DAMASCUS, Syria (AP):
IN A government-orchestrated campaign to counter international pressure, hundreds of thousands of civil servants and students took yesterday off to protest a U.N. report implicating Syria in the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister.
The action appeared to be a last-ditch effort by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to win support a day before a U.N. Security Council meeting is expected to convene and pile up the pressure on Damascus.
While the United States and Britain are pushing for an international stand against Syria, in the wake of a damning U.N. report into Rafik Hariri's February 14 killing, France indicated Monday it would not support sanctions against Syria before the ongoing probe had finished its work.
NO DISAGREEMENT
France's foreign minister, however, said Paris does not disagree with Washington on the issue.
"Let us allow that commission to run its full course," Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters in Paris.
Syria's official news agency, SANA, said "hundreds of thou-sands" of Syrian citizens protested the "unjust accusations" in the report released last week by chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis. The report implicated top Syrian security officials in Hariri's assassination.
The Syrian government has rejected the findings and described Mehlis' report as being politicised, biased and inaccurate.
The mass demonstrations in Damascus and Aleppo, northern Syria, were a concerted attempt by all branches of government to drum up support for Assad amid the heightening international pressure.
"Mr. Mehlis: we are not murderers," read one banner. "Syria will never be another Iraq," read another in central Damascus's Sabe Bahrat Square, where the crowd chanted: "With our soul and our blood, we redeem you, Bashar!"
There was no official crowd estimate for the demonstrations. The Associated Press estimated that in both cities the protesters numbered hundreds of thousands, many waving large posters of the Syrian president and his father, the late President Hafez Assad.
The government gave students a one-day holiday and encouraged civil servants to take part in the demonstrations, which were organised by state-run labour unions. Police diverted traffic to make way for the protesters.
Addressing the Damascus crowd from a balcony, a speaker said: "The masses of our people stand united in Arab Damascus today to condemn Mehlis' report and to declare their absolute rejection of the continuing U.S. threats against Syria. These threats have been stepped up since the (U.S.) occupation of Iraq."
"No to falsification of facts. No to politicisation of the report. Yes to Bashar Assad," he said, adding: "17 million Syrians want the truth without falsification."
State newspapers published editorials condemning the U.N. report, which found Hariri's assassination could not have been carried out without the complicity of Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services.
Demonstrator Linda Taha, 30, a civil servant, said Syria had nothing to do with Hariri's death.
"The report is politicised in accord with U.S. and Israeli desires to pressure Syria and undermine its steadfastness," Taha said.
Syrian Christian and Muslim clergymen also handed a letter to France, U.N. and Vatican envoys in Damascus rejecting the "unjustified accusations and false fabrications" against Syria in the U.N. report, SANA said.
Syria has long held it has come under Western pressure due to its uncompromising stand on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and Israel's occupation of Arab land.
The U.N. Security Council is due to discuss the Mehlis report on Tuesday, and the United States and Britain want the world body to adopt a tough stand on Syria.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have called on the world body to take a strong position on the U.N. report.
For more than a year, the United States has been putting pressure on Syria, accusing it of interfering in Lebanon, allowing insurgents to cross into Iraq and supporting Palestinian militant groups. Syria denies these charges.
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AP-NY-10-24-05 1227EDT
