Montada Baabda Symposium Phoenicia Hotel

Under the patronage and presence of His Excellency the President of the Republic General Michel Suleiman, “Mountada Baabda” (Forum of Baabda) held on November the 16th 2013 at the Phoenicia Hotel, a seminar titled “The Independence from the National Pact to the Declaration of Baabda”

The conference was attended by the President of the Republic, a number of personalities and political, diplomatic and security officials, along with cultural, economic and social bodies and invitees, in addition to a crowd of media representatives.

The speakers were:

• Professor Shafiq Masri, expert on international law and legitimacy,
• Professor Fayez Hajj Chahine, member of the National Dialogue Committee,
• Abdel Hadi Mahfouz, head of National Audiovisual Media Council
• Former Minister Ziad Baroud,
• Former Minister Jihad Azour,
• Former Minister Khaled Qabbani,
• Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zaspikin and UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly, interspersed by a documentary about the National Pact and the Declaration prepared by the colleague George Ghanem.

It is noteworthy that this seminar is the first appearance for “Mountada Baabda”, and serves as an announcement of its launching under the slogan “Neutrality and Dialogue for Stability and Prosperity”. A press kit was distributed on the sidelines of the seminar, highlighting the forum’s principal and patriotic goals that aim to reunite the Lebanese people through empowering the role of the Lebanese State institutions, in the context of maintaining the spirit of the 1943 National Pact, the laws of the Lebanese
Constitution, and the Taif Agreement; emphasizing as well the importance to protect the Lebanese Government entity in the light of the regional conflicts that are a direct threat to the Lebanese security.

The Consul was representing El Salvador at the above event.