Press Release: The crisis in Lebanon risks regional stability

The crisis in Lebanon risks regional stability

22 October 2012

For immediate release

Caabu Director, Chris Doyle, has warned that the bombing in Lebanon on 19 October risks turning the Syria crisis into a major regional conflagration. In various media interviews including to the BBC, Doyle said that for months there had been widespread fears that the Syria crisis would spill over into Lebanon. “The political consensus in Lebanon that worked to ensure that events in Syria would not destabilise Lebanon looks to have crumbled.”

Doyle said that while there was no hard evidence that the Syria regime had orchestrated the assassination of General Wissam al-Hassan, it certainly “had the means, motive and declared intent. If the Assad regime was involved, then it was to send one message to Lebanon that it still had the capability to burn Lebanon, and another to the international community of the dangers of intervening in Syria.”

“What is required now,” Doyle said, “is an intensive effort to restore calm, pursue justice and reassert security. Above all, Lebanese politicians need to act in the national Lebanese interest, and not try to use the crisis for their own personal political gain. The international community must do all it can to assist the process and not undermine it by pushing the interests of one side or another.”

Ends….

Notes:

1 - For more information or interviews, please contact Chris Doyle on 07968040281 doylec@caabu.org

2. – For details about Caabu’s Syria programme please see here http://www.caabu.org/what-we-do/syria-programme/about-syria-programme