Lebanese Christian minister is assassinated

Gemayel’s death came hours before a deadline for the U.N. Security Council to approve a letter endorsing an agreement with Lebanon to create a tribunal to prosecute Rafik Hariri’s suspected killers.

Ahead of the deadline, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the assassination showed why a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for political killings in Lebanon needs to be established. He grew angry at the suggestion that the process be delayed until Lebanon was more stable.

“They’re killing people in Lebanon. They’re assassinating political leaders. Not the time to seek justice? There may be those on the Security Council who say it. Let then step forward and say it,” he said.

Four Lebanese generals, top pro-Syrian security chiefs, have been under arrest for 14 months, accused of involvement in Hariri’s murder.

“I think the facts need to be developed,” Bolton said when asked about Syria’s involvement in Gemayal’s killing. But, he said, given “the evidence that links the Hariri assassination to the other political assassinations, I think people can draw their own conclusions.”

Descended from line of leaders
Pierre Gemayel was expected to carry the mantle of the political family. Amin Gemayel, his father and the current Phalange leader, was Lebanon’s president between 1982 and 1988. His grandfather, the late Pierre Gemayel, led the right-wing Christian Phalange Party that fielded the largest Christian militia and was allied with Israel during the 1975-90 civil war between Christians and Muslims.

Amin Gemayel’s brother, Bashir, was elected president in 1982 but was assassinated days before taking office. Two of Amin Gemayel’s nephews and Bashir’s daughter were killed in the 1970s and 1980s.

The slain Pierre Gemayel was a prominent figure in Lebanon’s anti-Syrian bloc, which dominates Saniora’s Cabinet and the parliament — and which is now locked in a power struggle with the Muslim Shiite Hezbollah and its allies. He was elected first in 2000, then re-elected in 2005.

Hezbollah calls for protests
Christians make up about 35 percent of Lebanese, down from estimated 55-60 percent before the 1975 civil war. The decline is attributed to emigration of Christians and higher birth rates among Muslims. The Maronite Catholics are the largest single Christian sect, estimated at 900,000. The last official figures are from Lebanon’s 1932 census.

On Sunday, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah threatened a wave of street protests aimed at bringing down the government if it ignores the group’s demand to form a national unity Cabinet, in which Hezbollah and its allies would have considerable influence and would be able to block major decisions.

Nasrallah accused Saniora’s government of falling under the influence of the Bush administration and called it “illegitimate” and “unconstitutional.”

Gemayel’s assassination was the first since Gibran Tueni, prominent anti-Syrian newspaper editor and lawmaker, was killed in a car bomb in December 2005. Journalist and activist Samir Kassir and former Communist Party leader George Hawi were killed in separate car bombings in June 2005.

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