Hamade: Berri Eulogized the Arab Initiative

Minister of communications Marwan Hamade said Sunday a recent statement by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was tantamount to “eulogizing the Arab initiative”

 

Hamade, speaking to Voice of Lebanon Radio, said Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa”s mission in Damascus has “failed.”

 

“We know what it means in (Moussa”s) diplomatic parlance to describe his mission as serious and detailed,” he added.

 

Moussa, he added, “would not despair immediately, he would try once again, but he has concluded from his Damascus visit and the contacts he held in Lebanon, who is blocking and who is facilitating (his mission).”

 

Hamade recalled that calls for distribution of power along a tripartite formula was “the reason for conflict between (the late) cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel and Hizbullah ministers.”

 

Gemayel was gunned down by unidentified assailants on Nov. 21 2006.

 

“The tripartite formula has one aim, and that is to finish the democratic parliamentary system.”

 

He cautioned that the issue “has been placed on a constitutional path, unless the recipe is a new civil war in which 100.000 people would be killed and the Christians would lose their share in power.”

 

Responding to a threat by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hamade said: “We (March 14) would shoulder our responsibilities too … The government is legal and would stay in power.”

 

He asked Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman to “accept his election president first, to carry out

consultations after that with the aim of forming a national unity cabinet.”

 

“The army commander has a responsibility (to shoulder) in this regard,” Hamade added.