Lebanese primeminister calls for sanctions against Syria

Premier Fouad Saniora said the bus blasts that killed three people and wounded 18 on Tuesday "wouldn't terrorize us" and the March 14 majority coalition blamed the crime on the Syrian regime, calling for sanctions on Damascus.
Saniora, in an address to the Lebanese on the eve of the second anniversary of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, said the bomb blasts in commuting buses northeast of Beirut were "criminal acts of violence."

"We will not be terrorized and we will not be scared off. We will chase the criminals," he pledged.

Saniora said "we will not give up our commitment to serve justice" in the 2005 Hariri assassination and related crimes.

Addressing families of the three people who were killed in the bus blasts in Ain Alaq earlier in the day, Saniora said: "Their rights will not be lost irrespective of the cost."

"We will not succumb … we are not a sphere of influence for anyone…The Lebanese will not compromise on their freedoms, security and safety… and the nature of their regime," he added.

In a related development, the majority March 14 coalition which backs the Saniora government said in a statement the bus blasts are "a new massacre … targeting innocent civilians."

"We hold the Syrian regime fully responsible for this crime and we charge this regime of attempting to change Lebanon into another Iraq to destroy its security and stability in order to torpedo efforts aimed at setting up an international tribunal" that should try suspects in the Hariri assassination and related crimes.

The alliance, in a statement after an emergency meeting, urged the Arab League, the U.N. Security Council and the international community to "shoulder your responsibilities in lifting the Syrian regime's aggression off Lebanon."

The statement called for imposing sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and for dispatching U.N. peacekeepers to "control the Lebanese-Syrian borders that would halt the flow of weapons to tools of this (Syrian) regime."

It also urged major factions in the opposition, in reference to Hizbullah and Amal, to "shoulder your responsibility in confronting efforts by the Syrian regime to change Lebanon into another Iraq by immediately approving the creation of the international tribunal and returning to the dialogue table."

The alliance also called on its supporters to take part in the popular ceremony scheduled for Wednesday to commemorate the second anniversary of the Hariri assassination in Beirut's Martyrs' Square.
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