Hoss Named Lebanon’s Prime Minister

Lebanon’s new president Monday designated veteran Muslim politician Salim Hoss as prime minister in a move challenging Christian strongman Michel Aoun, who has refused to relinquish power, officials said.

Hoss and Maj. Gen. Aoun have led rival Muslim and Christian governments since the six-year term of President Amin Gemayel ended in September, 1988, with Parliament unable to agree on a successor.

Aoun issued a statement Monday saying the Hoss nomination is “as unconstitutional as the election” Nov. 5 of President Rene Mouawad.

The session at which Parliament elected Mouawad and endorsed a peace plan was held in Syrian-controlled northern Lebanon because Aoun had threatened to shell the Parliament building in Beirut.

Mouawad, a Christian, instructed Hoss to form a national reconciliation government with the mission of ending the 14-year-old sectarian civil war, in which more than 150,000 people have been killed.

Police reported exchanges of artillery and small-arms fire across Beirut’s sectarian dividing line between Aoun’s Christian army units and Muslim militias backed by Syria. Each side accused the other of starting the shooting. No casualty reports were available.

A six-month artillery war between Aoun’s forces and a Muslim alliance led by the Syrians killed at least 930 people and wounded 2,744 before the Arab League arranged a truce in September.

Syria has 40,000 soldiers in Lebanon under an Arab League peacekeeping mandate dating from 1976, the year after the war began. Aoun calls the Syrians an occupation force and has declared a “war of liberation” to drive them out.

Later Monday, Aoun said: “This will be an unconstitutional government. It will not be a national reconciliation government; it will represent one side. Even if the whole world recognizes it, Hoss’ government will be a government operating in the shadow of Syrian occupation. Governments cannot survive only on foreign recognition.”

Mouawad, 64, designated Hoss, 59, a Sunni Muslim, after three days of consultations with political leaders.

Hoss said the 55th government since independence from France in 1943 would implement the peace accord worked out in Taif, Saudi Arabia, which includes a plan for sharing power between Christians and Muslims.

Mouawad, Hoss and Hussein Husseini, the Shiite Muslim who is Speaker of Parliament, received about 50 foreign ambassadors at the president’s temporary headquarters--the prime minister’s office in Muslim West Beirut.

“I call upon all of you to join our march toward peace,” Mouawad said in a seven-minute address. “We consider the Taif accord an introduction to peace and a launching pad for a new republic based on equality among all Lebanese.”