[THS] Robert Fisk: Lebanon Descends Into Chaos

[Peter Webster]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19883.htm

Lebanon Descends Into Chaos

Rival Leaders Order General Strike

By Robert Fisk:

08/05/08 "The Independent" -- - Burning tyres on the airport road, flights
suspended, demands from the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt that Hizbollah
moves secret cameras from runway 1-7 and end the militia's equally secret
underground communications equipment. Across Corniche Mazraa, crowds
of shrieking Sunni and Shia Muslims hurl abuse and stones at each other. A
soldier comes up to my car at the crossroads. "Turn round," he shouts.
"They're shooting."

Lebanon seems to feed on crisis, need crisis, breathe crisis, like a wounded
man needs blood. The man who should be the president is head of the
army and the man who believes he leads the resistance – Sayed Hassan
Nasrallah of the Hizbollah – accuses Mr Jumblatt of doing Israel's work while
Mr Jumblatt claims the head of Beirut airport security, Colonel Wafic
Chucair, works for the Hizbollah and should be fired.

Yesterday, in case you hadn't guessed, was a "general strike" by opponents
of the Lebanese government with all the usual chaos. Mr Nasrallah is to
hold a press conference today and then we'll all find out if this latest crisis is
the greatest crisis since the last great crisis. Yes, a good cup of cynicism is
necessary to wash down the rhetoric and threats of the past few days. At its
most serious is the incendiary language in which Lebanon's politicians now
address each other, the kind of menacing words that could easily touch an
assassin's heart.

Indeed, the start of this latest drama might be traced to the murder of two
Phalangist officials in the Bekaa town of Zahle a few weeks ago. The
murderer has been named, is linked to the pro-Syrian opposition and is still
at large.

You could hear gunfire crackling across Beirut all morning. To top it all,
soaring price increases – even of basic food – is creating a little revolution in
the hearts of many Lebanese. Yesterday's strike was supposed to be
organised by the General Labour Confederation, which is objecting to the
government's new minimum wage offer of £171 a month.

The darker side of all this, of course, involves Beirut airport. Mr Jumblatt's
claim that Hizbollah has installed cameras beside one of the runways
appears to be correct. Lebanese army officers have apparently noticed the
cameras which can monitor executive jets taking off and landing. However,
the apparatus may well have been installed because the Hizbollah believes
that runway 1-7 – which starts a few metres above the Mediterranean –
could be used for a small seaborne landing by Israeli troops. There is a
persistent rumour in Beirut that the Israelis were about to stage such an
operation against the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on 28
April but that it was cancelled for equally mysterious reasons. Was this the
origin of the cameras and of Hizbollah's unpleasant suggestion that Mr
Jumblatt is doing Israel's work?

As usual, it was the sectarian content of the street violence which alarmed
the army – a good many stones were chucked from high-rise buildings near
the Cola bridge in west Beirut, the exact location of Sunni-Shia fighting in
January last year. Even in the very centre of Beirut, piles of tyres were set
alight, giving the city a sombre curtain of black smoke that drifted out to
sea. So the capital of a country without a president – and for most of the
time without a sitting parliament – is set to lose yet more international
confidence.

What is it about Lebanon that creates these crises? Maybe at heart, it is the
same old problem: to be a modern state, Lebanon must abandon
confessionalism – the system which provides a Maronite for the presidency,
a Sunni for the prime minister's seat, a Shia for the speaker of parliament,
and so on. But if Lebanon abandoned confessionalism, it would no longer
be Lebanon, because sectarianism is its identity; a fate which its children do
not deserve but whose country was created by French masters on the ruins
of the Ottoman empire. Ironically, the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad
Siniora now rules – or tries to rule – his nation from a building which was
once the Beirut cavalry stables of the Ottoman army.