Former minister Wiam Wahhab slammed on Monday Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt for calling on the Druze commmunity to support the Syrian people against the regime of president Bashar al-Assad.
“Is Jumblatt threatening us with a battle between the Druze people similar to the Ain Dara Battle,” Wahhab , a staunch ally of Hezbollah and Syria asked during an interview with New TV, in a reference to 1711 battle which divided the Druze of Lebanon.
Wahhab said that such a conflict is not in the interest of the Druze community.
Jumblatt warned on Monday against attempts to create division among Syria and Lebanon’s Druze population over anti Syrian regime demonstrations.
“Syria’s Druze have a long history of resisting occupiers and they will do so today in the name of liberating their country from oppression,” Jumblatt wrote in his weekly editorial in the al-Anbaa magazine.
“They will not allow some thugs from Mount Lebanon or the Syrian regime to lure them into a trap,” he stressed, in reference to Wahhab who reportedly took Druze fighters from Lebanon to Syria to help the forces loyal to president Bashar a Assad in the crackdown against the pro-democracy protesters
Addressing the Druze, Jumblatt said : “The future belongs to those seeking freedom in Syria…You belong on their side.”
Jumblatt decried the Syrian regime’s promise of reform calling it a “joke” and slammed the major powers for supporting the regime arms, intelligence, and naval vessels.
“Instead of helping the Syrian people end four decades of oppression, these countries are hanging onto the regime at the expense of the country’s unity,” Jumblatt said in reference to the support the regime has been getting from China, Iran and Russia.
He also accused the west of justifying its failures in Syria by blaming the Syrian opposition .
“The West is using the division among the Syrian opposition to justify its failure to recognize it,” Jumblatt added.
According to an estimate by the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists over 9,000 people have been killed in the 11 months of Syria’s uprising.
Lebanon’s political scene is split between supporters of Assad’s regime, led by Hezbollah, and the March 14 alliance which is supporting the Syrian opposition
Photo: File photo of Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt ( R) and former minister Wiam Wahhab
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