February bombing in Beirut. Syria denied any part in the
attack.

RUBBING OLD WOUNDS

The parliamentary debate, carried live on television,
sometimes rubbed old civil war wounds, reviving issues that
were suppressed during Syria’s 15-year postwar domination of
Lebanon.

Christian leaders demanding an amnesty for Lebanese members
of a defunct Israeli-allied militia now living in Israel
clashed verbally with Muslims who insist collaborators must be
punished.

Fearing reprisals or punishment if they stayed, some 6,000
former militiamen of the South Lebanon Army fled with their
families to Israel when Israeli troops withdrew in 2000. More
than half have trickled back, but many others remain in exile.

Parliament this month approved an amnesty for jailed
Christian warlord Samir Geagea and hundreds of Sunni Muslims
suspected of links to a failed Islamist revolt in 2000.

Some Christian deputies want a similar amnesty for Lebanese
who worked with the Israelis, infuriating Muslim deputies,
especially those of Hizbollah, the anti-Israeli Shi’ite Muslim
group that fought the 22-year Israeli occupation of the south.

Hizbollah, the only Lebanese group to retain its weapons
openly after the civil war, has vowed to keep them as a
deterrent against Israel. Palestinians permitted to keep light
arms inside refugee camps are also reluctant to give them up.

Lebanese opinion is divided, some viewing the U.N.
resolution as a U.S.-inspired attempt to disarm enemies of
Israel, others arguing that Hizbollah should now stick to
politics and let the state take full control of its territory.