14th of March Squeezes the Approval of International Tribunal

Another tension builds up to climax levels in Lebanon, and one of the four controversial topics has been approved on the executive level.

The four debating topics are as follows:

1-The International Tribunal
2- The Presidential Chair
3- The Arms of Hezbollah
4- The Assassinations

The International Tribunal after one year of clashes between the 8th of March (FPM included) and 14th of March blocks have reached critical stages. After different clashes between the 6 Pro-Syrian factions and the rest of the Anti-Syrian Faction, with a lot of "National Dialogues" that are usually compared to a Poker round table with greedy business men dissecting the profits of the nations (with no results) and threats/departures of the Pro-Syrian ministers, the Seniora Government without seven ministers (taking into consideration the assassination of Pierre Gemayel) decided to go through with the vote of accepting the International Tribunal (with the case of Pierre Gemayel in it).

The 14th of March block have regarded the International Tribunal as the key to their problems because they think once Syria is proved as guilty, the 8th of March Block will lose its support among its masses. Sabaa returned as Minister of Interior (after resigning for failure to avoid the assassination of MP Jubran Tuieni) to vote on this controversial decision.

Seniora today asked the six resigned ministers (5 Shiites and 1 Greek Orthodox) to return to the government on the condition that they will postpone the session regarding the International Tribunal. This deal was rejected by Hezbollah and AMAL (close allies to the power-greedy Presidential Chair Aoun) and prefered democratic demonstrations to reveal the true representation of their factions' support within the nation. Capitalists and Business men hoped that this would bring the two factions closer to a national unity. Those are the business men outside the two camps of course.

Meanwhile, the most controversial pull-out from the International Tribunal are the Syrians who parked inside Lebanon for 30 years, while the assassination of Rafiq el Harriri took place during their "mandate" over Lebanon. For now, it is the only country to refute even tackling that issue.

Round Two of Clashes

Despite the Syrian puppy, President Lahoud, objecting to the fact that this urgent session and the whole government is unconstitutional, the only person quoted him was the clown We'am Wahhab. The Governmental Decree if passed voted Parliament does not need the signature of Lahoud. Best thing the President can do, if he refutes the Decree, is delay the application of the decision for 15 days, then the Decree would become legitimate without his signature.

Now where Round 2 stands? The Chairman of the Parliament is no one else but the famous Nabih Berri of AMAL movement (ironically voted by 14th of March last year). Berri may need to support his block by omitting the vote on the agenda or not calling for a Parliamentary meeting to vote on the International Tribunal.

The 14th of March say they are legitimate because they got the support of the majority inside the Parliament. Truth of the matter is that the alliance with Hezbollah and AMAL last year got them the majority of the Parliament in face of Aoun’s faction.

Serious Threat

The threatening part of the whole scenario is the case of Berri declining to call upon the Parliament, and the whole situation would explode if the International Tribunal is adopted in the United Nations through Section 7. Bolton already expressed infinite support to the Seniora Government, while Tony Blair, Merkel, and Rice expressed similar opinions. Bush already called Seniora to express “his condolences” while the cowboy President also called Amin Gemayel twice, two days go, to express again his “condolences”.

If the International Tribunal is passed through Section 7, then we might seriously heading for fist to fist fighting among the different factions. Meanwhile, the unholy alliance between Nasrallah and Aoun declared that despite the sad assassination of Pierre Gemayel, they are still willing to go down to the streets to democratically pull away the government. 8th of March faction has accused Seniora government to make use of the assassination and to link it to other issues. 14th of March argue that Pierre Gemayel was assassinated because of the International Tribunal. Both factions are puppies to outside bourgeoisie.