THE POLITICS AND LIBERATION OF LEBANON By Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz)* For 30 years, political events in Lebanon were dominated by Syrian occupation until 2005, when the Syrian army withdrew under international pressure. Yet the national future of Lebanon remains clouded in doubt and tension, as acts of terror against anti-Syrian elements continue, the March "Cedar Revolution" is stymied, and the country totters between freedom and political paralysis and breakdown. Events in Lebanon in the first half of 2005 Lebanese/Maronite-Palestinian fighting in altered the political state of affairs Beirut and Mount Lebanon.3 concerning Syria's long occupation of that By June 1976, Syria also sent its own country. Yet the outcome of these events is army into Lebanon to dominate the country still unclear and fluid. This article analyzes and subdue it to the will of Damascus. the history of the Lebanon issue and Manipulating the complex fighting scenario prospects for creating a new, more in Lebanon, Syrian-Palestinian cooperation equitable and stable order given the against the Christian community became dramatic changes which have taken place. the major motif. For example, in February 1980, the Syrians turned over the western STAGES AND METHODS IN SYRIAN area from Damur to the Zahrani to the PLA, OCCUPATION OF LEBANON along with heavy military equipment.4 On The hegemonic notion of Greater Syria July 20, 1976, following the launching of provides the ideological and historic Syria's direct military intervention in underpinnings for Damascus's drive to Lebanon, Hafiz al-Asad gave an historic eliminate Lebanese independence.1 Among speech in which he declared that its tools in realizing this goal was the "[throughout] history, Syria and Lebanon Saiqah Palestinian faction established in have been one country and one people"--a 1968. In April 1969, in the midst of tension political melody that would continue to between the Lebanese government and accompany this foreign conquest.5 Palestinian forces, Syria moved several The Lebanese National Movement hundred Saiqah fighters to the border with (LNM), consolidated under the leadership Lebanon. 2 This was a mere prelude to the of the Jumblatt Druze clan in 1976, became December 1975 Syrian decision to move another vehicle for the Syrian penetration of both Saiqah forces and the Qadisiyya and Lebanon. A combination of leftist Hittin brigades of the Palestine Liberation personalities and groups--including Army (PLA) to the Baka Valley and north Ba'thists and Communists--sought to Lebanon in order to contain and regulate exploit the Palestinian insurgency in and the chaos emerging from against Lebanon for their own domestic political ambitions.6 However, Kamal 86 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 4 (December 2005) The Politics and Liberation of Lebanon Jumblatt, an aristocratic landlord in socialist he opposed. This included the assassination garb, wanted Lebanon to remain of President-elect Bashir Gemayel in independent: "We do not want to be a September 1982 and that of President Rene satellite state," he wrote to Asad.7 In Moawed in November 1989. response, Syrian operatives were sent to Syrian control over Lebanon was assassinate Jumblatt in 1977, and the LNM comprehensive in three respects. First, by lost its independence, submitting to Asad the 1990s, the Syrians had achieved an and becoming a lever of Damascus against exceptional evell of domestic pacification, the Christian population. Its traditional with hardly any expressions of political platform included a demand to redistribute opposition and little popular street protest. power away from the Christian This was due to the flight of political communities in favor of the Muslim and figures abroad and also due to Syria's policy Druze communities, to equalize regional of physical elimination of anyone who government expenditures and investments, dared challenge the absolute rule of the and to move toward a secular non-sectarian Asads. The assassinations of Gemayel, political system. Kamal's son, Walid, led Shaykh Hassan Khalid, Dany Chamoun, as the LNM and its core party element, the well as those of Lebanese Forces activists Progressive Socialist Party. Ramzy Irani and Pierre Boulos The mechanism of the Arab Deterrent demonstrated that point. Force (ADF), as proposed by the Arab Second, the Syrians were very adept in League at the October 1976 Riyadh and masking Lebanon with a veneer of normal Cairo conferences, became another mode social, political, and cultural life. Beirut for Syria's emerging domination of bustled, the radio blasted, and hotels were Lebanon. Ending hostilities and collecting full. However, underneath the surface, the weapons, in addition to supervising Lebanese lived in fear of voicing their Lebanese-Palestinian relations, were the opinions. A large enough number of high- ADF's primary purposes. Syrian forces profile Maronites willingly served as an were the overwhelming military elite front to hide the national infirmity. component, and so the ADF legitimized Among senior Lebanese Forces Syria's presence on Lebanese soil in pan- personalities, Samir Geagea gave approval Arab dress. Thereafter, the Syrians subdued to the Ta'if Accord, Elie Hobeika crossed the leftists, Muslims, Druze, Palestinians, the lines from his Israel connection to and Christian camp, each according to become a Syrian collaborator, and Fouad Syrian interests and timing.8 Syria's Malek ultimately succumbed to line up with creeping expansion became the the Syrians. Other well-known Maronites-- fundamental political reality in Lebanon. Boutros Harb, Carlos Edde, Nayla Moawed, Already in 1976, Asad had established and Robert Ghanem--followed suit when his sway over Lebanon, which enabled him they made the pilgrimage to Damascus in to impose Elias Sarkis, then-governor of the 2004 in order to seek Bashar Asad's support Central Bank, as the president. The for their presidential ambitions. Adept Chamber of Deputies met on April 10, Syrian cooptation of Lebanese politicians 1976. Those present unanimously agreed to broadcast a message of normalcy and amend the constitution in order to move up accommodation across the national and the election and then voted to make Sarkis international airwaves. president.9 Asad became both the source of Third, Syria did allow the minimal political power and the terminator of those opposition to act as an escape valve for Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 4 (December 2005) 87 Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz) Lebanese grievances. Therefore, when were audible, such as that of the late Albert Member of Parliament Fares Soueid Mukheiber in the Chamber of Deputies. A insisted in an April 2004 newspaper striking example of election interference interview that Syria should withdraw all its concerned the independent-minded Gabriel troops from Lebanon, not a political ripple Murr, brother of Michel Murr, minister of was noticeable.10 the interior and a Syrian ally. He defeated Finally, the Syrians were very adept at his Syrian-supported opponent (Michel's preventing any international pressure daughter and Gabriel's niece, Myrna) in a against their policy. No global protest to by-election for a legislative seat in the Metn Syrian occupation of Lebanon was heard region of Mount Lebanon in June 2002.13 for over 25 years. Yet within days the election results were overturned and Myrna Murr was declared Military & Security the victor. Later, the Lebanese authorities The Lebanese national army was under closed down Gabriel Murr's television absolute Syrian control. In an interview in station, sending scores of people into the summer of 2004, Syria's Prime unemployment. Minister, Muhammad Naji Otri, defined Syria's grip over Lebanon--its political this situation as "total coordination between personnel and government decisions-- the Lebanese and Syrian armies."11 Syria's began in 1976 and continued through 2005. military presence was felt even in the In the parliamentary election period of outlying regions of Lebanon, and its September 2000, Walid Jumblatt had intelligence surveillance agencies charged Syria with maintaining this system penetrated throughout society--both urban by sowing discord among Lebanese and rural. Telephone-tapping and communities, though forecasting that widespread use of informers spread a net of Syrian intervention could not last. He said, fear throughout the country. "It is not normal that [the Syrians] intervene Hundreds of Lebanese citizens were everywhere, in the labor unions, in public abducted. Among them, many were life, at the level of the press, and in the tortured, imprisoned, and transferred to the name of security."14 notorious Syrian Mezze prison, while others The eminent rector of the Universite de were sent to the Palmyra prison in the St. Joseph in Beirut, Selim Abou, explained desert, never to be heard from again. The how Syrian rhetoric was the reverse of 1992 abduction of well-known Lebanese reality. In this system of doubletalk, Syria Forces fighter Boutros Khawand was one "defends" rather than occupies Lebanon, well-known instance of Syria's methods.12 whereas were the Lebanese army to replace With five Syrian detention facilities from Hizballah along Israel's border, this would Tripoli in the north to Anjar in the west, the be said to serve Israel's interests rather than image of Lebanon as one big prison was manifest Lebanon's sovereign rule. The hardly an imaginary notion. Syrian presence was constantly justified by the formula that it is "legal,