Lebanon on strike as it prepares to bury editor

The Lebanese capital wound down to a minimum today as banks, schools and businesses closed for the funeral of a leading editor, the anti-Syrian Gibran Tueni who was killed in the latest of a string of bombings.

Anti-Syrian groups called for mass attendance at the funeral, which was due to begin at midday local time in Beirut.

Hundreds of Lebanese troops and police took up position in a central square where, on March 14, about a million people heard Tueni call for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon.

“Everyone who takes to the street is saying ‘enough killing,”’ said Ghenwa Jalloul, a legislator colleague of Tueni and one of the promoters of the mass turnout expected in the funeral procession.

An outspoken critic of Syria, Tueni was killed by a car bomb on Monday as he was being driven to work through an industrial suburb of Beirut.

He was the fourth anti-Syrian figure to be killed since the series of bombings began in February with the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

A previously unknown group has claimed responsibility for the blast that killed Tueni, two bodyguards and wounded 30 other people. But Tueni’s colleagues and political allies have blamed Syria, which has denied involvement.

The call by anti-Syrian groups for a general strike in mourning for Tueni seemed to respected in Beirut.

Banks, business offices and shops were closed.

Schools and universities remained shut for a second day, having closed yesterday as a mark of respect for Tueni.

The opponents of Syrian influence in Lebanon are counting on the public anger over Tueni’s killing to flex their muscles and close ranks in the face of what they see as a Syrian threat to kill their leaders one by one.

Leading anti-Syrian politician Walid Jumblatt yesterday called for the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to be changed.

“This time this regime should change (and) should be tried,” Jumblatt told CNN in the first such call by a prominent Lebanese politician. “This guy in Damascus (Assad) is sick. If he stays, we won’t have stability in the Middle East.”

But Jumblatt later toned down his remarks, telling Lebanon’s LBC television: “I do not interfere in the affairs of that regime.”

The strike in Beirut came a day after the UN Security Council heard the chief UN investigator into the Hariri assassination say the latest evidence strengthened his conviction that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials were implicated. Syria has denied involvement in Hariri’s killing.

France circulated a resolution in the Security Council that would broaden the scope of the UN investigation to include all the attacks in Lebanon since October 1, 2004.

Co-sponsored by Britain and the United States, the draft resolution seemed to deflect the Lebanese government’s request for an inquiry into Tueni’s killing and an international tribunal for the suspected killers of Hariri.

If passed, the resolution would ask Secretary-General Kofi Annan to consult Lebanon on “the nature and scope” of the needed assistance and report back.