Hezbollah urged to save Lebanon

Former President of Lebanon, and leader of the Phalange Party, Amin Gemayel has called on Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, to join efforts in order to save their country. He said Lebanon was under threat of breaking up, and stressed a need for an urgent transparent solution to end the crisis which has spilled over from neighbouring Syria. Pro-government forces belonging to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have been battling with the Free Syrian Army since 2011, which calls for his removal.  The conflict has regularly spilled over the border, with attacks repeatedly targeting innocent residents. For the second year in a row, Lebanon’s economy has continued to shrink, under the burden of a largescale number of refugees crossing the border, to escape the fighting. Hezbollah has been repeatedly accused of sending fighters to aid the Assad regime. Gemayel said the group, should not interfere with the crisis, and needed to express its commitment to the ‘Babeda Declaration’, which is an agreement to keep Lebanon neutral to regional developments. Gemayel said, “If different parties have not met across the negotiating table, they should conduct bilateral talks to restore their relations”. A de facto government would be created, he said, if political groups could not reach reconciliation, but warned of consequences similar to those of the events in 2008.  Fighting raged throughout the country, after a 17 month long political crisis spiralled out of control when the government moved to shut down Hezbollah’s telecommunication network. He accused the group of turning its weapons on the Lebanese people after it had vowed to protect the country from Israel. Gemayel blamed various external powers for providing funding and weaponry to groups who sought to destabilise Lebanon.