Hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters crammed into the heart of Beirut Friday and besieged the headquarters of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government in a peaceful show of force to bring down the ruling Cabinet. "We are here to criticize Siniora, and not the entire Sunni community!" MP Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and Hizbullah ally, said from behind bulletproof glass to a vibrant crowd of demonstrators at Riad al-Solh Square in Downtown Beirut.Siniora has "made many mistakes" and his government has "made corruption a daily affair," Aoun said, calling for the resignation of the premier and his ministers.
"Siniora out," the massive crowd chanted in response to Aoun's verbal assault as they overflowed nearby parking lots and streets after arriving from across the country waving Lebanon's national flag.
Simultaneously, a newly composed song blared over erected loudspeakers, titled "Tears protect no one." The song, set to a hard-hitting upbeat track, compiles extracts from a recent speech by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, critical of Siniora's emotional addresses to the nation during the July-August war with Israel. "I wish that the prime minister and his ministers were among us today, not hiding behind barbed wire and the army's armored personnel carriers," Aoun said. "He who has his people behind him does not need barbed wire."
Demonstrators blocked all access roads around the government headquarters, setting up tents and staging sit-ins to keep Siniora and his ministers holed up inside their offices.
As The Daily Star went to print the siege was being partially dismantled after a telephone call by Siniora to Speaker Nabih Berri, leader of the Amal Movement and a key Hizbullah ally, to "take responsibility" and ensure that access in and out of the Grand Serail was not inhibited. According to local television LBCI, Siniora made the call to Berri after receiving "information" that demonstrators might try to storm the Serail during the night.
As the sun set, the demonstration continued, albeit in slightly reduced numbers, after MP Ali Hassan Khalil, Berri's representative at the rally, called on protesters to "continue the sit-in, during the night, the day and even dawn." "We will not budge until we hear that the government had resigned," Khalil said.