Bomb blast greets new law-and-order bill

Press, 16 February 1978, Page 8

Bomb blast greets new law-and-order bill

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Seven people were injured in two explosions which ripped through central Beirut on Tuesday as the Lebanese Parliament passed controversial law and order legislation. The bill was drafted after four days of Syrian-Lebanese battles last week in which at least 150 people were killed, most of them members of the Syrian-dominated Arab League peace force policing the civil war truce in Lebanon. It provides for the establishment of a mixed SyrianLebanese military tribunal to investigate “crimes affecting the interests and safety of the Arab security forces in Lebanon.’’ Voting on the bill, which was regarded as an infringement on Lebanese Sovereignty by come Lebanese

political Rightists was 72 in favour and one against in the 99-seat house.

As an emergency session debate on the bill got under way, two bomb blasts in central Beirut’s Martyr Square demonstrated the continuing absence of security. Eyewitnesses said that five civilians were injured in one blast and two in the other.

Reliable Right-wing sources, meanwhile, confirmed that the Syrians had thrown a cordon of steel round a Lebanese Army barracks on the eastern outskirts of Beirut where last week’s bloodshed started. “I don’t know what they are planning,” a Right-wing official said. “But they have surrounded the Fayyadiyeh barracks with everything they have — tanks, rocket launchers, artillery. You

name it, they got it.” Fighting at Fayyadiyeh broke out when regulars of Lebanon’s budding new army objected to the Syrians setting up a roadblock just outside the barracks. The clashes later spread to Beirut itself and involved militiamen from Lebanon’ powerful Right-wing parties. Agreement on the formation of the mixed SyrianLebanese tribunal was reached over the week-end in talks between Lebanese leaders and a Syrian delegation led by the Foreign Minister (Mr Abdel-Halim Khaddam). Rightist officials saw it as a face-saving compromise for the Syrians. They had originally demanded that the Fayyadiyeh barracks as well as its commander, the Right-leaning colonel, Antoine Barakat, be handed over to the Syrians.