Resolution to Halt Fighting in Lebanon Is Unanimously Approved
By Warren Hoge
The New York Times
Friday 11 August 2006
United Nations - The Security Council passed a resolution Friday calling
for a halt in the fighting in Lebanon, the deployment of Lebanese and United
Nations forces in southern Lebanon, and the withdrawal "in parallel" by Israel.
The resolution, drafted by France and the United States, was passed
unanimously.
Secretary General Kofi Annan said he would be in touch with the Lebanese
and Israeli governments this weekend to determine when the full cessation of
hostilities would take effect.
The measure would expand the existing 2,000-man United Nations peacekeeping
force, known as Unifil, to 15,000 and dispatch it into southern Lebanon to
assist a 15,000-man Lebanese force that Fouad Siniora, Lebanon's prime
minister, has pledged to send there.
In addition, it would give Unifil, a peace monitoring force that has been
long criticized as under-resourced and ineffective, greatly enhanced authority,
equipment, responsibilities and scope of operation.
The resolution extends Unifil's mandate a year and empowers it to take
action "to insure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile
activities of any kind" and "to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent if
from discharging its duties."
The resolution also urges countries to contribute troops to the beefed up
Unifil, and diplomats said that France, Australia, Italy and Turkey were among
those expected to help fill the international complement. President Bush has
said that the United States would offer no troops but could contribute
logistical assistance.
The zone the new joint force will be responsible for extends from the Blue
Line border of Israel and Lebanon to the Litani River, roughly 15 miles to the
north. That zone would be declared free of all "armed personnel, assts and
weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and Unifil."
Israel and the United States had been insisting on the most robust possible
international force out of concern that Hezbollah would take advantage of any
truce to move back into southern Lebanon, the area it has controlled for years
and used to send rockets into Israel.
Earlier drafts of the French-American resolution had specified that the
force be created under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which calls
for enforcement by military means.
Lebanon protested that decision, and Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, the
ambassador of France, and John R. Bolton, the ambassador of the United States,
redrafted the resolution Thursday night to eliminate references to Chapter VII
and replace them with the language of the less coercive Chapter VI.
The phased withdrawal and deployment approach was also a compromise to meet
earlier Lebanese complaints that would have permitted the Israeli military to
remain in South Lebanon.
The text calls for an immediate cessation of "all attacks" by Hezbollah but
only of "all offensive military operations" by Israel. Since Israel has classed
its war effort as one taken in self-defense, Lebanon said this amounted to a
ceasefire against only one side, Hezbollah, and demanded that Israel be ordered
to withdraw immediately behind the Blue Line.
Both American and Israeli officials said they interpret the reference to
offensive military operations to mean that Israel can still address threats to
its citizens in Israel, its armed forces in Lebanon and can respond to attacks
from Hezbollah. If faced with an imminent threat, a senior U.S. official said,
"Then yes, Israel can respond." Nonetheless, she said, "we expect a large-scale
reduction in violence, and we'd expect the large-scale bombing to stop."
Another senior State Department official speaking under background briefing
rules said the revised text had "all the characteristics of a Chapter VII
resolution. It walks like, talks like and acts like a Chapter VII resolution."
The language change will not be popular with Israel and its supporters, but
the American official said the force "will be able to defend itself and has a
very strong mandate which you would see in a Chapter VII resolution."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was at the United Nations Friday,
received assurances from Tzipi Livni, Israel's prime minister, that Israel will
support the accord, according to the senior State Department official. She
spoke to Ms. Livni three times Friday and once to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert,
he said.
The Americans had resisted earlier calls for ceasefires, arguing that one
without political guarantees would simply return Lebanon to the situation it
was in where Hezbollah could resume attacks on Israel.
A senior administration official in Crawford, Tex. where President Bush is
on vacation said Friday that it increasingly seemed that Israel would not be
able to achieve a military victory, a realization, he said, speaking not for
attribution, that led the Americans to get behind a ceasefire.
The Lebanese are also likely to be unhappy with the resolution's failure to
order Israel to relinquish control of Shebaa Farms, an area of the border that
it seized in 1967 and remains in dispute between Lebanon and Syria.
The resolution simply asks Mr. Annan to develop ideas on how to solve the
dispute and report back on his findings in 30 days.
The resolution does not order the return of abducted Israeli soldiers, an
original reason Israel cited for going to war, nor does it meet Hezbollah
requests for release of prisoners held by Israel. The measure simply says it is
"mindful of the sensitivity of the issue of prisoners and encouraging of the
efforts aimed at urgently settling the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained
in Israel."
The original French -American draft, introduced last Saturday left the
creation of the international stabilization force to a second resolution, which
would have also been responsible for establishing a permanent ceasefire,
setting up the disarmament of Hezbollah, demarcating the borders of Lebanon,
establishing an arms embargo to prevent the entry of unauthorized weapons and
empowering the Lebanese army to control all its territory.
The new text calls for all those objectives to be addressed now and says
another resolution will be proposed sometime in the future to enhance the role
of Unifil as needed.
The agreement brings to an end a four-week period in which the Security
Council has been excoriated, particularly throughout the Middle East, for
having taken no significant action to stop the fighting.
Mr. Annan said he welcomed the resolution but regretted how long it had
taken to be adopted.
"I am profoundly disappointed that the Council did not reach this point
much, much earlier," he said. "I am convinced that my disappointment and sense
of frustration are shared by hundreds of millions of people around the world."
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Helene Cooper contributed reporting for this article.
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