Slain leader's funeral hosts political rally

The funeral gave pro-Western leaders a forum to ramp up support.
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Downtown Beirut was transformed into a river of red and white Lebanese flags Thursday as emotional demonstrators turned the funeral of assassinated anti-Syrian politician Pierre Gemayel into a show of support for the beleaguered pro-Western government.
At times angry, ebullient, dispirited and defiant, protesters converged on Martyrs' Square, where the slain man's father, former President Amin Gemayel, told the crowd that the turnout marked "the start of a second revolution for the independence of Lebanon."
The turnout provided an emotional boost for Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, the pro-Western leader who's trying to fend off a political coup by the country's Shiite Hezbollah militia and prevent neighboring Syria from reasserting unwanted influence on the tiny nation's fractious political system.
Gemayel was gunned down Tuesday in a daylight attack that pushed the government one step closer to possible collapse and edged Lebanon toward a sectarian war.
Leaders have forum
The funeral for the 34-year-old son of a Maronite Christian political dynasty provided leaders of Lebanon's pro-Western forces with a forum to energize their supporters. Gemayel was the fifth prominent anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated in Lebanon since February 2005, when former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed by a car bomb.
Then, as now, many accused Syria of ordering the assassination in an attempt to undermine the Lebanese government. Hariri's death sparked the Cedar Revolution, a peaceful protest movement that drove Syrian forces from Lebanon after decades of political dominance.
Syria has denied playing any role in any of the assassination plots of the past year, but it has been highly critical of an ongoing United Nations investigation that has focused on allegations that high-level Syrian officials played a role in Hariri's death.