13 March 2011 VOA News Tens of thousands of Lebanese have rallied in central Beirut to mark the 2005 protests that ended Syria's nearly 30-year domination of Lebanon. The crowd Sunday demanded that the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, an ally of Syria and Iran, give up its weapons.
The demonstrators waved Lebanese flags, banners of pro-Western political parties and posters of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose assassination in 2005 prompted the protest movement that drove out Syrian troops later that year in what became known as the “Cedar Revolution.”
Speakers at the rally strongly criticized Hezbollah's continued possession of weapons. Outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri and right-wing Christian faction leader Samir Geagea said the army and security forces should be the only armed groups in Lebanon. Other Lebanese groups disarmed after the country's civil war.
Hezbollah has an arsenal more powerful than that of the Lebanese army. The group says it needs its weapons to defend Lebanon against Israel.
Rafik Hariri's assassination in a February 14, 2005 Beirut bombing sparked the rise of large-scale anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon. Combined with international pressure, the protests led to the pullout of Syrian troops in April 2005, ending 29 years of military and political domination by Damascus.
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