MEDIA REACTION ON LEBANESE ASSASSINATION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 009594

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR,
I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN
USAID/ANE/MEA
LONDON FOR TSOU

E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: KMDR JO
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON LEBANESE ASSASSINATION

Summary

-- Lead story in all papers today, December 13,
focuses on reports about the assassination of Lebanese
MP Gebran Tueni in Lebanon yesterday. All reports
highlight international condemnation of the crime,
including Jordan's denunciation.

Editorial Commentary

-- "No conspiracy theorists"

Centrist, influential among the elite English daily
Jordan Times (12/13) editorializes: "If these attacks
are aimed at silencing the loudest critics of
Damascus, they are obviously counterproductive. After
each bombing, Lebanese opposition against Syria grows
louder and more effective, more and more people take
to the streets, international support for the Lebanese
grows, the language of the international community
against Damascus rings harsher and harsher, and Syria
finds itself even further isolated. The criminals who
are orchestrating all these attacks are definitely
doing Syria no favor. Still, this is no time for
conspiracy theories. Only backward elements, sad
dinosaurs entrenched behind a long-gone cold war
mentality and nave enough to think that anyone could
believe them in this 21st century of ours, would point
the finger at their usual suspects: the Zionist
enemy, imperialist America, or both.. The Mehlis
report had already put Syria in an extremely grave
situation. Yesterday's attack lays the ground for
more suspicions against certain Damascus circles. It
is in everyone's interest that Damascus comes out
clean, and only hard facts - and not empty rhetoric -
will achieve that."

-- "Gebran's assassination and the other face of
terrorism"

Chief Editor Taher Udwan writes on the back-page of
independent, mass-appeal Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm
(12/13): "Everything is possible and all conclusions
are legitimate in this case of terrorism that does not
bear the identity of Al-Qaeda" and that "security in
Lebanon has become exposed in a serious manner and
that the bloody game on its territories continues
either to serve Lebanese internal conflicts or to
serve regional and international purposes seeking to
expand the circle of instability in the lands between
Iraq and the Mediterranean".

-- "Gebran Tueni . and the episodes continue"

Daily columnist Urayb Rantawi writes on the op-ed page
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour
(12/13): "From their standpoint, the killers manage
the killing game among the parties, the sects and the
media organizations at the beat of the investigation
and Mehlis' reports. They think that the more they
shed Lebanese blood, the more they wreak havoc in
Lebanon's social matrix, and hence the more their
chances are of escaping the grip of justice. They
killed whoever 'moaned' about the guardianship in the
past, then they killed whoever called for the truth
and for investigation, and now they prepare to kill
whoever calls for international justice. They are
used to having their crimes, their mass graves, their
assassinations and their killings be forgotten and
overtaken by the lapse of time. One can only respond
to these people by adhering to the truth and to the
investigation. One can only avenge Tueni and his
predecessors and successors by handing the killers
over to an international court."

-- "Assassination of Gebran Tueni a typical detonator!

Daily columnist George Haddad writes on the op-ed page
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour
(12/13): "Without a doubt, the assassination of Tueni
in this manner will re-ignite what Bush and Rice had
called 'the revolution of the cedars" in the aftermath
of Hariri's assassination when the days and months
were sufficient to cool it down and to put its fires.
That "revolution of the cedars" did not succeed in
achieving its objectives. That revolution, although,
with international pressure, succeeded in effecting
Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, it failed and
continues to fail in achieving its other objectives,
namely the disarmament of the Lebanese, Islamic and
Palestinian resistance. Furthermore, from the
perspective of the cedars rebels, the international
investigation . could not come up with any conclusive
evidence that would prove the pre-set charges and
accusations. This failure increased doubts and
created more difficulties for directing the
investigation in the targeted direction, which in turn
made it difficult to charge a specific party with the
assassination of Hariri in a manner that would make
pursuing and besieging that party with unjust
international decision acceptable and permissible and
even a form of justice. Thus came the media leaks
from Paris and Washington that the Security Council is
going to extend the investigation another six months
only in order to finalize it with entertaining the
idea of imposing sanctions on the suspected Syrians.
Such a development means only one thing: the
objectives behind the Hariri assassination, with all
accompanied instigations, repercussions, rumors,
divisions, alliances, explosions and instability,
reached the maximum and were still not accomplished.
Under these circumstances, the planners who stand to
benefit from the assassination crime had to think of
something, an event, an assassination, that would
breathe life into the dying fire that followed the
Hariri assassination.. What does all this have to do
with the assassination of Gebran Tueni? We do not
know, but what we do know is that Tueni's
assassination may be the new typical detonator that is
designed to take the crime of Hariri's assassination
back to square one, that to re-ignite the fire that
was almost dying out".

-- "Investigation and international court"

Daily columnist Jamil Nimri writes on the back-page of
independent Arabic daily Al-Ghad (12/13): "What good
is it to argue about who is behind the crime? One can
easily say that targeting one of the most prominent
opponents of Syria is a conspiracy to incriminate
Syria . but for how long are the enemies of Syria
going to keep on killing Syria's opponents in Lebanon?
This is a difficult formula for the Lebanese to
digest, particularly those who may be targeted. Let
there be an international investigation then and let
it be comprehensive and include yesterday's heinous
crime and all the other crimes since the Hariri
assassination. There is definite logic in the demand
for a wide scale international investigation, and if
Syria is innocent, then not even a thousand
investigators can prove its involvement. Syria's
political conduct towards Lebanon does not show any
forgiveness or readiness to turn the page of hegemony
and guardianship. The Syrian minister's remarks
yesterday, reminding everyone that Lebanon was safe
when Syria was there, is not good and evokes a sense
of threat. Once again, we do not rule out the
hypothesis that another party or intelligence system,
including the Mossad, may be involved. But there is
no solution to this situation other than seeking the
help of the international community". HALE