The Guardians of the Cedars Party issued the following weekly communiqué:

With the closure of the file of the Lebanese prisoners in Israeli prisons, the file of the Lebanese prisoners in Syrian prisons moves to the political forefront and becomes the highest priority on the new government’s agenda. The government will be fully responsible for any delay in addressing this long-standing tragedy, jointly with the Syrian government.

If the Syrian regime is serious about improving its relations with Lebanon as it promised to do in Paris, it must first begin with the goodwill gesture of settling this humanitarian issue by disclosing the whereabouts and fate of thousands of detainees in its detention centers. Anything short of this will keep its promises the same old promises it made before, whose goals are to polish its ugly face before the world and break its international isolation.

In the same context, we declare that the case of the Lebanese deportees in Israel has too moved to the political forefront, and it has now become the responsibility of the government to attend to a solution to this national issue with the required speed, Any delay will increase the risk of those citizens melding into Israeli society which makes their return to their country impossible. Lebanon would thus irreversibly lose some of its finest young people.

We have confidence in the sense of honor and chivalry of President Michel Sleiman to heal this festering wound as he promised in his inaugural speech in which he proved that he is a father to all the Lebanese. Yet, we express our strong regrets vis-à-vis both the spiritual and lay “Christian” leaderships which have not empathized with this urgent national cause, nor did they pay it the required attention and the expected concern.

Three thousand citizens exiled to Israel for the past 8 years and no one claims them. Everyone ignores them. Not one word mentions them even at the Sunday sermons. Afterwards, they wonder how the Christians in Lebanon have reached this rock-bottom state of weakness, humiliation and disgrace???

To the leaders: Rise to the challenge of honor before shame discards you in the trash bin of history.

Lebanon, at your service
Abu Arz
July 18, 2008