Lebanese opposition celebrates Syrian pullout

Lebanese opposition celebrates Syrian pullout
Saturday, April 30, 2005Associated Press
Beirut — Cheering Lebanese — some carrying banners reading, "Finally!" — drove east Saturday in a convoy of 100 cars toward the abandoned Syrian intelligence headquarters, celebrating Damascus' military withdrawal from their nation after nearly three decades.
Meanwhile, a UN team met the Lebanese army commander at the beginning of its mission to verify Syria's pullout after 29 years of military and political domination of its smaller neighbor. That pullout was completed Tuesday.
Hundreds of people waving Lebanese flags and pictures of exiled Christian leader Michel Aoun drove in a honking and cheering convoy from Beirut to eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley town of Anjar.
However, they were blocked a few miles from the town by Lebanese troops, who had taken over the area apparently to prevent a repeat of celebrations by residents and anti-Syrian activists. In evacuations of other sites, activists have swept in with Lebanese flags and paint to erase Syrian military symbols.
The group planned to hold a celebration in Syria's former intelligence headquarters — once the nerve center through which Damascus controlled much of the country's affairs. The site was a stark symbol of Damascus' power as the place where Syria decided policy in Lebanon, including who ran for office and who was arrested.
The group largely comprised supporters of Aoun, a former army commander who waged a war on Syria in 1989 that ended with his exile in France, where he has been lobbying for a Syrian withdrawal since. He has set May 7 as the date for his return to Lebanon.
Also, about 1,000 Aoun supporters celebrated Syria's withdrawal in the Christian village of al-Qa'a, about a half-mile from the Lebanese-Syrian border.
Waving pictures of Aoun and Lebanese flags, they shouted, "Freedom, sovereignty and independence!" — the slogan of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. A speaker at the rally said some Syrian soldiers remained in the mountainous areas, but a Lebanese security official could not confirm the claim.
Residents of the Bekaa town of Deir el-Ashaer on the Lebanese-Syrian mountain border also complained that Syrian troops continued to maintain a military base in the area. Witnesses on Saturday reported seeing some 40 tents and 50 Syrian trucks and military vehicles at the base a few hundred yards inside the border.
Residents said they have handed over official documents to the Lebanese army supporting their claim that the area was owned by Lebanese.
Meanwhile, the UN team headed by Brig. Gen. Elhadji Mouhamadou Kandji of Senegal met Syrian officials in Damascus and received maps of the bases Syria abandoned and an account of the pullout. The team is expected to visit vacated locations.
It was unclear when the process would begin or how long it would take.
Syrian forces entered Lebanon as peacekeepers in 1976, a year after the start of Lebanon's civil war. When that war ended in 1990, the Syrian troops remained, reaching 40,000 in number as they ran the country unchallenged.
Lebanese army commander Michel Suleiman also met with another U.N. team, an advance party preparing for the arrival of international investigators probing the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
His killing in a massive bombing in Beirut sparked anti-Syrian protests and intensified international pressure that eventually forced Syria's military withdrawal.
Lebanon's opposition has accused the former pro-Syrian government in Beirut and its Syrian backers of being behind the assassination — charges both governments deny.