Lebanon: Slain minister Pierre Gemayel to be buried

BEIRUT, Nov 23: Assassinated Lebanese minister Pierre Gemayel will be buried today and his allies have called for a large turnout to strengthen their hand in a political struggle with the Hezbollah-led opposition.

Gemayel, 34, was shot dead on Tuesday in the sixth killing of an anti-Syrian figure in less than two years.

The funeral is set to be an outpouring of anger at Damascus, which Gemayel's supporters have blamed for the assassination.

Syria has condemned the killing and denied involvement.

Leading members of the ruling majority have also blamed Damascus for Gemayel's killing, seeing an attempt to derail plans for an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

A UN inquiry into the killing has implicated Lebanese and Syrian security officials. Syria denies involvement. The government has asked for UN help to investigate the Gemayel killing.

''I call on everybody who loves Rafik al-Hariri, everybody who wants the truth, the international tribunal and an end to the assassinations ... to come out with us tomorrow,'' Hariri's son, Saad, told the Future Television.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea also called on Lebanese to attend the funeral of Gemayel -- a Maronite Christian and the son of former President Amin Gemayel.

The service, scheduled for 1 pm (1630 hrs IST), will be held at a church in central Beirut -- the area where mass protests after Hariri's assassination helped build international pressure on Syria to withdraw troops from Lebanon.

POLITICAL TUSSLE

Jumblatt, a prominent anti-Syrian leader, said yesterday Gemayel's killing marked the resumption of political killings.

''It seems the Syrian regime will continue with the assassinations,'' he said.

Anti-Syrian leaders say the aim of the assassination is to try to weaken a government opposed to Damascus's influence in Lebanon and which took power after the withdrawal of its troops.

The government, one of whose priorities is to shepherd in the international tribunal, would fall with the resignation or death of two more ministers.

The cabinet has already been weakened by the resignation of six ministers from the Syrian-backed opposition. The ministers from the Hezbollah-led opposition quit after the collapse of all-party talks on giving them a decisive say in government.

Hezbollah had pledged protests to topple the government.

But those plans have been put back by the killing.

''It can't stage a demonstration now. It would be widely read as a pro-Syrian demonstration as opposed to an anti-government demonstration,'' Hezbollah expert Amal Saad Ghorayeb said.

''What this crime has done has revived the anti-Syrian campaign, which got much of its emphasis from that string of assassinations last year,'' she said.

Hezbollah, which is backed by both Syria and Iran, accuses the cabinet of being a US government in Lebanon.

US President George W Bush called Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Wednesday and pledged to support ''Lebanese independence from the encroachments of Iran and Syria'', a White House spokesman said.

A senior US official also said the Bush administration plans to give the Siniora government more military aid and other support to sustain solidarity with Lebanon.

''In the budget process we are looking at more funds, considerably more (for military aid),'' said the official, who spoke on condition he was not named.

Reuters