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Failing to Deal with the Past : What Cost to Lebanon? for Transitional Justice

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Failing to Deal with the Past : What Cost to Lebanon? for Transitional Justice Cover Image: On left: Ain El Remmaneh, Beirut, February 17, 1990. (Roger Moukarzel) On right: Special Tribunal for Lebanon. (STL) Top of map: Court room scene after four judges were assassinated in Saida, on June 8, 1999. (Annahar) Bottom of map: Chil- dren in Sin el Fil, 1989. (Roger Moukarzel) Design by Edward Beebe LEBANON Failing to Deal with the Past What Cost to Lebanon? January 2014 International Center Failing to Deal with the Past : What Cost to Lebanon? for Transitional Justice Acknowledgments The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) gratefully acknowledges the support of the European Union (EU), which made this project possible. Dima Smaira would like to thank Maya Mansour and Rami Smaira for their advice and support. ICTJ also thanks Nidal Jurdi for conducting a peer review. About the Authors and Contributors Dima Smaira is a researcher based in Lebanon specializing in Lebanese politics and the study of conflict and security. She is a PhD candidate in international relations at Durham University (UK). She holds an MA in International Affairs from the Lebanese American University. Her areas of specialization include issues relating to human security, stability, conflict, and the transformation of security in Lebanon. Roxane Cassehgari is a research assistant at ICTJ. She received her LL.M. from Columbia Law School, with a specialization in human rights, transitional justice, and international criminal law. She holds a dual law degree from Cambridge University (UK) and Panthéon- Assas (France). International Center for Transitional Justice ICTJ assists societies confronting massive human rights abuses to promote accountability, pursue truth, provide reparations, and build trustworthy institutions. Committed to the vindication of victims’ rights and the promotion of gender justice, ICTJ provides expert technical advice, policy analysis, and comparative research on transitional justice approaches, including criminal prosecutions, reparations initiatives, truth seeking and memory, and institutional reform. For more information, visit www.ictj.org ©2014 International Center for Transitional Justice. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without full attribution. Disclaimer: The contents of the publication are the sole responsibility of ICTJ and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the EU. II www.ictj.org International Center Failing to Deal with the Past : What Cost to Lebanon? for Transitional Justice CONTENT Acronyms ........................................................................................................................IV Executive Summary .......................................................................................................... V 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................1 2. Historical Context ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3 3. Legal Framework ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................5 4. Prosecutions ......................................................................................................................9 4.1 Amnesty Laws ...................................................................................................................9 4.2 Excluding SLA Members from Amnesties........................................................................10 4.3 Trying Cases of Enforced Disappearance in Lebanese Courts ...........................................11 4.4 Minimal Action in Holding International Actors Accountable ........................................11 4.5 The Special Tribunal for Lebanon ....................................................................................12 5. Truth and Memory ..........................................................................................................15 5.1 The Missing: Their Unknown Fate and Numbers ............................................................15 5.2 Commissions of Inquiry on the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared .................................16 5.3 Draft Law for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons ................................................17 5.4 Memorialization ..............................................................................................................18 6. Reparation .......................................................................................................................19 6.1 The Return of the Displaced ............................................................................................19 6.2 Compensation .................................................................................................................22 6.3 Rehabilitation ..................................................................................................................23 6.4 Satisfaction: Apologies and Recognition of Responsibility ...............................................24 6.5 Reparations by Nonstate Actors .......................................................................................25 7. Institutional Reform ........................................................................................................27 7.1 Security and Justice Reform .............................................................................................27 7.2 The Need for Comprehensive Institutional Reform .........................................................29 7.3 Repercussions of Limited Reforms ...................................................................................29 8. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................31 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................33 www.ictj.org III International Center Failing to Deal with the Past : What Cost to Lebanon? for Transitional Justice ACRONYMS CDR Council for Development and Reconstruction CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child CRP Community Reconciliation Processes DDR disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration FCLD Committee for the Support of Lebanese Detainees in Israeli Prisons HJC High Judicial Council HRC High relief Commission ICCPED UN Convention on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ICRC International Committee for the Red Cross ICTJ International Center for Transitional Justice IDP internally displaced person ISF Internal Security Forces LAF Lebanese Armed Forces LF Lebanese Forces LMAC Lebanon Mine Action Centre LNM Lebanese National Movement MoD Ministry of the Displaced NGO nongovernmental organization PLO Palestinian Liberation Organization SC UN Security Council SLA South Lebanon Army SOLIDE Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile SOLIDERE Société Libanaise pour le Développement et la Reconstruction de Beyrouth STL Special Tribunal for Lebanon UN United Nations UNIIIC UN International Independent Investigation Commission UNIFIL UN Interim Force in Lebanon UNRWA UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees IV www.ictj.org Executive Summary This paper examines the situation of impunity in Lebanon that has persisted since the 1975–1990 war. It highlights the price of the Lebanese authorities’ failure to address the legacy of past conflict. Lebanon’s post-war transition has been flawed, partial, and largely ineffective. Despite statements from the Lebanese government regarding its commitment to international law, Lebanon has made no serious attempts to comply with its international legal obligations to pursue perpetrators of serious human rights violations or to address the rights and needs of victims, nor has it addressed the culture of impunity that has pervaded Lebanese society. Successive Lebanese governments have adopted a politicized and selective approach to accountability that has marginalized victims and failed to respect their inalienable rights to truth, justice, life, liberty, and physical integrity. Through a policy of “state-sponsored amnesia,” the government has endeavored to silence investigations and formal inquiries into the war, leaving political and social factions to compete over the dominant war narrative and victims without satisfactory answers as to what happened during the 15-year war. Lebanese institutions have failed to provide impartial and effective service to victims of conflict and political violence. Its reparation program has been fraught with challenges as well as abuses and corruption. Having played a repressive political role
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