Former Syrian VP calls for ouster of current regime

Next article... after you read it, you will think people here will support him against the Regime, well... that is what France and EEUU wanted but isn't true, in fact now people is supporting more and more to their President, they know very well who is Khaddam, how he got the money to buy his house in Paris, how he got millions to open a lot of restaurants in Syria and abroad, and so and so.. He is a robber, that is the true. I am not gonna defend Bashar or the Regime, I am getting sick of hearing this political game leading by americans and frenchs.

Now, Bolton, the american Ambassador in UN said yesterday "No one is immune the obligation to provide evidence to a legitimate judicial inquiry," but he should have said ""No one is immune (except americans) the obligation to provide evidence to a legitimate judicial inquiry," so why americans don't let interview soldiers who killed Couso?, Why americans are forcing to sing an agreement (under pressure) to avoid any responsability of american troops in any conflict??, Are they God? Are they the big Boss? Are they a real dictator? And what about European Union and the rest of the World?? Have they any responsability?? A lot of times I am ashamed to be european. Where is the Justice?. Let americans to take the law into one's own hands...

Former vice president of Syria called from exile for the overthrow of the regime he served for decades, saying yesterday that ''a shameless Mafia" is running the country and that its president surrounds himself with sycophantic advisers and is unfit to rule.

But Abdul-Halim Khaddam, now accused by Syria of treason, stopped just short of accusing President Bashar Assad of involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Khaddam said in an interview that Hariri was ''threatened in a crystal-clear way on numerous occasions" before his death in a truck bombing last year -- including by Assad himself.

Khaddam recounted how Assad once summoned Hariri to give him a dressing down. Hariri, a Lebanese nationalist who sought to wrest his country from Syrian control, had opposed giving pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud an extended term.
''You are working against us and you are conspiring against us. You are seeking to install a president in Lebanon. I'm the decision-maker. Anyone who contravenes my decisions I will crush," Khaddam quoted Assad as telling Hariri.

Asked what Assad may have meant by crush, Khaddam said: ''What does crush mean? Crushing with a thousand kilograms of explosives."

Khaddam was for many years Syria's top official in Lebanon and was a member of the ruling Ba'ath Party's regional command, its most influential body, for almost 30 years.

He represents an old guard long seen as wary of Assad, who became president after the death of his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad, in 2000. Bashar Assad took some steps toward political reform, such as freeing political prisoners, soon after taking power. But he later clamped down on democracy activists.

The executive editor of Lebanon's leading newspaper, An-Nahar, a harsh critic of Syria's domination of Lebanon, said Khaddam was a key player in the regime he now criticizes.

Khaddam ''is to blame for most of Lebanon's crises that led to its impoverishment, humiliation, and if the need arose, elimination of its leaders, displacement of its people by various means, in addition to making it lose its sovereignty, independence, and free decision," Edmond Saab said in his weekly column yesterday.

The Feb. 14 Beirut bombing that killed Hariri, which is being investigated by a UN-appointed commission, killed 20 other people and was the catalyst for mass protests against Syria and greater international pressure that ultimately forced Syria to withdraw its army from Lebanon.

Khaddam met later yesterday in Paris with UN investigators probing the assassination, said an aide who would not give details. In the interview, Khaddam said that if Syria was involved, then Assad must have been, too, given the authoritarian nature of his regime. The UN probe of Hariri's killing has implicated Syria