BEIRUT, Apr. 4, 01 (CWNews.com) - A Muslim leader of the Hezbollah movement rejected a Lebanese cardinal's claim that members of all religions in the country desire to have Syria remove its 35,000 soldiers.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told a crowd gathered for a Shi'ite Muslim holy day, "Those asking for Syria to leave only represent themselves. We are here as a Lebanese sect with a different opinion endorsed by a majority."
Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the patriarch of Maronite Catholics based in Beirut, has called for neighboring Syria to remove its soldiers who entered the country during the 1975-90 civil war. Syria now controls most aspects of Lebanese politics, controlling the country as a virtual fiefdom, and the troops remain the country in violation of the international Taif accord which ended the war.
Many Muslims say privately they want the Syrians to leave, but the Sunni Mufti of Mount Lebanon, the heartland of Christian and Druze opposition, has expressed backing for Damascus.
"I tell all Lebanese and especially the Christians, we seek coexistence. But the old wounds are still there, the language of the civil war persists. We cannot risk (a Syrian pullout). We will destroy our country," Sheikh Nasrallah told a crowd estimated by Hezbollah at 300,000.
Catholic World News Service - Daily News Briefs
4. april 2001