Protesters show support for Syria
BEIRUT, Lebanon – Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators sang and waved flags and anti-American posters Tuesday in a display of support for the militant Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah, which opposes a Bush administration demand that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon.
The three-hour protest, which packed the square in front of the United Nations building, dwarfed three weeks of almost daily, but much smaller, demonstrations by anti-Syrian Lebanese that have captured worldwide attention and led to calls from Washington and Europe for Syrian troops to leave Lebanon.
The huge demonstration marked a political coming out of Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who made a rare appearance outside his heavily guarded compound in southern Beirut to address the rally. No Hezbollah leader has ever taken a significant role in Lebanese national politics.
Hezbollah has grown from a small Iran-backed militia that launched repeated attacks against Israeli troops on Lebanese soil in the 1980s. The group is also blamed for the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed 241 servicemen, as well as the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut the same year and the bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in 1984.
While Hezbollah continues to launch sporadic attacks across the border on Israel, it has gradually evolved into an organization that also provides a wide range of social services to Lebanon’s Shiite Muslims, who comprise Lebanon’s largest ethnic group with up to 40 percent of the population. Hezbollah, which remains heavily armed, dominates local government in areas where it is active and has 12 representatives in the parliament.
Loudspeakers blared Lebanon’s national anthem repeatedly, with demonstrators joining in to sing the words. Some carried signs with such slogans as, “All our disasters are from America.”
Nasrallah blasted the United States and the idea that Lebanon was joining a democratic movement similar to Ukraine or Georgia.
“I would like to ask our compatriots and those observing us from the outside: Are these hundred of thousands all puppets? Is this entire crowd agents for the Syrians and Lebanese (intelligence agencies)? Nasrallah asked the cheering crowd. “To America and President Bush: You’re wrong in your calculations about Lebanon.”
The Bush administration has repeatedly called for an immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
The demonstration highlighted the depth of Lebanon’s ethnic divide, which has split the nation between pro- and anti-Syrian factions.
The anti-Syrian movement, which has united Christians, Druze and many Muslims since the Feb. 14 assassination of opposition leader Rafik Hariri, seeks to cut Syrian domination of Lebanese affairs and to send back some 15,000 troops who have occupied the country since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.