Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah falls outside UN-US 1559 call to disarm militias
Source: 2. abc.net, 27-4-2005
Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 Hizbullah is called on to disarm.
Hizbullah has long been hailed in Lebanon as the (resistance) group which drove out the "Israeli" occupation force.
But the group`s leaders have told that Hizbullah will never hand in its weapons as long as "Israel" threatens southern Lebanon.
In the first of a two-part report on Hizbullah, Middle East Correspondent Mark Willacy reports from southern Lebanon.
In the no-man`s land which separate Hizbullah`s fighters and "Israeli" soldiers, a United Nations armoured personnel carrier is on patrol - its job is to keep the two sides apart.
"Israel" pulled out of (most of) southern Lebanon five years ago, after enduring more than a decade of Hizbullah`s hit-and-run attacks.
But that doesn`t mean the border is quiet.
Every few months or so these two bitter enemies exchange fire across the border.
In Beirut I was taken to meet Lebanon`s most senior Shi`ite cleric and the man widely described as Hizbullah`s spiritual leader.
Protected by armed guards, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah explained why Hizbullah will never surrender its weapons.
"... the presence of Hizbullah resistance and its arms in the south has discouraged "Israel" from making a new invasion of Lebanon", the Grand Ayatollah tells me.
"Hizbullah`s weapons are directly linked to "Israel`s" constant violations of Lebanese sovereignty with its warplanes", he says.
Hizbullah Member of Parliament Abdullah Kassir says: "The US will not get whatever it wants whenever it wants".
In fact, some believe the Bush administration`s record in the Middle East will actually encourage Hizbullah to hang on to its weapons.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah says the Bush administration cannot bully the group into handing in its weapons.
"We are not against the American people, but rather we are against the American administration which is against any civilisation and progress in the world," he says.
And as long as Hizbullah is resistance and "Israel" continue to eye each other warily across no-man`s land, the resistance will hang on to its vast arsenal of weapons.
