Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri said Tuesday in Cairo that the occupied Shabaa Farms were Lebanese, adding that “Israel should immediately withdraw from these areas.”
Hariri’s remarks came at a press conference in Cairo after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on bilateral and regional issues, reported the official Kuwait news agency (KUNA).
He also presided over a session of an Egyptian-Lebanese economic cooperation committee with his Egyptian counterpart Atef Ebeid.
"Only the Lebanese and the Syrians demarcate the borders and no other side [can] do that," he added.
Asked if the Syrian troops redeployment was discussed with Lebanese officials, Hariri said that "the redeployment process has been carried out during the past weeks, where this issue was discussed by the two countries and there are no problems concerning this matter."
Meanwhile, Hariri indicated that his country was mulling a lawsuit against Israel for the Jewish state's occupation of south Lebanon, which ended in May 2000 after 22 years.
"We ... are studying at the present moment the possibility of filing a suit against Israel to claim damages."
"We are examining at present this possibility in all aspects, of jurisdiction and others, to sound out the chances of winning a trial," he said.
Hariri stressed the importance of a careful decision on the matter, according to KUNA.
"To lose this trial would signify absolution for Israel and that is a very dangerous business," he said.
Israel first entered south Lebanon in 1978, and then orchestrated a full invasion all the way to Beirut in 1982, before scaling back its occupation over a two-year period to a security zone in south Lebanon, which it evacuated only last year.
Hariri pointed as a legal precedent to the ongoing court hearings in Belgium to determine whether Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could be tried there for his role as Israeli defense minister during the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut, during Israel's occupation.
A unique 1993 Belgian law makes it possible for Belgian courts to try cases of genocide and other crimes against humanity that took place in foreign countries.
Hariri added that "it was easy for Israel" to obtain compensation from European countries for the persecution of Jews during World War II, but "on the other hand, it is difficult for Arabs to obtain damages from Israel," the agency quoted him as saying.
Within the same context, the Lebanese Daily Star newspaper reported Tuesday that chief military prosecutor Nasri Lahoud is planning to re-open an investigation into the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, with the findings possibly being used to help prosecute Sharon.
However, the investigation is not expected to go beyond Sharon's complicity in the massacre. Former MP Elie Hobeika, the commander of the Phalange militia forces in Sabra and Shatilla, and individual militiamen who carried out the killings will not be questioned nor face prosecution, according to a source at the military court.
Hariri also met Tuesday with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, said KUNA - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
