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A flood of adhesions to the petition: “Syria
out of Lebanon Now!”
Aldo Torchiaro
We are
not alone in the mobilization for democracy in Lebanon. The appeal of “L’opinione”,
relaunched yesterday by press agencies has immediately captured the attention
it is worth of. Important
personalities from the world of politics, culture and media have shared our words and signed them. Margherita Boniver released a
declaration of “admiration” yesterday although she did not sign due to
institutional reasons. Emma
Bonino declared that she is working in the same direction through a query in
the Europarliament of Strasburg. The
secretary of the Italian radicals, Daniele Capezzone, adhered “willingly”
to our petition. The same did
figures from Italian Liberalism like Raffaele Costa. The parliamentarian Chiara Moroni, of
the new PSI (Italian Socialist Party), adhered and signed. Massimo Teodori, liberal intellectual,
and president of “Benedetti Americani” (Blessed Americans) was among the
first to sign. Thus did Davide
Giacalone, republican and editorialist of L’opinione, and the popular TV emcee Marco
Taradash, who insisted to be one of the first to sign. The regional deputy of Lazio Claudio
Bucci, from Forza Italia adhered. So
did, for the redaction of Ideazione, Pierluigi Mennitti and Andrea Mancia.
Dozens of emails arrived to our redaction signing our petition by old and new
readers. Antonio Funiciello of
Libertà Eguale, Stefano Cresta of Verdi of the Lazio, Marco Campione of Ds (Left
Democrats) of Milano, have opened the way for sustainers from the Left to the
petition for the liberation of Lebanon.
The
site www.forze-libanesi.com
introduced the petition in Arabic and spread it through newsletters to
thousands of Lebanese in Italy and in Lebanon.
Contemporarily, the day was intense on the other side of the
Mediterranean: the Lebanese
opposition asked Israel to encourage the USA to continue with the pressures on
Syria to withdraw from the country of cedars.
This was written by the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz according to
which some leaders of the opposition in Beirut have contacted, among others,
Uri Lubrani, the counsellor of the Israeli minister of Defence Shaul Mofaz, to
whom they assured their determination to insist until all 14,000 Syrian
military forces leave Lebanon and the necessity of the American support. The same leaders made clear afterwards
that they do not have claims against Israel, sustaining that they do not
understand the insistence of Hezbollah in keeping a situation of conflict in
the area of the Sheba factories which remained under the control of the Hebrew
state after the withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000.
President
G. W. Bush intervened on the situation and asked Syria to leave Lebanon
“before May”, “not only the troops but all those who work for the
Syrians, in particular those who work for the secret services”. In an interview
to the New York Post, Bush answered negatively to the journalist who asked him
if there was threat of a military action in the contrary case. “The alternative is a further
isolation of Syria from the world”. “But
a president should never exclude any option”, affirmed Bush. “when the US say something, it is what they really want to
say. And this is what I really
wanted to say when I said ‘withdraw all your troops’, and not 94% of them”. “A Lebanon capable to express itself
freely at the polls should not have Syrian agents around”, concluded the
American president.
http://www.opinione.it/pages.php?naz=naz&key=art&edi=51&id=798
05-03-05
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