Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06BEIRUT3565
2006-11-07 12:09:00
SECRET
Embassy Beirut
Cable title:  

LEBANON: SPARKS FLY ON FIRST DAY OF NATIONAL

Tags:  PGOV PREL PTER LE 
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S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 05 BEIRUT 003565 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/MARCHESE/HARDING
STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/FO:ATACHCO

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/06/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER LE
SUBJECT: LEBANON: SPARKS FLY ON FIRST DAY OF NATIONAL
CONSULTATIONS


Classified By: Jeffrey D. Feltman, Ambassador. Reason: 1.4 (d)

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 05 BEIRUT 003565

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/MARCHESE/HARDING
STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/FO:ATACHCO

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/06/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER LE
SUBJECT: LEBANON: SPARKS FLY ON FIRST DAY OF NATIONAL
CONSULTATIONS


Classified By: Jeffrey D. Feltman, Ambassador. Reason: 1.4 (d)


1. (S) Druze Telecommunications Minister and frequent Embassy
contact Marwan Hamadeh (protect) read to Ambassador and
polchief his notes from the first day of the national
consultations sponsored by Chamber of Deputies Speaker Nabih
Berri. Hamadeh characterized the consultations as "heading
for an impasse" but nevertheless claimed that March 14
representatives scored a "victory on points."


2. (S) There were several significant and telling moments
captured in Hamadeh's notes. For example, the day's
exchanges saw Prime Minister Siniora openly blame Hizballah
for starting the war that landed Lebanon in its current dire
straits. Speaker Berri called for keeping the same
government in place with little or no change in the current
line up, as long as the government could be expanded. Lahoud
ally Michel Murr agreed that Siniora should remain PM.
Mustaqbal Leader Saad Hariri demanded "56% of the Presidency"
in exchange for the March 8 demand of 44% of the cabinet
(percentages that correspond with parliamentary
representation). Hariri and Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt
accused Syria of assassinating Rafiq Hariri and of
interfering in Lebanon's affairs and acknowledged that he
wants to see the Syrian regime overthrown. March 14 leaders
insisted on changing the president before expanding the
cabinet. Finally, Hizballah representative Mohammed Ra'ad
tried a conciliatory stance on cabinet expansion, which
provoked an open attack by his ally, Free Patriotic Movement
Leader Michel Aoun, who insisted on obtaining four cabinet
seats "even if it comes out of your (Hizballah's) share."


3. (S) The following are the notable points made by each
participant, paraphrased from Hamadeh's notes. Begin Quote:

Berri: Each party must not resort to its "street" because
there are many "streets." We need a "media truce" or else
anything we accomplish here will collapse.

Mustaqbal Party Leader Saad Hariri: I'm for a media truce,
but everything will leak. Berri must guarantee our

confidentiality. There is always one party who talks and

SIPDIS
escapes blame and another who doesn't, yet gets blamed.

Qornet Shahwan MP Boutros Harb: There are two types of
interlocutors, those who talk (i.e., betray confidences) and
those who don't.

Hizballah MP Mohammed Ra'ad: We are in the midst of high
tension. Lets get out of it progressively. But a media
truce doesn't mean we can't express our point of view.

Berri: What we say here should stay between us and secret.
I want to keep order in these proceedings. The guarantee
Hariri asks for depends on your commitment.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora: Everyone in Beirut is
suffering from high tension. During the past 30 years we
haven't seen so much tension. Give the country a chance.
The Lebanese people are the most pessimistic ever. Don't
count on the Lebanese to rise up -- they're tired. The boat
is not strong and is in a bad situation. Everything will
collapse -- the pound, the economy. People will be
impoverished. Every day on television people are injected
with tension, under orders. The formula for Lebanon will
collapse. Where are you pushing the country to? Everyone is
laughing at us.

Berri: What you are saying is being recorded for the sake of
accuracy.

Free Patriotic Movement Leader Michel Aoun: I asked for a
national unity government because there's no justice in our
representation.

Publisher Ghassan Tueni: The media is not responsible for
leaks, you are.

Lebanese Forces Leader Samir Ja'ja': What Aoun is presenting
regarding a national unity government seems normal but I will
talk about it later. We need to publish everything that was
said and agreed to in the National Dialogue (that took place

BEIRUT 00003565 002 OF 005


between March and July 2006). I'm for reducing the tone of
the rhetoric but not for hiding the proceedings.

Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt: Some of the media are
off-track, and insulting.

Harb: How can we make sure not to have leaks?

Ja'ja': How can we have representation of all parties? We
have different visions for Lebanon. The government must
represent a single vision. For that reason, we cannot put
everyone in government. We each read the events of July
differently -- there is a very big difference. The political
feud isn't about numbers of seats, its about principles.

Tueni: There should be a place for opposition in the
political system; it keeps government from going too far. If
you want to amend the Ta'if Agreement, then lets do it. Make
a table of priorities.

Berri: Let there be no amendments to Ta'if. This is our
constitution and we are committed to it.

Harb: We paid for Ta'if with blood and must keep it. The
government is not an end, its a means. Its normal and
healthy to have elections every four years. We can't rely on
opinion polls to govern. They're unreliable and manipulated
anyway. A national unity government could be formed at an
extraordinary time, but at this point it would be a
contradiction of the elected government, and we must refuse
it. When Ta'if talked of a national unity government, it was
to establish Lebanon as a state. If we agree on a common
program, let's proceed, but we don't. The presence of the
opposition shouldn't deprive the government of the right to
govern.

Berri: I have never sought early elections. As for the
electoral law, it need not be undertaken now. We can begin
discussions on it now, as we can on Paris III. When I went
to Jeddah, I was discussing the electoral law and the donors
conference.

Hariri: I would like to remind Michel Murr that there was a
proposal to put the army in the Chouf to guarantee his
election.

Lahoud Ally Michel Murr: No, I always won my elections. If
you want a way out, it is the national unity government.
Aoun did not refuse an offer of four ministers, he was only
offered two. There need be no change of the government or of
the Ministerial Statement. No one wants the Prime Minister
to be changed. He represents all of us. This should make
Samir Ja'ja' more at ease, and alleviate tension between him
and Michel Aoun.

Aoun: There's no tension between us. But if Christians are
comforted and Hizballah is more at ease, won't that be better
and less tense overall?

Hariri: The blocking one-third is unacceptable. There is
already a blocking President. It is nonsense to talk of
elections every day. If you want 44% of government
(corresponding with parliamentary percentages),I say let me
have 56% of the Presidency. If you want to talk about a
blocking third, lets talk about a blocking President. What
is left of the four points we agreed on before? If we have a
blocking one-third, we will have no Paris III; no comfort or
money; and emigration. In Mustaqbal, we don't want to
threaten or ignore anyone. All the strategic decisions we
took in consultation with you, except the Tribunal. We're
not against the Resistance either since you're sticking to
the Ministerial Statement.

Siniora: We're in a disaster. We need to avoid a new crisis
as you suggest. We'll reach an agreement on an electoral
law, but the crisis is a crisis of confidence and accusations
of treason are not acceptable.

Hariri: I have one conviction: that Syria killed my father.
Yet I still agreed (in the National Dialogue) to the proposal
to establish diplomatic relations with Syria. If you go to
the street (addressing Ra'ad) we will meet you there. Either

BEIRUT 00003565 003 OF 005


there's a comprehensive settlement or none.

Aoun: The electoral law is rotten. You (the March 14
forces) also cancelled the constitutional council, and
administrative appointments were not consulted upon with us.
If we participate we want exact calculations.

Zahle Bloc MP Elie Skaff: The Minister of the Interior is
fighting against us. Acting Minister Fatfat is illegitimate
because his predecessor is still in the country. The debt of
the country will explode.

Ra'ad: This is not a normal crisis, it is an exceptional
one. Its a popular crisis also. We have a lot of
psychological tension. We have our fears also. What
happened during the war doesn't comfort us. I don't impugn
your patriotic virtues, but you accuse us of everything.
Last year there was a national agreement (the cabinet
statement from July 2005, that included "protection of the
resistance") but you're not respecting it. We now have two
majorities. Don't think that we are going to make a coup
d'etat. We have some time. We came out of the war bearing
some heavy consequences. This government is blocking
everything. We're not putschists and we don't want to go
back to war either. You accuse us of following Syria's
orders. Can we now organize this division between us? We
can no longer bear this government. We're for the
implementation of Ta'if point by point. But everyone has his
interpretation. Why are you afraid of the street? There has
been no budget for two years. We want more than a third of
the cabinet.

Siniora: This government represents everyone except Aoun.
Everything has been discussed with you (addressing Ra'ad)
except the (decision on December 12, 2005, when the Shia
walked out of the cabinet to ask the UN to establish the)
Tribunal. But you promised us here, at the Dialogue table,
that you wouldn't do anything outside the Sheba'a Farms or
some acts to remind people of the occupation. Then on July
12 I was sitting with the President, for the first time in a
long time, attending to some administrative matters and I
discovered that you began a war with Israel without
consulting with anyone. This government achieved the Seven
Points; this government concluded UNSCR 1701; this government
deployed the army to the south; this government stopped the
war; this government put the country back together; and this
government is solving the problems you have created.

Jumblatt: And you accuse us of treason. When we (the March
14 representatives) met with Secretary Rice during thw war,
we saved you from Chapter Seven. We told her that it was
impossible, that it would blow the country up.

Siniora: Government is not the place to open up debate and
insult each other. We were for dialogue on everything except
the Tribunal. It is true we need a budget. No one will
assist us without reforms, but reforms mean change, and none
of you want change. If you continue like this then say
goodbye to the Lebanese pound. We have to agree on the whole
program before we can include anyone in government.

Berri: We're not trying to topple the government. We have
to remember that one-half of the country received the other
half with generosity during the war. Walid Jumblatt was the
first to say that Hizballah won the war by resisting. If we
could agree during the war then why not now?

Tueni: Do you agree to the Tribunal?

Berri: Everything we agreed to in the National Dialogue is
still agreed. We don't want any change. I want no change of
government, no change of ministers, don't change anything.

Kata'eb Party Leader Amin Gemayel: I'm not a candidate for
president and I'd like everyone else to say the same.

Aoun: We were prepared to go to the street but now we are to
not go and thus accomplish nothing?

Hariri: I insist on a global settlement. Everything we're
suffering now is because of the President. Things should be
solved practically or we will also have to go to the street.

BEIRUT 00003565 004 OF 005



Gemayel: If we had had a government of national unity on
July 11 then maybe we wouldn't have gone to war. If we
change the government we should do it by constitutional means.

Jumblatt: When we were united and told Secretary Rice one
vision, we got a good outcome to the war. The national unity
government is the end of democracy. If we don't agree on a
new president then the problem will remain open.

Berri: What we ask is to bring Aoun into the government, and
Aoun alone.

Jumblatt: We want a peaceful settlement. (To Ra'ad) We must
agree on a flexible assimilation of your situation. I won't
talk about how the war started. We don't agree on the
details of the Tribunal. You attacked Mehlis, you attacked
the Tribunal before Gebran Tueni was killed. I oppose the
Syrian regime and it should be toppled. You, Ra'ad, have an
axis that is for certain purposes, but Syria must go. If you
go on opposing the Tribunal you are accusing yourself.
Lahoud is a fool.

Ra'ad: We want a third or more of the cabinet.

Hariri: Does your time limit still apply?

(Ra'ad: No answer.)

Berri: Its my time limit, because I have to travel to
Teheran.

Harb: We have to go back to the two presidencies (i.e.,
President of the Republic and President of the Council of
Ministers, or Prime Minister).

Murr: We (the pro-Syrians) had eight and a half ministers --
Culture Minister Tarek Mitri was not solidly with us -- but
now that has changed (with the defection of Elias Murr and
Charles Rizk away from the pro-Syrian camp and with Mitri's
full support of Siniora). We want to restore that formula
(i.e., give the pro-Syrians a blocking minority).

Ra'ad: We asked for a national unity government before the
war, by all legal means. We have good intentions; why not
trust us? All we ask is for the national unity government.
We admire Walid Jumblatt's stubbornness.

Jumblatt: That's not enough; I wish I had your missiles!

Ra'ad: (Regarding the tribunal, w)e want to make sure
there's no injustice to anyone, therefore we're entering the
details.

Hariri: I have no problem (expanding the cabinet) but first
we settle the question of the President. No one is trying to
hit or disarm Hizballah, but everyone is raising tensions on
television, etc. Don't you believe Rafiq Hariri was killed
by treachery? If we don't have the Paris III conference
neither Saudi Arabia nor Iran can bring us out of this mess.
(Omar) Karami (who assumed the premiership at Syrian behest
after Rafiq Hariri's October 2004 resignation) was the one
who ran the government of hegemony, not us.

Berri: Just show me how I can settle the issue of the
President, then we'll do it. If we settle on principles then
dialogue can continue. We need approval of the concept (of
expanding the cabinet). But if not things can get very bad.

Ra'ad: Rizk, Mitri and Murr were Lahoud's ministers. Now
they are not. Why not change them, or just two of them for
Aoun?

Aoun: (angry at Ra'ad) I'm not in a hurry to enter any
government, and I won't settle for less than four ministers,
even if it comes out of your (Hizballah's) share! If you
want to continue like that go on without me, I'm going home.

Ra'ad et al.: (Try to calm Aoun down.)

Berri decides to adjourn the consultations until 11 a.m. on
Tuesday.

BEIRUT 00003565 005 OF 005



End Quote.
FELTMAN