Berri Says Aoun Wants to 'Undermine Taef Accord, Monopolize Power'

Speaker Nabih Berri has blasted President Michel Aoun's stance on the controversial officers seniority decree, accusing the president – without naming him – of seeking to monopolize power and to “undermine” the Taef Accord.

Stressing that the solution is to return the decree to Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil to sign it, Berri told his visitors that the Taef Accord, which ended the civil war, had sought to prevent the monopolization of power in the hands of one person.

“The sectarian statements do not intimidate me. If someone thinks so, I tell them that my stance is principled and that my rejection is based on the Constitution and the Taef Accord. Nothing will stop us from taking our constitutional right,” several newspapers quoted Berri as telling his visitors.

“This insistence on violating the Constitution is aimed at undermining the Taef Accord. They do not want the signatures of the ministers of finance and interior. Have we forgotten that they fought the Taef Accord and stood against us in the past?” Berri added.

“Perhaps some have forgotten that the Lebanese paid 150,000 victims in the civil war as a price for the Taef Accord, to prevent the state's decision from being monopolized by one person, but rather by a Council of Ministers that represents the country's consensus,” the Speaker went on to say.

Berri also emphasized that “decrees cannot enter into effect before being published (in the official gazette), and so far the decree is yet to be published.”

The Aoun-Berri spat broke out after the president and the premier signed a decree granting one-year seniority to a number of officers. Berri and Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil have insisted that the decree should have also carried the finance minister's signature.

Aoun and his aides have argued that the decree did not require Khalil's signature because it did not entail any “financial burden,” a point Berri and officials close to him have argued against.

Ain el-Tineh sources have meanwhile warned that the decree would tip sectarian balance in favor of Christians in the army's highest echelons.

The officers in question were undergoing their first year of officer training at the Military Academy when Syrian forces ousted Aoun’s military government from Baabda in 1990. They were suspended by the pro-Damascus authorities until 1993 before they resumed their officer training course as second-year cadets.