Exiled leader returns to cheers from Beirut crowd

Published on Sunday 8 May 2005 01:30

SYRIAN opposition leader Michel Aoun returned to Beirut yesterday after 14 years’ exile in France - less than two weeks after the country’s troops withdrew from Lebanon.

Aoun, arriving from Paris on a special Middle East Airlines flight with about 100 aides, waved to a small crowd of cheering supporters as he emerged from the plane with his wife Nadia.

Thousands more supporters, many waving Lebanon’s red, white and green flag, crammed downtown Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, cheering as a giant TV screen showed Aoun descending a flight of stairs from the plane before receiving bouquets of flowers.

"Today is a day of happiness and joy," he said at Beirut Airport. "Lebanon has been under a black cloud that enslaved it for 15 years. Today there is a sun of freedom.

"I am coming to look to the future and to build Lebanon together with the Lebanese."

Issam Abou Jamra, a former army general who was exiled with Aoun, accompanied him at the airport. Also joining him was Edgar Maalouf, another general.

The three were members of a military government appointed by president Amin Gemayel in 1988 when the parliament failed to elect a president during the 1975-90 civil war.

Aoun, a one-time army commander and interim prime minister, lost a "war of liberation" against Syrian forces in 1989-90. He took refuge at Lebanon’s French Embassy and was sent into exile in France. An arrest warrant against him was dropped earlier in the week, clearing the way for his return.

Yesterday he urged the Lebanese to set aside their differences. He said he had carried out a long campaign to free Lebanon from Syrian control and that the February 14 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri accelerated the Syrian troop withdrawal.

Although he travelled to Lebanon on a special passport awarded to him by the government because of his status as a former prime minister, Aoun criticised Lebanon’s leaders for waging a campaign against him since 1990.

He immediately criticised president Emile Lahoud, describing him as "a person who represented a government that has persecuted me for 15 years. Now I forgive them, but I will not thank them."

Aoun later drove to the city and laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier before visiting the grave of Hariri in downtown Beirut. Next he met his thousands of flag-waving supporters - many wearing his Free Patriotic Movement’s orange T-shirts and scarves over their shoulders - in Martyrs’ Square, next to the grave.

Aoun’s return followed the April 26 completion of the Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon. Syria pulled out its forces under relentless international pressure that intensified after Hariri’s assassination.