Meeting of the 14 March streams at Maarab Beirut – Georges Chahine A broad scale meeting of the 14 March streams at Maarab, the headquarters of the Lebanese Kataeb (Forces) leadership, urged the Lebanese president and all honest, free Lebanese people to stand up to the dangers surrounding Lebanon. These included the political, security and economic issues, the rejection of the Syrian regime’s plans to flare out the situation in Lebanon as well as Hizbullah’s compliance to Iranian policies in the country.
Based on an invitation from the General Secretariat of the 14 March alliance, a political meeting was held Wednesday afternoon where the different dangers looming around Lebanon and its people at this stage were examined and where the conveners agreed on many points.
The conveners stressed the importance of establishing a permanent and open-ended consulting frame for the March 14 movement that includes all the organisational and independent powers supporting the sovereign headings of the Cedar Revolution.
Conveners agreed that four main dangers require political, popular, and parliamentary mobilisation before its too late including:
1. The Syrian regime’s insistence on causing the security situation in Lebanon to flare out ­ — particularly in north Lebanon, to target civil security through recalling the assassination list, broadening the explosions project and bringing back the kidnapping phenomenon under one main heading and isolating Lebanon from its Arab surroundings and its historical role.
2. The insistence of Iran’s allies in Lebanon to refuse state logic and its sovereign, going further in hijacking the decision of war and peace, and exposing the country to be an arena for regional and international conflict once again to halt any building process. What makes Lebanese people more concerned about their fate is that Hizbullah abandoned the principle of protecting Lebanon and neutralising it as it declared in a statement in B`abda claiming exclusive and solitary responsibility for the fate of the people and land.
3. The danger of bankruptcy threatening Lebanese economy in all its production and financial sectors as a result of intentional policies aimed at causing Lebanon to lose the last factor of its perseverance and immunity. These dangers in addition to the behaviour of some constituents of the government are hastening the fall of the state, its institutions, and its departments.
The consulting meeting of the 14 March alliance, which considers itself in an open-ended meeting, is sounding alarms and urging Lebanese president and all honest and free Lebanese people to face these dangers.
Coordinator of the General Secretariat, Professor Faris Soueid, had spoken at the onset of the meeting where he said: “We hope that this consultative meeting, which the General Secretariat called for, will be a preliminary step to an internal dialogue between the 14 March constituents that leads to two main and interlinked goals as soon as possible: Firstly, producing a joint vision of “what we want and what we should do” at this huge and fatal turn, summarised in the soon-to-come fall of the Syrian regime and the speeding developments in this direction. And secondly, agreeing on a frame and mechanism that allows producing the desired vision and answering questions and missions posed by the developments.
The joint vision poses the challenging question of whether we can turn this great transformation moment into a historic opportunity to start building Lebanon’s permanent peace with its natural conditions and be up for the responsibility or to stand confused and hesitant and contribute – intentionally or unintentionally – in reproducing the Lebanese weariness at a time of relief for the region.
The frames and mechanisms also pose a challenge: can we achieve the historic mission in an exclusive method or does the matter require the broadest March 14, even Lebanese involvement in this mission?
I repeat that the nature of this meeting is a consultative, interactive, gathering nature between the different constituents of the March 14 of parties, independents and civil organisations and not between the General Secretariat and the sponsors of the national site where we meet. We will continue dialogue with all these constituents without any exception.”