STL Funding Consultations to Gain Momentum after Eid al-Adha
Consultations between the major parties represented in the cabinet over the funding of the international tribunal are expected to gain “serious momentum” following Eid al-Adha over the weekend, ministerial sources said.
The sources told An Nahar daily on Monday that all officials involved in the funding are now aware of the serious consequences if the cabinet fails to fund by the end of November the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that is set to try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s suspected assassins.
They warned that after that date the international community would start to consider the government’s procrastination as an attempt to target the STL and escape from its dues.
Lebanon should pay an annual share to the court in 2011 of about $33 million or 49 percent of the court's budget. But the cabinet’s Hizbullah-led March 8 sources have rejected to fund the STL despite insistence by the centrists, including PM Najib Miqati, to pay Lebanon’s dues.
On Sunday, Miqati told An Nahar that he expected a positive outcome from the consultations between the different government members. The sources said that the prime minister’s positive expectations will go hand-in-hand with his scheduled trip to Britain over the weekend.
They expected the month of November to witness a solution to the funding crisis by a series of financial steps that the cabinet would take or by putting the issue up to vote.
over 12 years
it is either they pay for the STL or bye bye Lebanon banking system. no need for UN resolutions, thus Russia who knows that, knows they cannot veto, thus they prefer to allign with the international community at least in appearance.
now M8 is seeking a way out :)
How pathetic M14 activities reduced to funding STL while Lebanon being poisoned by a cabinet imposed by a criminal organization and a criminal regime in complicity with four useful idiots who sacrificed Lebanon’s freedom and democracy for personal benefit. Lebanon is adopting Assad and Iran ways of governing, oppressing, abusing power, economic inefficiency, and political mafia sucking the blood of our institutions. First victim is liberties, then democracy followed by economic collapse. Those who claim reform are the most corrupt, the Don Corleone of political mafia and influence peddling. Supporters of this imposed government and its useful idiots are no better than those who recently demonstrated in Tripoli in support of Kaddafi. Lebanon will never be free until people start supporting principles instead of leaders; eternal principles of Cedar Revolution: freedom, justice and democracy. M14 has failed. Our youth should take the lead for Lebanese Spring/Cedar Revolution II in 2013.