Business Joins Opposition in 'Bone-Crushing Showdown' to Oust Regime

Lebanon's business community has joined the opposition in a nationwide campaign to overthrow Premier Karami's government, while 38 legislators demanded the removal of the entire regime, including commanders of all security services for failing to prevent Rafik Hariri's assassination. Karami said he was certain to win a vote of confidence if the opposition tables a no-confidence motion at Parliament's session on Monday. He said Syria's loyalists still maintained the majority in Lebanon's 128-seat legislator, which prompted media analysts to label the imperative confrontation as a 'bone-crushing showdown.' One Beirut newspaper, Al Liwa, said Speaker Berri made a hush-hush visit to Damascus in recent days and held six hours of talks with President Assad on the post-Hariri crisis in Lebanon, apparently culminating in a decision to support Karami's cabinet in parliament on Monday. The opposition, in turn, won a big boost when the nation's economic associations demanded in a meeting at the Beirut Chamber of Commerce Wednesday that a "neutral government enjoying the confidence of the people of Lebanon, the Arab world and the international community be installed to begin bridging the nation's schism after Hariri's assassination," An Nahar reported Thursday. A joint communiqué said the business community, including the Banking Association and chambers of Commerce, industry and agriculture, paid tribute to Hariri's accomplishment in rebuilding Beirut from the ravages of the civil war, calling him the main driving force behind Lebanon's economy and international relations. The communiqué demanded that the Authorities cooperate in full with the U.N. team dispatched to investigate the assassination and called for a nationwide strike on Monday, which marks the lapse of two weeks on the murder. As the communiqué was being released to the press, 38 opposition legislators met at Walid Jumblat's ancestral mansion in Moukhtara and issued a statement demanding the sacking of all current security commanders in Lebanon, "who should all, without a single exception, be brought to justice." The statement called on other members of parliament to defect to opposition ranks, warning a vote confidence in Karami's government would be as perilous as the Syrian-dictated extension of President Lahoud's regime.(Picture shows Jumblat next to Haririst's legislature Walid Eido as opposition demands were read out)