Ex-President
Amine Gemayel said in a newspaper interview published
Sunday that Lebanon's existence is in peril and accused
the 'Ghosts' of blocking his takeover of the Phalange
Party leadership.
"It looks like there is a fifth column within the
Kataeb structure that is in the service of the 'Ghosts'
and is doing their bidding," Gemayel said in the
interview that was reported by Ad-Diyar on Sunday.
Gemayel,
who returned from 10 years of self-chosen exile in
France eight months ago, said the leaders of the two
main bickering wings of the Party, Munir Hajj and
Elie Karami were on the verge of a reconciliation
accord blessed by the Political Bureau, but the 'Ghosts"
suddenly intervened and blocked the rapprochement.
'Ghost'
is the word used by all opposition leaders for the
army's secret service in Lebanon.
Gemayel
said he was not seeking the party's leadership and
does not intend to run for the presidency when President
Lahoud's term expires in 2004.
"I
am not naïve. I am a realist and I know that
I cannot become President unless I am willing to accept
certain conditions that I cannot accept," said
Gemayel. "Yet if I feel there is a national interest
in my running for any office, I will not shy away."
Gemayel
was asked about the conditions that made him appoint
Gen. Michel Aoun as interim prime minister when his
1982-1988 tenure expired with parliament unable to
meet to elect a new president.
Gemayel
said he tried at the time to talk Premier Selim Hoss
to admit Gen. Aoun and Lebanese Forces commander Samir
Geagea into his government to avert an irreparable
schism. "But Premier Hoss refused and I had no
other option but to signed the decree that named Gen.
Aoun as interim prime minister," Gemayel added.
Gemayel
also said that he reached an agreement with Syria's
late President Hafez Assad over a new charter for
Lebanon that contained 80% to 85% percent of the 1989
Taif accord. "But just before the finalization
of that accord the late Prime Minister Rashid Karami
was martyred and everything went up in the air."
Karami
perished in a mid-air bomb explosion in an army helicopter
that was carrying him from Tripoli to Beirut June1,
1987.
Gemayel
said the Taif accord was the charter that governed
the presence of the Syrian army in Lebanon. "It
should not be ignored or misinterpreted."
The
accord stipulated for a Syrian army redeployment out
of Beirut and other major cities to reassemble at
an enclave in the Bekaa Valley abutting the Syrian
border in 1992. This hasn't been honored.
