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that is 500,000Lebanese rally draws 500,000 to mark Hariri's death
Tue Feb 14, 2006 8:05 AM ET
By Nadim Ladki
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Half a million
Leading to the 'Cedar Revolution' which has gotten way too little coverage by MSM.flag-waving Lebanese packed central Beirut on Tuesday, a year to the day after the assassination of former premier Rafik al-Hariri, giving new impetus to Lebanon's anti-Syrian coalition.
The turnout was reminiscent of huge protests after last year's February 14 killing of Hariri and 22 others.
Those demonstrations, coupled with international pressure, forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon, although Damascus denies any role in the assassination.
Do we denote a touch of Syrian problems here?Syria's Lebanese foes said Tuesday's rally would revive a campaign to force pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud to quit and to punish those behind the truck bombing that killed Hariri.
"By being present here today, you foil the conspiracy ... against Lebanon, against Rafik al-Hariri, against Lebanon's freedom, independence and dignity," the former prime minister's son and political heir Saad al-Hariri told the crowd from behind bullet-proof glass.
Believing he too could be killed, Hariri has spent more than six months abroad, but returned to Beirut for the anniversary.
For the past year, the coalition of Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze political forces which organized the rally has been demanding Lahoud's resignation and the truth about Hariri's assassination, which it blames on Damascus.
But it has been weakened by internal squabbling, a wave of bombings and killings, and regional pressure.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt denounced Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as the "tyrant of Damascus" and demanded that Lahoud leave the presidential palace in Baabda, near Beirut.
"Bashar the terrorist brought you, and the Lebanese people will get rid of you," he said, addressing Lahoud.
"Oh Beirut, we want revenge on Lahoud and Bashar," added Jumblatt, who rarely ventures from his mountain home, fearing assassination. "There will be no independence, no sovereignty while the symbol of the Syrian regime sits in Baabda."
At 12:55 (1055 GMT), the exact time of the seafront explosion that hit Hariri's motorcade, the crowd observed a minute's silence followed by chants of "Syria out".
POPULAR MOURNING
"We miss you," read large posters of Hariri. "They feared you, so they killed you," others said. "He lived Lebanon and died for its sake," a black banner read.
"I came here to say that the terrorist Syrian regime that kills will never escape punishment," Amal Yassin, a mother of three, told Reuters as she waved a red-and-white Lebanese flag.
Security officials estimated the crowd at 500,000. The rally's organizers put the number at 1.1 million, more than a quarter of Lebanon's 4 million people. All schools, shops, banks and businesses in the country were shut for the occasion.
However, Shi'ite Muslims, led by the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hizbollah group, largely stayed away.
Thousands of Lebanese soldiers and police were deployed in Beirut and its suburbs as people converged from across Lebanon on Martyrs' Square, the central area where Hariri is buried.
A violent protest earlier this month against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, in which the Danish mission was burned and a church vandalised, underlined the need for vigilance.
A U.N. inquiry has implicated senior Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariri's killing.
Four pro-Syrian generals have been detained and charged with involvement, but no indictments have been issued.
One poster carried the pictures of the four and that of Lahoud above the caption: "Four down, one to go".
The killing of Hariri, a billionaire construction tycoon and prime minister for a total of 10 years between 1992 and 2004, galvanized world support for Lebanon and put pressure on Syria.
Among Hariri's personal friends was French President Jacques Chirac, the driving force behind several U.N. Security Council resolutions on Lebanon and the Hariri investigation.
"The international community's determination to find and punish the guilty on the one hand, and to give Lebanon all the means for independence, security, democracy and freedom, on the other, has not moved at all," Chirac told Future Television on the eve of the anniversary.
Since the Syrian pullout in April, Lebanon has suffered a string of bombings and the assassination of three anti-Syrian figures. Recurrent political crises and the resurfacing of sectarian tensions have raised fears of further instability.
