Lebanon’s political divide deepened as supporters of premier Saad Hariri affirmed backing for a United Nations inquiry into his father’s killing, hours after Hezbollah and its allies brought down his government.
“There will be no compromise over the tribunal or justice,” Labor Minister and Hariri ally Boutros Harb said in a televised statement in Beirut, calling yesterday’s resignation of 11 ministers an attempt at “political paralysis.”
Hezbollah, whose backer Syria was the target of street protesters blaming it for Rafiq Hariri’s killing in 2005, has demanded an end to the UN inquiry, saying it is biased. Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, announcing the cabinet walkout at a press conference in Beirut yesterday, said that Hariri had “succumbed to external pressure, including from the U.S.”
Hariri was in Washington for a meeting with President Barack Obama when Bassil made his announcement.
Tensions in Lebanon have escalated as the UN tribunal prepares to issue an indictment, on concern it may implicate Hezbollah in the killing. That would raise the prospect of a return to violence in a country that emerged from a 15-year civil war in 1990 and has seen frequent recurrences of sectarian strife since then.
Hezbollah and Syria deny responsibility for Hariri’s death. The Shiite Muslim group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a Nov. 11 speech that Hezbollah won’t allow its members to be detained and would “cut off the hand” of anyone who attempted to arrest them.
Indictment Due
UN prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is due to file charges with the pretrial judge, Daniel Fransen, by the end of March.
Hezbollah and its partners held 10 of Lebanon’s 30 Cabinet seats. An 11th minister, Adnan Sayyed Hussein, also quit, the National News Agency reported, enough to topple Saad Hariri’s year-old national unity coalition. Bassil called on President Michel Suleiman to take the necessary steps for the formation of a new government.
“The government is considered to have resigned under the constitution, so until the next government is formed it can only perform routine administration,” said Chibli Mallat, a Lebanese lawyer and visiting professor at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
President Barack Obama, after meeting Saad Hariri in Washington yesterday, said the Hezbollah-led resignations “only demonstrate their own fear and determination to block the government’s ability to conduct its business and advance the aspirations of all of the Lebanese people.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the walkout a “transparent effort” to subvert justice.
Fighting Israel
The U.S. classifies Hezbollah, which won support by helping to push an occupying Israeli army out of south Lebanon in 2000, as a terrorist group.
Saad Hariri left Washington late yesterday for Paris, where he will meet President Nicolas Sarkozy. France confirmed “its attachment to the work of the special tribunal and to its independence,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
The prospect of a government collapse pushed Lebanese stocks to the biggest drop since July. The benchmark BLOM Stock Index tumbled 3.2 percent to 1,488.65. Confirmation that the ministers had quit came after markets had closed.
“The fluctuation of share prices on the Beirut Stock Exchange is driven by political sentiment rather than by the underlying performance of listed companies,” said Nassib Ghobril, head of research at Lebanon’s Byblos Bank SAL.
Growth at Risk
Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the government may set back an economy that performed “remarkably well” through the global economic crisis because of the “more stable environment” under Saad Hariri, according to an October report by the Washington- based International Monetary Fund. The IMF projected growth of 5 percent this year, slowing from 8 percent in 2010.
Political tension has already hurt the economy and Hezbollah’s walkout will “erode confidence and may heighten the risk of a further slowdown,” Eric Mottu, the IMF representative in Beirut, said in a phone interview yesterday. “For growth, investment, consumption and tourism it could be a risk.”
An additional concern is how the resignations “translate onto the street,” said Walid Arbid, a law professor at the Lebanese University in Beirut.
The last time Hezbollah walked out of a government, quitting the Cabinet of then prime minister Fouad Siniora in 2006, it marked the start of an 18-month political paralysis. That culminated in an outbreak of civil strife in May 2008, when at least 80 people were killed after Hezbollah and its allies seized control of west Beirut.
Syria Out
Rafiq Hariri and 22 others were killed by a roadside bomb in Beirut in February 2005, sparking protests by millions of Lebanese that led to the ouster of Syrian troops from the country after 29 years.
An initial UN inquiry charged four pro-Syrian officials in Lebanon’s security services. They were held in jail for four years before being released in 2009 by the tribunal due to a lack of evidence, after some witnesses changed or retracted statements. Hezbollah has called for the prosecution of the so- called “false witnesses.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Lebanon, at mderhally@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Louis Meixler at lmeixler@bloomberg.net.
Lage des Libanon

 Die Minister der islamistischen Hisbollah, der Partei Gottes und ihre Verbündeten haben ihre Minister aus der libanesischen Regierung zurückgezogen und somit eine Regierungskrise in dem Staat an der Levante hervorgerufen. Der Rücktritt der Minister erfolgte, nachdem sich Ministerpräsident Saad al-Hariri nach Angaben aus dem libanesischen Präsidentenpalast weigerte, eine Kabinettssitzung einzuberufen, in der sich die libanesische Regierung vom Sondertribunal für den Libanon distanzieren sollte. Das Mandat des Sondertribunals in Den Haag besteht in der Anklage und Verurteilung der Beteiligten und Hintermänner an dem Attentat auf Rafiq al-Hariri, einem ehemaligen Ministerpräsidenten und Vater des derzeitigen Ministerpräsidenten des Landes. Al-Hariri und 24 weitere Personen wurden im März 2005 durch einen Autobombenanschlag in Beirut getötet. Das Attentat hatte die Zedernrevolution ausgelöst.

Die Canadian Broadcasting Corporation hatte im November berichtet, dass Hisbollah-Mitglieder die Hariri-Ermordung organisiert hätten. Es wird demnach erwartet, dass in der Anklageschrift des Tribunals Vorwürfe gegen Hisbollah-Angehörige erhoben werden. In dem Zusammenhang hatten politische Beobachter die Befürchtung geäußert, dass Hisbollah die Regierung stürzen und durch Unruhen in den Straßen die Macht im Libanon an sich reißen könnte. Bereits im Mai 2008 hatten Unruhen die Angst vor einem neuen Bürgerkrieg geschürt. Im Libanon herrschte von 1975 bis 1990 ein blutiger Bürgerkrieg, der hunderttausende von Menschenleben forderte.

Hisbollah hatte im vergangenen Jahr das von den Vereinten Nationen eingesetzte Tribunal als „israelisches Projekt“ bezeichnet, dessen Ziel es sei, Hisbollah zu schaden. Hisbollah-Generalsekretär Hassan Nasrallah nannte in einer Rede am 11. November das Tribunal einen Verstoß gegen die libanesische Verfassung. Durch den Rücktritt der elf Minister der Hisbollah und der Gruppe um Michel Aoun ist die libanesische Regierung nicht mehr beschlussfähig.

Saad al-Hariri, der sich zum Zeitpunkt des Rücktritts der Hisbollah-Minister zu einem Besuch bei US-Präsident Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. aufhielt, hat bisher keine Stellung zu den politischen Entwicklungen im Libanon genommen.

Vermittlungsversuche Saudi-Arabiens und Syriens sind demnach gescheitert. Ein Versuch des katarischen Emirs Hamad bin Chalifa Al Thani, durch einen Telefonanruf bei dem christlichen Präsidenten Michel Sulaiman die Krise im letzten Moment zu verhindern, war erfolglos.