Druze
leader Walid Jumblat demanded Wednesday that the engineer
of the military clampdown on the rightist Christian
opposition groups be fired from his post and threatened
to pull his three cabinet ministers out from the government.
"We cannot be members of a government that cannot
control the conduct of the nation's affairs," Jumblat
told a packed news conference about the rarely precedented
wave of arrests the army staged Tuesday night in Beirut
and its environs.
Up
to 250 activists of General Aoun's Free Patriotic
Movement and Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces were nabbed
in house raids in the suburbs of Jal El Deeb and Antelias
from mid-morning Tuesday to the late pre-dawn hours
on Wednesday.
Among
the detainees were Aoun's top Lebanon aide, Lt. Gen.
Nadim Lteif, and Geagea's political advisor Toufiq
Hindi.
The
Murr-TV network aired videotape that showed troops
breaking into houses and partisan offices and escorting
Gen. Lteif and Hindi from their homes to army trucks
packed with at least 140 activists from both groups.
Most
of the detainees were taken to interrogation chambers
of the army's intelligence branch at the defense ministry
compound in suburban Yarze east of Beirut.
Gen.
Aoun fired off a statement from his Paris exile, charging
that "Emile Lahoud is arresting those who are
struggling for Lebanon's independence, herding them
into the defense ministry that was changed from a
fortress in Lebanon's defense to a huge prison."
Weighty
Lebanese politicians deplored the arrests as a police
state tactic and some bluntly accused President Lahoud
of personally giving the green light to the army,
possibly heralding the introduction of a military
regime.
The
army command had charged that Aounists and LF activists
were scheming to ignite a civil war, a claim that
was rejected by politicians and the local media as
ridiculous.
A
military communiqué, last in the morning, said
interrogation of some of the detainees was over and
they had been released, while others were committed
to trial before military courts. The communiqué
mentioned no figures.
