Lebanese Forces Party Chief, Samir Geagea, stressed Sunday that his party “will not accept that our people burn in hell, and we will not accept that Lebanon disappears or that its features change and that its people starve.”

He added: “We will not accept that our people be robbed of their sovereignty, dignity and freedom. We, the Lebanese Forces, will resist as we have resisted, so that Lebanon persists again and again and also this time, and he who lives sees!”

Referring to the current mandate, Geagea said it is “the era of total collapse, run by a ruling group that has relinquished the authority and sovereignty of the state, struck its institutions, and turned it into a rogue failed state, ruled by corrupt, failed people.”

“There is no salvation or progress with this ruling clique, whose solid core is the duo of Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement,” he stressed.

“The crisis today is caused by the kidnapping of the Lebanese state and its institutions and taking it hostage for a non-Lebanese interest, and this has led to Lebanon losing its friendships and Arab and international relations,” Geagea underlined.

He added: “We must realize, decisively, that it is impossible to overcome the present tragic situation without the establishment of a state, and it is impossible to establish a state before restoring its decision, and it is impossible to establish a state if it does not possess the exclusive arms of its entire territory.”

Geagea continued to affirm that the law cannot be applied on one group of the Lebanese alone, nor can smuggling be stopped without controlling all borders and deploying international forces along these borders.

“Hezbollah cannot continue in this way of ignoring reality, and in belittling and showing contempt against the legitimate and just demands of the people. Doesn’t Hezbollah know that it bears the main part of the responsibility for the devastating economic and financial crisis, after it caused the severing of Lebanon’s relations with its Arab surroundings, and plunged it into conflicts and regional axes that are useless and which Lebanon has nothing to do with?” questioned Geagea.

The LF Chief went on to state that “the national crisis that threatens the Lebanese entity in its role and existence is the mother crisis from which all crises branch out, and for which we must focus on finding solutions through an easy and simple road map: first by holding the parliamentary elections that will be the starting point and the first step in the journey of a thousand miles; second by electing a new president immediately after the completion of the new parliament council, a president that is not weak and submissive; third by forming a government of actual reforms emanating from the new parliament, which will immediately begin the process of the desired rescue.”

Geagea also cited the need for “holding a national dialogue under the auspices of the new president to discuss all issues and controversial files, especially those related to the sovereignty, authority and decision of the state, and agree on how to execute what has not been implemented of the Taif Accord, particularly with regards to arms and expanded decentralization.”

He reiterated, once again, that the success of all the above depends on the success of the first and main step, namely holding the parliamentary elections on time, urging the Lebanese people who aim for change to alter their manner of voting in order to bring by the wanted change.

Geagea’s words came during the annual Mass service held as a tribute to the souls of the martyrs of the Lebanese Resistance in Maarab, under the slogan “Continuous Resistance”, patronized by Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, represented by Archbishop Hanna Rahmeh, and attended by members of the “Strong Republic” parliamentary bloc and various prominent figures.