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Mass funeral for slain MP
21/09/2007 14:02 - (SA)
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| Supporters of anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmaker Antoine Ghanem and his two bodyguards mourn during their funeral procession in Beirut. (Hussein Malla, AP) |
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Beirut, Lebanon - Family, comrades and supporters marched on Friday in a mass funeral procession for a slain Lebanese lawmaker, the latest victim of a campaign the country's anti-Syrian faction accuses Damascus of orchestrating to scuttle the upcoming presidential election.
A brass band played slain lawmaker Antoine Ghanem's political party anthem as hundreds of mourners carried flags while they walked down a packed street in a Beirut neighbourhood.
Women ululated as Ghanem's coffin, draped in the Lebanese and Phalange Party flags, and the caskets of his driver and bodyguard, who also were killed in Wednesday's bomb blast, were held above people's heads as they marched.
Schools and universities across the country as well as some businesses in Christian areas of Beirut and in Mount Lebanon, a region north and east of the capital, were closed for a second day on Friday as the government called for a day of national mourning.
Wednesday's car bomb killed Ghanem, 64, and six others in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut. He was the seventh anti-Syrian personality and fourth anti-Syrian lawmaker killed in Lebanon since 2005.
The slaying has put international attention back on Lebanon, with the United States condemning the attack and the UN Security Council demanding an immediate end to targeted killings of Lebanese leaders.
Leaders have pledged to press ahead with the election
Ghanem's assassination also threatened to derail efforts to bring the country's rival parties together to agree on a president before a two-month election period begins on Tuesday in the deeply divided parliament. Lebanese leaders from all factions have pledged to press ahead with the election despite the latest killing.
Ghanem's body was driven on Friday morning in a black hearse from a hospital a few blocks from where he was killed to his district of Furn el-Chebbak where it stopped outside the offices of the Phalange Party, the Christian political group to which he belonged. There, the casket was met by supporters and family members who marched to a Maronite Catholic church for the funeral service under heavy security.
Men and women on balconies waved party flags as patriotic songs played from loudspeakers. On the street festooned with white ribbons, women, dressed in black, wept and waved handkerchiefs in a sign of grief. Others carried pictures or waved Phalange Party flags - white with a striped Cedar tree in the middle. Some unleashed fireworks and threw rose petals.
Party members, in khaki pants and beige T-shirts, marched to martial music. Scouts carried wreaths, and many held banners such as "We Won't Kneel".
As the coffins arrived at the church, applause broke out and the church bells tolled. Inside, majority leaders joined Cabinet ministers and Ghanem's family for the service.
The Phalange Party was the main political group with a military arm during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. In November, another Phalange Party member, Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel was killed on a Beirut street.
The UN Security Council on Thursday stressed that "any attempt to destabilise Lebanon, including through political assassination or other terrorist acts, should not impede or subvert the constitutional process in Lebanon".
The Security Council reiterated its call for "a free and fair presidential election in conformity with Lebanese constitutional norms and schedules and without any foreign interference, fully respecting the sovereignty of Lebanon".
- AP
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