Jumblat: Tripoli Leaders are Destroying the City after Failing to Alter Status Quo
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat accused on Monday the leaderships of the northern city of Tripoli of destroying their city, saying that the situation there should no longer continue as it is.
He said in his weekly editorial for the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website: “It seems that the Tripoli leaderships are determined to destroy their city seeing as none of them have taken the necessary measures to change the status quo.”
“They have failed to lift political cover off the gunmen and failed to halt the funding of the armed groups,” he added.
Tripoli has been rocked with the latest round of clashes between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, leaving at least ten dead and 40 wounded.
Fighting linked to conflict in Syria frequently erupts between the rival neighborhoods, with residents of Bab al-Tabbaneh supporting Syrian rebels and residents of Jabal Mohsen backing the Syrian regime.
Commenting on last week's tensions at the Universite Saint Joseph in the Huvelin neighborhood in Beirut, Jumblat noted: “The freedom of political work at universities should serve to bolster the spirit of democracy among the youths.”
“It should help them accept the concepts of winning and losing in politics and accept the other,” he explained.
“These values should be preserved in light of the curbing of democratic freedoms in other fields,” he stated.
“We reject however turning university campuses into political battlegrounds,” declared the MP.
He therefore suggested that efforts be exerted to avoid turning universities into political platforms that side with one political camp against the other.
Universities should remain a location where Lebanese youths may unite at time when petty political disputes are dividing the people, Jumblat added.
Tensions erupted on November 25 between Hizbullah and March 14 camp supporters at USJ-Huvelin.
According to media reports, the tensions erupted after Hizbullah supporters protested against the results of recent student elections, prompting them to surround the campus.
Phalange Party MP Sami Gemayel said however that the tensions were sparked when Hizbullah supporters wrote provocative political graffiti at the campus.
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