Monday, March 14, 2011 Factbox
BEIRUT: The March 14 coalition’s political program for 2011 calls for an end to non-state weapons and the supremacy of Hezbollah’s arms over political life in Lebanon.
Approved during a meeting of the coalition’s leaders last week, which included caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the program stresses that the state should have the sole monopoly over the use of weapons and the defense of Lebanon against any Israeli attack. It also upholds the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The program calls for “defending Lebanon’s threatened sovereignty by confining this mission to the state alone throughout the country, including the Palestinian weapons in and outside the camps.” “Therefore, the tutelage of [Hezbollah’s] arms over the political and social life in Lebanon must end. The heresy that Lebanon is protected by one party must end,” it says.
“We uphold the state sovereignty over all its territory and the need for rallying around the state to work for the liberation of the remaining occupied land,” the program says. “We uphold the resolutions of international legitimacy which support Lebanon’s sovereignty, independence and justice in it.”
“Lebanon faces the danger of again losing its independence and returning to sectarian and confessional divisions which will facilitate all forms of tutelage when the Arab region is breaking out from the prisons of tyranny,” it said. “Lebanon faces the danger of its democracy being muzzled and its system falling, with the use of arms, into the grip of one party and one speech.”
“Confronting these dangers is the responsibility of all of us, both Christians and Muslims,” the program says. The March 14 parties reiterated their commitment to the principles of the Lebanese Constitution and the 1989 Taif Accord, particularly Lebanon’s sovereignty, the unity of its people, its territorial integrity, its democratic parliamentary system and their commitment to the principle of equal power-sharing between religions. They rejected any division of the country or settlement of Palestinians. – The Daily Star
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