Church in the World

Maronite council condemns Hezbollah protests

Lebanon

LEBANON'S Maronite bishops have condemned the country's ongoing anti-government protests as Hezbollah threatened a major escalation in its campaign to topple the United States-backed Government of Fouad Siniora.

The Council of Maronite Bishops criticised the six-week sit-in by the militant Shia group and its Christian allies outside the Prime Minister's Beirut office for "paralysing" local business through the closure of restaurants, hotels and shops in Beirut's commercial centre.

Although so far peaceful, Hezbollah says that it plans to intensify the protests until its demands are met, saying that its anti-government campaign will peak ahead of an international donors' conference, aimed at bolstering Lebanon's ailing economy, to be held in Paris on 25 January.

Hezbollah's al Manar website quoted the group's reclusive leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as saying on Monday that the anti-government movement was "awaiting a massive and serious action sometime in the near future".

The bishops said that disputes over the formation of an international tribunal to try killers of the former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, lay at the centre of the crisis. Senior Syrian officials have been implicated in his 2005 assassination, although Damascus denies any involvement.

n Palestinian Christian leaders have urged the rival Fatah and Hamas parties to "unite rather than collide", warning them that "fighting and kidnapping opponents will not bring down the security wall [that on part of its course separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem] or end the embargo on the Palestinian people".

"We believe we have an obligation to change course, especially for the sake of all our children and young people," said the leaders of the country's Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Churches on 12 January. The leaders offered to play a role as mediators to end the infighting in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The message came as an international meeting of Catholic bishops was taking place in the Holy Land aimed at expressing solidarity with the local Church. The week-long Coordination of Episcopal Conferences in Support of the Church of the Holy Land, which ended on Thursday, included representatives from the US and Europe. The bishops were greeted in Bethlehem by 800 children from 30 parishes across the Holy Land.