Tens of thousands of Lebanese -- men and women, Christians and Muslims -- shouted insults at Syria in an outpouring of anger as yet another assassinated anti-Syrian campaigner was buried.
Lebanon was brought to a halt on Wednesday by a general strike called in mourning for editor and lawmaker Gibran Tueni, who was killed along with two bodyguards on Monday in a car bombing, but neighboring Syria largely ignored the events. Damascus has denied involvement in the slaying.
Doctors, nurses, bankers and businessmen joined political activists and students to bid farewell to Tueni, the outspoken 48-year-old general manager of the country's leading An-Nahar newspaper.
"We want to say the truth; Syria killed him!" shouted many among the flag-waving crowd outside An-Nahar's building in Beirut. "Gibran lives on!" shouted others.
"Enough blood and killings. They [Syrians] are taking away our best men in Lebanon," said an enraged Mazen Abdel-Samad, a 25-year-old university student wearing the red and white scarf that came to symbolize Lebanon's uprising against Syrian control.
Anti-Syrian groups in Lebanon are counting on public anger over Tueni's killing to push for ridding the government of remnants of the Syrian era -- including intelligence operatives -- and to close ranks in confronting Damascus.
But their choices are limited. The anti-Syrian groups are divided and, although they hold a majority in parliament and Cabinet and are in control of the police, they have not been able to stop the bombing campaign.
Pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has rejected their calls to resign.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa came to Beirut on Wednesday in an effort to prevent further deterioration in Lebanese-Syrian relations, and said he hoped diplomacy could "contain the grave situation."
Police officials estimated the crowd on Wednesday at more than 100,000 people. But other witnesses and observers said they thought it could be as high as 200,000.
The protest and funeral was by far the largest gathering since March 14, when 1 million people filled Beirut's streets to demand that Syria release its hold on Lebanon. In a speech that day, Tueni called for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and urged Lebanese Muslims and Christians, often divided along sectarian lines, to unite.
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