POLITICS: U.N. Chief to Probe Killing of Lebanon’s Ex-Premier

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 15 2005 (IPS) - The U.N. Security Council has asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate and report on the circumstances under which Lebanon’s ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri and 11 others were killed in a massive bomb attack on the streets of Beirut Monday.

The U.N. Security Council has asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate and report on the circumstances under which Lebanon’s ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri and 11 others were killed in a massive bomb attack on the streets of Beirut Monday.

In a unanimous resolution adopted Tuesday, the 15-member Security Council requested Annan to "report urgently" on the "circumstances, causes and consequences of this terrorist act."

"The Security Council is concerned by the potential for further destabilisation of Lebanon, and expresses hope that the Lebanese people will be able to emerge from this terrible event united," the resolution said.

Asked if the United Nations could send an international force into Lebanon to thwart the possibility of a renewed civil war in the once strife-torn country, Annan told reporters: "This is not something one rushes into."

"This is the first time that there are any indications calling for an international force, and this is something that would have to be looked at very, very carefully," he added.

Currently, the United Nations has a 2,000-strong peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon that was established back in March 1978. But this force was created to maintain the peace along the Lebanese-Israeli border, near the village of Naqoura.

So far, some 250 U.N. peacekeepers have died serving UNIFIL, which costs about 97 million dollars annually for upkeep.

Monday’s huge bomb blast killed not only the 60-year-old billionaire businessman, who resigned as prime minister last October, but also six bodyguards and five passers-by. More than 125 were injured by the blast, which has threatened to destabilise Lebanon after more than a decade of peace.

Hariri’s resignation was apparently prompted by the continued political and military stranglehold on Lebanon by neighbouring Syria.

The ex-prime minister also irked the Syrians last year by refusing to support a constitutional amendment that permitted the pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud to continue in office for a second six-year term.

Lahoud, a former army commander, was first elected president in October 1998 with the blessings of the former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, father of the current President Bashar al-Assad.

At present, there are about 14,000 Syrian troops stationed near the Lebanese-Syrian border, reduced from about 25,000 sent into Lebanon in 1976, after the beginning of the country’s devastating civil war in 1975.

Asked to confirm media reports that U.N. special envoy Terje Roed Larsen had warned Hariri about the imminent danger, Annan told reporters: "I don’t want to get into details of my discussion with Larsen." However, Annan admitted that Larsen was in the region last week to deliver letters to Lahoud and to al-Assad.

Pressed for specifics, Annan said: "I am not in a position to go into details as to what Larsen reported to me."

The letters from Annan related to the implementation of resolution 1559, adopted last September, which calls for the withdrawal of all "foreign troops" from Lebanon, disbanding all militias and extending government control over the whole country.

Although the resolution did not specifically mention Syria by name, the only significant foreign forces in Lebanon are Syrian.

But Annan said that "the discussions we had with them was that we needed to see more progress".

"I hope that there will be actual action and actual signs, clear signs of withdrawal, by the time I submit my next report to the Security Council, which is due in April," Annan added.

Tuesday’s resolution, which was apparently drafted by France, had initially referred to last September’s resolution calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops. But fearing this would split the Security Council vote, France was persuaded to delete the reference to the earlier resolution from Tuesday’s draft.

The United States, which has warned Syria on several occasions against funding and arming terrorist groups infiltrating into neighbouring Iraq, has consistently demanded the withdrawal of all Syrian troops from Lebanon.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters Monday that there was no concrete evidence of Syrian involvement in the bomb attack. "We condemn this brutal attack in the strongest possible terms," he said.

"It is a terrible reminder that the Lebanese people must be able to pursue their aspirations and determine their own political future free from violence and intimidation, and free from Syrian occupation."

Expressing "profound outrage" over the killings, the George W. Bush administration has also recalled its ambassador based in Damascus, Margaret Scobey.

"I have been careful to say that we do not know at this time who committed the murder," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday.

Anne Patterson, U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters Tuesday that the message from the Security Council was clear: "That other countries should get out of Lebanese affairs."