Saniora Praises South, Ignores Southerners

Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's visit to the southern city of Sidon Sunday has raised many questions and highlighted several contradictory positions.

Sidon is south Lebanon's capital that had its share of the "Israeli" aggression in the summer of 2006. Nearly three years after the war, Saniora paid it a visit, only a few months before parliamentary elections. "We have never succumbed to intimidation or extortion and we will not succumb now," Saniora vowed. "We will not back down from our goals."

To the South of Sidon lie villages and towns, a great deal of which was leveled to the ground during the war. Among the aids offered to compensate residents, was the Saudi grant, which Saniora still refuses to release and distribute it to its rightful owners almost three years on.

Adding to the agony of the southerners, Saniora wants to cancel the Council for South Lebanon and is unwilling to endorse its allotment for the 2009 fiscal year.

Last week, an agreement was reached between the head of the Council Qabalan Qabalan and Finance Minister Mohamad Chatah on the budget. At the same time, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michelle Sisson was holding a meeting with Saniora. Her interference in the issue of the Council and insinuation that the US does not want to see Nabih Berri as Speaker for another term was reflected during the Cabinet meeting, when Saniora contradicted Chatah and refused to allot budget for the Council.

Speaking to the Voice of Lebanon radio on Monday, the Finance Minister underlined that the Council for South "controversy" was not a financial issue but rather a political one, adding that even the word "political" failed to describe it.

While in Sidon, his birthplace, Saniora praised south Lebanon in line with praising himself over "the many executed projects that have achieved an unprecedented growth"; projects and growth light years away from south Lebanon and its residents.

At the same time, the PM lashed out at Speaker Berri saying that he's benefiting from the ongoing row over the Council in his electoral campaign.

Berri sources retorted saying "why don't they close this door and rush to grant the Council for South Lebanon its budget, release the Saudi donation and start compensating the southerners instead of spending the money for other, mainly electoral purposes?"

Development and Liberation bloc MP Anwar al-Khalil urged President Michel Suleiman to take the initiative and control the issue of the Council budget and to implement Law No. 362/2001. He added Suleiman should not leave the issue as a subject of dispute through ministerial committees or through the selective implementation of the constitution and laws. "He should be the arbiter who forces those who violate the constitution to carry out their duties," Khalil said.

According to Al-Akhbar's Monday edition, sources revealed that President Michel Suleiman may sponsor an initiative before Thursday by bringing Speaker Berri and PM Saniora together in order to contain the tension between them.

Berri and opposition ministers have insisted on allocating 60 billion LL ($40 million) of the national draft budget to the Council for South, which PM Saniora rejected.

The head of the Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc MP Mohammad Raad stressed Hizbullah was not behind Berri, but with him in his battle, when south Lebanon and the right and compensation of its residents is the main topic

Meanwhile, Sidon residents were divided over Saniora's visit to the city. The head of the Popular Nasserite Party MP Ossama Saad warned that Saniora's position could lead to straining ties between Sidon and south Lebanon as a whole, "and this is not in the interest of Sidon residents. On the possibility of Saniora running for a parliamentary seat in Sidon, Saad said "welcome to the mother of (electoral) battles."

Saniora did not take an interest in visiting at least one of the devastated villages in the south that he was praising.

The Imam of the Quds mosque in the southern city, Maher Hammoud, criticized Saniora's visit saying that the Prime Minister should have visited, in the wake of the 2006 aggression, the towns of Bint Jbeil and Maroun el Ras, two of the many southern towns that were literarily leveled to the ground.

Berri's circles said that if Saniora does not have the courage to visit southern towns for fear of the residents' reaction, "this means that there is a problem of confidence between him and the southerners; a crisis that he should not ignore."