By Lucy Fielder BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s Syrian-backed government banned protests planned for Monday but a main opposition figure vowed the Lebanese would take to the streets to demand who killed former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh called on security forces in a statement on Sunday “to take all necessary steps to preserve security and order and prevent demonstrations and gatherings on Monday.” Opposition groups have called a protest at the central Martyrs Square by Hariri’s grave and a one-day strike to coincide with a parliamentary debate on the killing that for many recalled Lebanon’s bitter 1975-90 civil war.

Government and Syrian loyalists, meanwhile, planned to descend on central Beirut to protest against U.S. Deputy Secretary of State David Satterfield’s visit to Lebanon as part of growing international pressure.

Clashes between the two sides were feared.

An army statement asked the Lebanese people not to gather, particularly in the streets around parliament. Scores of security forces blocked those streets all day Sunday ahead of what is widely expected to be a fiery debate.

But opposition figure Walid Jumblatt promised there would be defiance on Monday, two weeks to the day after the killing that shocked Lebanon.

“We are going ahead. They cannot prevent us from going down peacefully, democratically and paying tributes to Rafik al-Hariri on the day of the national parliamentary debate where our main aim is to ask who killed Hariri,” he told Reuters.

“We’ll do our best. The army has banned it, it was not a surprise from a Lebanese regime that was somehow responsible for the killing of Rafik al-Hariri,” he said by telephone from his palace in Lebanon’s Chouf mountains.

Opposition deputies and many ordinary Lebanese have held Syria and the Lebanese authorities either directly or indirectly responsible for Hariri’s killing, along with 17 other people, on Feb. 14.

They pledged last week to call a government no-confidence vote in the session and said security chiefs should be sacked and put on trial.

“I hope all the MPs will stand by their duty, defending the interests of the people in confronting this tyrannical fascist regime, because it’s no more than two weeks since Hariri was killed,” Jumblatt said.

DESTROYING THE EVIDENCE

The Druze chieftain, an outspoken critic of Syria’s dominance of Lebanon, accused the authorities of hampering a United Nations (news – web sites) fact-finding mission on Hariri’s killing.

“They threatened him, then they killed him, then they did huge damage to the site of the explosion to prevent the international fact-finding mission from having clear-cut evidence,” Jumblatt said.

“And tomorrow they are preventing people from praying and asking who killed Hariri.”

Lebanon has launched an investigation but rejected calls for a full international probe.

Figures from across Lebanon’s disparate opposition movement have seized on public fury at Hariri’s killing to demand that Syria pull out its troops and intelligence services and that the Beirut government it backs resigns.

Thousands of Lebanese have taken to the streets since Hariri’s death to make the same demands. About 200,000 marched through central Beirut in a mass outpouring of grief and anger at Hariri’s funeral.

Even before a huge bomb blew apart Hariri’s motorcade, tensions were building before May elections expected to focus on Syria’s presence in its tiny neighbor.

Jumblatt acknowledged the government had a sound majority in parliament and would probably win the no-confidence vote.

“The government, I think, will have the majority but day by day they are losing popular confidence. But they will go to the end, it’s a struggle for their survival.

“Our continuous struggle is for peaceful democratic change.”

Washington and France have led growing international pressure on Damascus to pull out and were the main sponsors of a United Nations resolution on the issue.

Syria said last week it planned to redeploy its 14,000 troops to the eastern Bekaa valley in line with the 16-year-old Taif agreement that ended Lebanon’s war, but specified no time.