Well it has been a few weeks since the last bombing... Which happened to be in my neighborhood. I was lucky enough to be in a taxi heading away from my apartment. It is not even a question that I would have been safe if i would have been at home... The problem would have been the fact that I would have heard the explosion. Sometimes people neglect the fact that damage from sound is almost as powerful as receiving physical damage. My experience with the Israeli F-15 sonic booms left me with a bundle of nightmares... some of them range from low flying jets performing "mock-raids" where they go into attack mode... Other dreams I find myself running from missiles that are being fired... The one thing i have learned from this, is that there is nowhere to go, and you couldn't get out of the way of any missile no matter how fast you can run...
I can only imagine what type of nightmares I would be experiencing if I was home when the blast occurred... It was only 3 blocks away so I would guess that it was definitely audible from my humble residence.
Shortly afterward, there was an assassination attempt on the life of May Chadiac.. The face of LBC... Even though I don't watch LBC too often, I know who she is because she is the main anchor for the news. The poor woman has been left crippled for life as she lost her left arm and leg. This type of targeting only proves that there are pro-Syrian elements if not directly Syrian elements responsible for the terrorizing explosions.
I am predicting a new wave of bombings accompanying the release of the UN report... I am bracing myself as are many around me.. but I am not ready to even consider fleeing from Lebanon. It will take more than sporatic bombings.. Stay tune for more Lebanese drama.....
10/11/2005
9/04/2005
The Dawn of August 30th
August 30th will always remain a date in my mind as a critical turn of events in Lebanese politics.. I am not sure if the mainstream media picked up on the significance? Instead it has been focuses on Bush's folly in the Big Easy.... My prayers are with the families and the people in Louisiana who are suffering from the lack of US response to the natural disaster.. Coming from South Carolina, I have had my own great experiences with Hurricanes and their fury...
Taking a step back, August 29th around 11:40, I was on my way to an internet cafe to go check email. As I was walking down Bliss Street, there was a parade of Lebanese Army trucks (which is not that unusual). However, this time each truck had a machine gun pointed out... it is normal to see one truck in the group have a machine gun mounted on the front, but this time each truck had some serious weapon... I knew that it wasn't going to be a normal night... Lord knows what could go down in Beirut....
After heading back to my dorm and having relaxing conversation with the RA in the AUB dorm.. I went to sleep. The night had just begun for the Lebanese military and Lebanese ex-officials.. I had just gone to sleep when the power went out... (You know when the power goes out because the AC stops, and u don't want that in Beirut.. trust me) Dripping with sweat, I get up and turn the AC back on when the power returned. My AC had to be turned on manually. After finally going back to sleep, the power went out for the second time. Later the power went out for a third time. As I sit in bed, I am thinking in my head that something must be going down, something concerning the government. My mind was running wild with the possible scenarios. Maybe the Lahoud regime had fallen and there would be an announcement the following morning about the new government.
The next morning I went to work and asked around if they had made the same observations. Most said they didn't think anything happened... I didn't find out until later that morning when I read the newspapers with Headlines saying something that i would have never believed.
The Lebanese military arrested 5 suspects accused of plotting the Hariri Assassination. These 5 individuals were the highest ranking officials in the Lebanese Internal Security apparatus. While newspapers who did pick up on the story mentioned that there will be some violent repurcussions for the arrests, don't know how the Lebanese feel about these guys. They definitely will not be missed. I will post some stories with further information on these guys and their fate.... Just thought that it would be interesting to let all of you know that I sensed a "coup" of some sort.... this is a crucial event in lebanese history.... let's hope the changes continue to come...
Taking a step back, August 29th around 11:40, I was on my way to an internet cafe to go check email. As I was walking down Bliss Street, there was a parade of Lebanese Army trucks (which is not that unusual). However, this time each truck had a machine gun pointed out... it is normal to see one truck in the group have a machine gun mounted on the front, but this time each truck had some serious weapon... I knew that it wasn't going to be a normal night... Lord knows what could go down in Beirut....
After heading back to my dorm and having relaxing conversation with the RA in the AUB dorm.. I went to sleep. The night had just begun for the Lebanese military and Lebanese ex-officials.. I had just gone to sleep when the power went out... (You know when the power goes out because the AC stops, and u don't want that in Beirut.. trust me) Dripping with sweat, I get up and turn the AC back on when the power returned. My AC had to be turned on manually. After finally going back to sleep, the power went out for the second time. Later the power went out for a third time. As I sit in bed, I am thinking in my head that something must be going down, something concerning the government. My mind was running wild with the possible scenarios. Maybe the Lahoud regime had fallen and there would be an announcement the following morning about the new government.
The next morning I went to work and asked around if they had made the same observations. Most said they didn't think anything happened... I didn't find out until later that morning when I read the newspapers with Headlines saying something that i would have never believed.
The Lebanese military arrested 5 suspects accused of plotting the Hariri Assassination. These 5 individuals were the highest ranking officials in the Lebanese Internal Security apparatus. While newspapers who did pick up on the story mentioned that there will be some violent repurcussions for the arrests, don't know how the Lebanese feel about these guys. They definitely will not be missed. I will post some stories with further information on these guys and their fate.... Just thought that it would be interesting to let all of you know that I sensed a "coup" of some sort.... this is a crucial event in lebanese history.... let's hope the changes continue to come...
7/18/2005
Lebanese-Syrian border crisis intensifies after gunfightBy Majdoline Hatoum Daily Star staffMonday, July 18, 2005
BEIRUT: The border crisis between Lebanon and Syria intensified yesterday when a gun battle broke out between Lebanese police and Syrian smugglers in the northern city of Qaa.
The latest flare up on the border comes as Syrian Marine Police arrested four Lebanese fisherman and confiscated their boat for fishing in Syrian territorial waters in Aridah, north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The arrest of the four fishermen yesterday followed the earlier arrest of five others and the confiscation of two boats on Saturday.
The border row, which has also seen Lebanese trucks stranded on the Syrian border unable to cross, is in danger of becoming an international dispute.
The U.S. has accused Syria of scheming to "strangle" Lebanon politically and economically by closing its border to wipe out Lebanon's transit trade with the rest of the Arab World.
Washington has linked the border dispute to Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's attempts to block Premier-designate Fouad Siniora's efforts to form a new Lebanese cabinet composed of anti-Syrian MPs.
Commenting on the shooting incident in Qaa, a police source said smugglers entered Lebanon from Syria and were returning with a load of smuggled goods when they were spotted and fired at by a Lebanese customs patrol.
One Lebanese officer was slightly wounded and the smugglers returned to Syria, the official said.
The source also claimed a Syrian border patrol member shot toward Lebanese customs officers. Syrian customs officials declined to comment on the report, saying they had not heard of the border shootout.
Commenting on the arrest of the fishermen, Syrian Transport Minister Makram Obeid
said: "This is a judicial measure. The fishing boats were seized and did not have the required authorization."
But the Northern Lebanese Fishermen's Union called for a symbolic strike today to protest what it called "this new un-fraternal measure."
A spokesmen for Tripoli's Association of Fishermen said thousands of Syrian fishermen have for decades being fishing together with Lebanese in the coastal stretch between Tripoli and Arida off the common border of the two countries.
Many Lebanese believe the measures are a response following the forced withdrawal of Syrian troops in Lebanon in the wake of massive anti-Syrian demonstrations.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt held Lahoud and acting Premier Najib Mikati responsible of the crisis on the borders.
He said: "The country is blockaded. There are certain responsibilities on the president and premier. Why don't they discuss the issue with Syrian officials to get out of this problem?"
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus yesterday, called for both sides to maintain good relations. He said: " A political understanding is necessary between the two countries which must take into account the importance of the common interests that tie them."
The border scuffles come amid reports Syria intends to demand compensation for Syrian workers killed in Lebanon in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Syrian Social Affairs and Labor Minister Deyalla al-Haj Aref said her ministry has sent "detailed lists" of workers killed, including the date, time and manner in which they were killed.
Syria would discuss the issue further with Lebanon once its Cabinet is formed, she added.
The latest flare up on the border comes as Syrian Marine Police arrested four Lebanese fisherman and confiscated their boat for fishing in Syrian territorial waters in Aridah, north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The arrest of the four fishermen yesterday followed the earlier arrest of five others and the confiscation of two boats on Saturday.
The border row, which has also seen Lebanese trucks stranded on the Syrian border unable to cross, is in danger of becoming an international dispute.
The U.S. has accused Syria of scheming to "strangle" Lebanon politically and economically by closing its border to wipe out Lebanon's transit trade with the rest of the Arab World.
Washington has linked the border dispute to Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's attempts to block Premier-designate Fouad Siniora's efforts to form a new Lebanese cabinet composed of anti-Syrian MPs.
Commenting on the shooting incident in Qaa, a police source said smugglers entered Lebanon from Syria and were returning with a load of smuggled goods when they were spotted and fired at by a Lebanese customs patrol.
One Lebanese officer was slightly wounded and the smugglers returned to Syria, the official said.
The source also claimed a Syrian border patrol member shot toward Lebanese customs officers. Syrian customs officials declined to comment on the report, saying they had not heard of the border shootout.
Commenting on the arrest of the fishermen, Syrian Transport Minister Makram Obeid
said: "This is a judicial measure. The fishing boats were seized and did not have the required authorization."
But the Northern Lebanese Fishermen's Union called for a symbolic strike today to protest what it called "this new un-fraternal measure."
A spokesmen for Tripoli's Association of Fishermen said thousands of Syrian fishermen have for decades being fishing together with Lebanese in the coastal stretch between Tripoli and Arida off the common border of the two countries.
Many Lebanese believe the measures are a response following the forced withdrawal of Syrian troops in Lebanon in the wake of massive anti-Syrian demonstrations.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt held Lahoud and acting Premier Najib Mikati responsible of the crisis on the borders.
He said: "The country is blockaded. There are certain responsibilities on the president and premier. Why don't they discuss the issue with Syrian officials to get out of this problem?"
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus yesterday, called for both sides to maintain good relations. He said: " A political understanding is necessary between the two countries which must take into account the importance of the common interests that tie them."
The border scuffles come amid reports Syria intends to demand compensation for Syrian workers killed in Lebanon in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Syrian Social Affairs and Labor Minister Deyalla al-Haj Aref said her ministry has sent "detailed lists" of workers killed, including the date, time and manner in which they were killed.
Syria would discuss the issue further with Lebanon once its Cabinet is formed, she added.
4/17/2005
Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report
Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report
Posted on Saturday, April 16 @ 08:37:19 EDT
This article has been read 2526 times.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.
Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.
Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."
But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.
"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.
"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."
A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was being eliminated, but said the allegation that it was being done for political reasons was "categorically untrue."
According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.
That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.
The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."
The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures.
Another U.S. official, who also requested anonymity, said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing the data because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors.
Last June, the administration was forced to issue a revised version of the report for 2003 that showed a higher number of significant terrorist attacks and more than twice the number of fatalities than had been presented in the original report two months earlier.
The snafu was embarrassing for the White House, which had used the original version to bolster President Bush's election-campaign claim that the war in Iraq had advanced the fight against terrorism.
U.S. officials blamed last year's mix-up on bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Created last year on the recommendation of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the center is the government's primary organization for analyzing and integrating all U.S. government intelligence on terrorism.
The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House of Representatives and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year.
A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to produce one.
The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data.
He said that decision was taken because the State Department believed that the National Counterterrorism Center "is now the authoritative government agency for the analysis of global terrorism. We believe that the NCTC should compile and publish the relevant data on that subject."
He didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting (with Congress) ... on who should publish and in what form."
Another U.S. official said Rice's office was leery of the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate the data for 2004, believing that analysts anxious to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks.
But the U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office decided to eliminate "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks.
The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism.
To read past "Patterns of Global Terrorism" reports online, go to www.mipt.org/Patterns-of-Global-Terrorism.asp
Reprinted from Knight Ridder Newspapers:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm
Posted on Saturday, April 16 @ 08:37:19 EDT
This article has been read 2526 times.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.
Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.
Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."
But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.
"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.
"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."
A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was being eliminated, but said the allegation that it was being done for political reasons was "categorically untrue."
According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.
That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.
The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."
The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures.
Another U.S. official, who also requested anonymity, said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing the data because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors.
Last June, the administration was forced to issue a revised version of the report for 2003 that showed a higher number of significant terrorist attacks and more than twice the number of fatalities than had been presented in the original report two months earlier.
The snafu was embarrassing for the White House, which had used the original version to bolster President Bush's election-campaign claim that the war in Iraq had advanced the fight against terrorism.
U.S. officials blamed last year's mix-up on bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Created last year on the recommendation of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the center is the government's primary organization for analyzing and integrating all U.S. government intelligence on terrorism.
The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House of Representatives and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year.
A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to produce one.
The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data.
He said that decision was taken because the State Department believed that the National Counterterrorism Center "is now the authoritative government agency for the analysis of global terrorism. We believe that the NCTC should compile and publish the relevant data on that subject."
He didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting (with Congress) ... on who should publish and in what form."
Another U.S. official said Rice's office was leery of the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate the data for 2004, believing that analysts anxious to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks.
But the U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office decided to eliminate "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks.
The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism.
To read past "Patterns of Global Terrorism" reports online, go to www.mipt.org/Patterns-of-Global-Terrorism.asp
Reprinted from Knight Ridder Newspapers:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm
4/08/2005
You Have Your Lebanon and I Have My Lebanon
(written after the first World War, in the 1920's) Khalil Gibran
You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty.
Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East.
My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers Return from their fields and vineyards.
You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.
Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they Are as ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.... They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.
They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, "When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born"?
Who among them dare to say, "My life was a drop of blood in the veins of Lebanon, a tear in her eyes or a smile upon her lips"?
Those are the children of your Lebanon. They are, in your estimation, great;but insignificant in my estimation.
Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.
They are farmers who would turn the fallow field into garden and grove.
They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.
They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.
They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin the Silken yarn.
They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.
They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.
They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.
They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.
They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.
They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.
These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.
They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty, and truth.
What will remain of your Lebanon after a century? Tell me! Except bragging, lying and stupidity? Do you expect the ages to keep in its memory the traces of deceit and cheating and hypocrisy? Do you think the atmosphere will preserve in its pockets the shadows of death and the stench of graves?
Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a dress? Verily, I Say to you that an olive plant in the hills of Lebanon will outlast all of your deeds and your works; that the wooden plow pulled by the oxen in the crannies of Lebanon is nobler than your dreams and aspirations.
I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me, that the songs Of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you. I say to you that you are achieving nothing. If you knew that you are accomplishing nothing, I would feel sorry for you, but you know it not.
You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.
You have your Lebanon and its dilemma. I have my Lebanon and its beauty.
Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East.
My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow and rising in the evening as farmers Return from their fields and vineyards.
You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.
Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they Are as ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea.... They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans.
They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are cowards, always led backwards by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, "When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born"?
Who among them dare to say, "My life was a drop of blood in the veins of Lebanon, a tear in her eyes or a smile upon her lips"?
Those are the children of your Lebanon. They are, in your estimation, great;but insignificant in my estimation.
Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.
They are farmers who would turn the fallow field into garden and grove.
They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woolens.
They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.
They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin the Silken yarn.
They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.
They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.
They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.
They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.
They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.
They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.
These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.
They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty, and truth.
What will remain of your Lebanon after a century? Tell me! Except bragging, lying and stupidity? Do you expect the ages to keep in its memory the traces of deceit and cheating and hypocrisy? Do you think the atmosphere will preserve in its pockets the shadows of death and the stench of graves?
Do you believe life will accept a patched garment for a dress? Verily, I Say to you that an olive plant in the hills of Lebanon will outlast all of your deeds and your works; that the wooden plow pulled by the oxen in the crannies of Lebanon is nobler than your dreams and aspirations.
I say to you, while the conscience of time listened to me, that the songs Of a maiden collecting herbs in the valleys of Lebanon will outlast all the uttering of the most exalted prattler among you. I say to you that you are achieving nothing. If you knew that you are accomplishing nothing, I would feel sorry for you, but you know it not.
You have your Lebanon and I have my Lebanon.
3/30/2005
Lawrence of Lebanon and Emir Radney claim Jordan in the name of Lebanon
Lawrence of Lebanon and Emir Radney claim Jordan in the name of Lebanon
3/21/2005
'Behind Lebanon Upheaval, 2 Men's Fateful Clash'
The New York Time has run a Beirut-datelined article by its Middle East correspondent Neil MacFarquhar about slain ex-Premier Hariri's clash with Syrian President Bashar Assad shortly before the extension of President Lahoud's term in the Baabda Palace by three years last September. Following is the text of the article that carried this headline: Behind Lebanon Upheaval, 2 Men's Fateful Clash
On an unseasonably mild day last August, a small group of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's closest political allies could tell from his flushed face and subdued manner that something awful had happened in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he had been summoned to a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad.
The four men, all Lebanese Parliament members, recalled waiting for him at the Beirut mansion of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, in the so-called garden, basically a carport paved with concrete bricks, plus one short orange tree in a faux terra cotta tub.
Mr. Hariri - wearing an expensive blue suit and a white shirt, his tie loosened - lumbered over mutely and flung himself onto one of a dozen white plastic chairs, his head lolling back and his arms dangling over the edges.
After a few moments, he leaned forward and described how the Syrian leader had threatened him, curtly ordering him to amend Lebanon's Constitution to give President Émile Lahoud, the man Syria used to block Mr. Hariri's every move, another three years in office.
"Bashar told him, 'Lahoud is me,' " Mr. Jumblatt recalled in an interview. "Bashar told Hariri: 'If you and Chirac want me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon.' " He was referring to the French president, Jacques Chirac.
In the month since Mr. Hariri was assassinated, members of Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition have pointed to that Aug. 26 encounter in Damascus as fateful. Although opposition leaders acknowledge that they lack firm evidence tying Syria or its Lebanese agents directly to Mr. Hariri's assassination, they link that day to his slaying on Feb. 14.
"To tell you the truth, when I heard him telling us those words, I knew that it was his condemnation of death," Mr. Jumblatt said.
It was after that meeting that Mr. Hariri, 60, a real estate tycoon turned politician who had run Lebanon for the better part of 12 years, decided that he had to join the movement to uproot both the Syrian Army and the ever more robust tentacles of its secret police from Lebanon.
Interviews with a dozen Lebanese involved, including the three other men at the garden and some of Mr. Hariri's closest aides, indicate that in the final six months of his life he was tormented by the predicament that Lebanon now faces - how to end Syria's headlock without reigniting the civil war that tore this country apart a generation ago.
Whether Mr. Hariri would have succeeded in his efforts cannot be known. Nonetheless, President Assad's decision to force Mr. Lahoud onto Lebanon again is now widely seen as an enormous political blunder, uniting many Lebanese communities in opposition and even managing to bringing together France and the United States in a concerted effort to push Syria out. Although Syria denies involvement in the assassination, Mr. Hariri's death eliminated the one man potentially able to muster the international and domestic pressure to force Damascus to release its grip.
For the moment, his killing has inspired that anyway. But the lingering question is whether he can accomplish in death a goal that eluded him while alive: keeping the notoriously bickering opposition united for long enough to see free elections and the end of Syrian control.
"What they are really missing is a leader, that is the key problem, someone to show them the way," said Timur Goksel, a longtime United Nations spokesman here who now teaches at the American University of Beirut. "That is a real void."
Orders from Damascus
Syria is used to acting with impunity in Lebanon.
But by 2004, the Lebanese were expecting something different from Mr. Assad, not least because the United States had signaled by invading Iraq that business as usual was unacceptable.
The 39-year-old Syrian leader seemed to have gotten the message, telling a Kuwaiti newspaper early last summer that Damascus would not interfere in Lebanon's presidential election in the fall. Months later, Mr. Hariri was ordered to Damascus for the ominous meeting. Mr. Assad advertised the fact that the meeting was remarkably short - 15 minutes in a country where most presidential encounters drag on for hours - to make it clear that Syria was issuing an order.
The Lebanese around Mr. Hariri were both appalled and exhilarated that the Syrians obviously failed to grasp the consequences of what was immediately condemned as a maladroit act.
"We knew Bashar had made a fatal error," said a close political adviser to Mr. Hariri, who, like several other people interviewed, asked not to be identified given the current tension and fear of reprisals in Lebanon. "Hariri said that we are all just gnats to them, he kept repeating that until his death."
The Americans and the French, alienated since Paris opposed the war in Iraq, reacted with rare simultaneous anger over Syria's move. Quietly urged on by Mr. Hariri, they pushed through Security Council Resolution 1559, which demanded a Syrian withdrawal and the disarming of Hezbollah. The Syrians were furious at what they took to be solely Mr. Hariri's handiwork.
The strain showed. Mr. Hariri, a burly, gregarious man who loved to make puns, became quiet and introspective. A friend since childhood said that at one point the prime minister put his hand on the friend's shoulder and wept, something he'd never done before.
The Syrians, acknowledging that Mr. Hariri might be able to defuse the gathering international storm, asked the prime minister to form a new government. Mr. Hariri started drawing up lists of potential ministers, but most were rejected by Damascus.
"He was like a boxer still reeling from a direct punch," said Patrick B. Renaud, the Beirut ambassador for the European Union. "He was shocked by the harshness of the message he received from the Syrian president."
An even harsher message followed.
As Marwan Hamade, the former minister of economy and trade and a Hariri ally, drove away from his seaside apartment building on Oct. 1, a roadside bomb flung his Mercedes into the air. He clambered from the flaming wreckage and collapsed to the ground at the very moment the car's fuel tank exploded, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Mr. Hamade managed to survive with head injuries, severe burns and a broken leg.
He was one of four cabinet ministers who had voted against the Lahoud extension and then quit the government. He was also among the 29 Parliament members who voted against the constitutional amendment granting Mr. Lahoud three more years. The failed assassination was seen as a warning.
The Hamade bombing convinced Mr. Jumblatt that open defiance of Syria was the only route left to restore democracy to Lebanon. He began organizing a series of opposition meetings at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut. Mr. Hariri did not attend, but several members of his Future Movement did. After his assassination, it was this core group that organized the huge street demonstrations that pressured Syria to start withdrawing its forces.
In the days after the Hamade bombing, Mr. Hariri changed his security routine somewhat. Bassem Sebah, a Shiite member of Parliament from Mr. Hariri's bloc, said he used to drive the two of them to meetings in a black BMW while sending his usual convoy of armored limousines out as decoys.
He was confident that he would not be assassinated, though, aides and political allies recalled, particularly because Washington had publicly rebuked Damascus after the Hamade bombing, warning that it would hold Syria responsible for any similar attacks.
Slowly throughout September and October, Mr. Hariri edged closer to the opposition. Aides said he could no longer stomach another three years battling Mr. Lahoud, whom he considered not only a lightweight but also a Syrian pawn who was undermining Lebanese institutions by backing the encroachment of secret police agencies that mirrored the ones running Syria.
As Mr. Hamade put it in a speech after the assassination, Mr. Hariri had been subverted because "the role of the intelligence was no longer to keep up security, but to plant agents, generalize wiretapping, distribute newspaper articles, threaten judges, bind ministers and besiege members of Parliament."
A President as Insurance
Among Lebanese, Mr. Lahoud, 68, has a reputation for lounging through most afternoons in his Speedos by the pool at the Yarze country club, reading Paris-Match magazine and holding a tanning mirror. News accounts that he was swimming during Mr. Hariri's funeral reached such a crescendo that he felt compelled to deny them. "I swim every day - it's my workout - but on that specific day, I did not swim," he told a gathering of the Journalists' Union Council.
Opposition figures are convinced that one key reason Mr. Lahoud was extended was that his family had developed close business ties with the Assad clan in Damascus.
Foreign embassies suspect the same. "We have no solid evidence, but we believe there is a big link," said a senior Western diplomat. "His family seems to have done quite well for itself."
Mr. Lahoud rejected a request to be interviewed for this article. Ever since he assumed the presidency in 1998, Mr. Lahoud proved Syria's main insurance for keeping Mr. Hariri in check.
Syria considered Mr. Hariri a threat both because he was a Sunni Muslim figure admired in both countries and because he had important friends in the West. Syria's minority Alawite rulers deposed the once dominant Sunnis there, so an obviously independent Sunni leader in Lebanon might inspire unrest next door.
In fact, one reason Mr. Hariri was always reluctant to confront Damascus was that his Sunni Muslim constituency still viewed Syria as its portal to the wider world of Arab causes, and they did not particularly want to be allied with the Maronites, their traditional rivals.
Mr. Lahoud ignored the fact that the prime minister was supposed to lead all cabinet meetings. At one October meeting, he sat down and announced that items 1 through 15 on Mr. Hariri's agenda would not be discussed, one former minister recalled, sweeping away every substantial item.
Over the years Mr. Lahoud and roughly 18 ministers allied with Syria voted against any project Mr. Hariri proposed, from small items like buying land for new schools to economic reforms. At a 2002 meeting of international donors in Paris, the French president and Mr. Hariri managed to secure more than $4 billion in aid to Lebanon, which was heavily in debt, in exchange for economic reforms. Mr. Lahoud effectively torpedoed all the reforms.
"Every cabinet meeting was an ordeal," Mr. Hamade said.
New Hope, and a Sudden End
The end for Mr. Hariri as prime minister came in October after the Syrians sent him a message to step aside. He resigned on Oct. 20, somewhat relieved, his aides said.
The next months were consumed mostly with planning for parliamentary elections due in the spring and wrangling over the election law. The Syrians were trying to gerrymander districts around Beirut and the rest of the country to weaken the opposition. But the Christian-Sunni Muslim-Druse coalition appeared to grow ever more formidable.
During this period, while he was planning his comeback, Mr. Hariri seemed to become his old self again, friends and allies said. Mr. Renaud, the European Union ambassador, recalls visiting him at his combined office and mansion right after Christmas and seeing him emerge from behind his desk waving a sheaf of papers and grinning, saying, "We are going to win the elections!"
To test his Future Movement's popularity, Mr. Hariri announced that to celebrate the Muslim feast of Al Adha, he would receive visitors at his Beirut mansion on Jan. 10. The reaction was huge. Some 20,000 well-wishers poured through, said Ghattas Khoury, a member of his parliamentary bloc.
By late January, Mr. Hariri was feeling confident enough that he decided he would not accept any Syrian-nominated members on his election list, his advisers say. His 19-member bloc in Parliament included three men chosen by Rustom Ghazale, the head of Syrian intelligence based in Anjar in the Bekaa region, and the man Lebanese believe really ran their country, his aides said.
Mr. Hariri invited Mr. Ghazale to lunch in late January and told him about the decision.
"They were not happy," said Ghazi Aridi, a former minister of information who resigned in September over the Lahoud extension. He recalls Mr. Ghazale telling Mr. Hariri, "You have to think about it and we have to think about it."
It was beginning to look like the opposition could capture about 60 seats in the 128-seat Parliament, enough to elect a president other than Mr. Lahoud. Around this time, Mr. Hariri and Mr. Jumblatt, the Druse leader, had a meeting. Mr. Hariri's earlier confidence that he would not be assassinated had slipped; the two men figured one or the other would be killed soon.
"Any field where you challenge them, they get mad," Mr. Jumblatt said. "Such totalitarian regimes cannot understand that you can have the freedom to chose your own M.P.'s, or you choose your own local administrators or I don't know what."
Two weeks after that conversation, the huge bomb that rocked all of Beirut struck Mr. Hariri's motorcade. He, along with 18 other people, died.
"The goal of killing him was killing the political movement that could succeed in controlling Lebanon, particularly since it looked like the Syrians would have to leave," said Mr. Sebah, a member of Parliament from Mr. Hariri's bloc. "I think they killed him because they did not want a new political era in Lebanon."
On an unseasonably mild day last August, a small group of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's closest political allies could tell from his flushed face and subdued manner that something awful had happened in the Syrian capital of Damascus, where he had been summoned to a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad.
The four men, all Lebanese Parliament members, recalled waiting for him at the Beirut mansion of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, in the so-called garden, basically a carport paved with concrete bricks, plus one short orange tree in a faux terra cotta tub.
Mr. Hariri - wearing an expensive blue suit and a white shirt, his tie loosened - lumbered over mutely and flung himself onto one of a dozen white plastic chairs, his head lolling back and his arms dangling over the edges.
After a few moments, he leaned forward and described how the Syrian leader had threatened him, curtly ordering him to amend Lebanon's Constitution to give President Émile Lahoud, the man Syria used to block Mr. Hariri's every move, another three years in office.
"Bashar told him, 'Lahoud is me,' " Mr. Jumblatt recalled in an interview. "Bashar told Hariri: 'If you and Chirac want me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon.' " He was referring to the French president, Jacques Chirac.
In the month since Mr. Hariri was assassinated, members of Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition have pointed to that Aug. 26 encounter in Damascus as fateful. Although opposition leaders acknowledge that they lack firm evidence tying Syria or its Lebanese agents directly to Mr. Hariri's assassination, they link that day to his slaying on Feb. 14.
"To tell you the truth, when I heard him telling us those words, I knew that it was his condemnation of death," Mr. Jumblatt said.
It was after that meeting that Mr. Hariri, 60, a real estate tycoon turned politician who had run Lebanon for the better part of 12 years, decided that he had to join the movement to uproot both the Syrian Army and the ever more robust tentacles of its secret police from Lebanon.
Interviews with a dozen Lebanese involved, including the three other men at the garden and some of Mr. Hariri's closest aides, indicate that in the final six months of his life he was tormented by the predicament that Lebanon now faces - how to end Syria's headlock without reigniting the civil war that tore this country apart a generation ago.
Whether Mr. Hariri would have succeeded in his efforts cannot be known. Nonetheless, President Assad's decision to force Mr. Lahoud onto Lebanon again is now widely seen as an enormous political blunder, uniting many Lebanese communities in opposition and even managing to bringing together France and the United States in a concerted effort to push Syria out. Although Syria denies involvement in the assassination, Mr. Hariri's death eliminated the one man potentially able to muster the international and domestic pressure to force Damascus to release its grip.
For the moment, his killing has inspired that anyway. But the lingering question is whether he can accomplish in death a goal that eluded him while alive: keeping the notoriously bickering opposition united for long enough to see free elections and the end of Syrian control.
"What they are really missing is a leader, that is the key problem, someone to show them the way," said Timur Goksel, a longtime United Nations spokesman here who now teaches at the American University of Beirut. "That is a real void."
Orders from Damascus
Syria is used to acting with impunity in Lebanon.
But by 2004, the Lebanese were expecting something different from Mr. Assad, not least because the United States had signaled by invading Iraq that business as usual was unacceptable.
The 39-year-old Syrian leader seemed to have gotten the message, telling a Kuwaiti newspaper early last summer that Damascus would not interfere in Lebanon's presidential election in the fall. Months later, Mr. Hariri was ordered to Damascus for the ominous meeting. Mr. Assad advertised the fact that the meeting was remarkably short - 15 minutes in a country where most presidential encounters drag on for hours - to make it clear that Syria was issuing an order.
The Lebanese around Mr. Hariri were both appalled and exhilarated that the Syrians obviously failed to grasp the consequences of what was immediately condemned as a maladroit act.
"We knew Bashar had made a fatal error," said a close political adviser to Mr. Hariri, who, like several other people interviewed, asked not to be identified given the current tension and fear of reprisals in Lebanon. "Hariri said that we are all just gnats to them, he kept repeating that until his death."
The Americans and the French, alienated since Paris opposed the war in Iraq, reacted with rare simultaneous anger over Syria's move. Quietly urged on by Mr. Hariri, they pushed through Security Council Resolution 1559, which demanded a Syrian withdrawal and the disarming of Hezbollah. The Syrians were furious at what they took to be solely Mr. Hariri's handiwork.
The strain showed. Mr. Hariri, a burly, gregarious man who loved to make puns, became quiet and introspective. A friend since childhood said that at one point the prime minister put his hand on the friend's shoulder and wept, something he'd never done before.
The Syrians, acknowledging that Mr. Hariri might be able to defuse the gathering international storm, asked the prime minister to form a new government. Mr. Hariri started drawing up lists of potential ministers, but most were rejected by Damascus.
"He was like a boxer still reeling from a direct punch," said Patrick B. Renaud, the Beirut ambassador for the European Union. "He was shocked by the harshness of the message he received from the Syrian president."
An even harsher message followed.
As Marwan Hamade, the former minister of economy and trade and a Hariri ally, drove away from his seaside apartment building on Oct. 1, a roadside bomb flung his Mercedes into the air. He clambered from the flaming wreckage and collapsed to the ground at the very moment the car's fuel tank exploded, sending shrapnel flying in all directions. Mr. Hamade managed to survive with head injuries, severe burns and a broken leg.
He was one of four cabinet ministers who had voted against the Lahoud extension and then quit the government. He was also among the 29 Parliament members who voted against the constitutional amendment granting Mr. Lahoud three more years. The failed assassination was seen as a warning.
The Hamade bombing convinced Mr. Jumblatt that open defiance of Syria was the only route left to restore democracy to Lebanon. He began organizing a series of opposition meetings at the Bristol Hotel in Beirut. Mr. Hariri did not attend, but several members of his Future Movement did. After his assassination, it was this core group that organized the huge street demonstrations that pressured Syria to start withdrawing its forces.
In the days after the Hamade bombing, Mr. Hariri changed his security routine somewhat. Bassem Sebah, a Shiite member of Parliament from Mr. Hariri's bloc, said he used to drive the two of them to meetings in a black BMW while sending his usual convoy of armored limousines out as decoys.
He was confident that he would not be assassinated, though, aides and political allies recalled, particularly because Washington had publicly rebuked Damascus after the Hamade bombing, warning that it would hold Syria responsible for any similar attacks.
Slowly throughout September and October, Mr. Hariri edged closer to the opposition. Aides said he could no longer stomach another three years battling Mr. Lahoud, whom he considered not only a lightweight but also a Syrian pawn who was undermining Lebanese institutions by backing the encroachment of secret police agencies that mirrored the ones running Syria.
As Mr. Hamade put it in a speech after the assassination, Mr. Hariri had been subverted because "the role of the intelligence was no longer to keep up security, but to plant agents, generalize wiretapping, distribute newspaper articles, threaten judges, bind ministers and besiege members of Parliament."
A President as Insurance
Among Lebanese, Mr. Lahoud, 68, has a reputation for lounging through most afternoons in his Speedos by the pool at the Yarze country club, reading Paris-Match magazine and holding a tanning mirror. News accounts that he was swimming during Mr. Hariri's funeral reached such a crescendo that he felt compelled to deny them. "I swim every day - it's my workout - but on that specific day, I did not swim," he told a gathering of the Journalists' Union Council.
Opposition figures are convinced that one key reason Mr. Lahoud was extended was that his family had developed close business ties with the Assad clan in Damascus.
Foreign embassies suspect the same. "We have no solid evidence, but we believe there is a big link," said a senior Western diplomat. "His family seems to have done quite well for itself."
Mr. Lahoud rejected a request to be interviewed for this article. Ever since he assumed the presidency in 1998, Mr. Lahoud proved Syria's main insurance for keeping Mr. Hariri in check.
Syria considered Mr. Hariri a threat both because he was a Sunni Muslim figure admired in both countries and because he had important friends in the West. Syria's minority Alawite rulers deposed the once dominant Sunnis there, so an obviously independent Sunni leader in Lebanon might inspire unrest next door.
In fact, one reason Mr. Hariri was always reluctant to confront Damascus was that his Sunni Muslim constituency still viewed Syria as its portal to the wider world of Arab causes, and they did not particularly want to be allied with the Maronites, their traditional rivals.
Mr. Lahoud ignored the fact that the prime minister was supposed to lead all cabinet meetings. At one October meeting, he sat down and announced that items 1 through 15 on Mr. Hariri's agenda would not be discussed, one former minister recalled, sweeping away every substantial item.
Over the years Mr. Lahoud and roughly 18 ministers allied with Syria voted against any project Mr. Hariri proposed, from small items like buying land for new schools to economic reforms. At a 2002 meeting of international donors in Paris, the French president and Mr. Hariri managed to secure more than $4 billion in aid to Lebanon, which was heavily in debt, in exchange for economic reforms. Mr. Lahoud effectively torpedoed all the reforms.
"Every cabinet meeting was an ordeal," Mr. Hamade said.
New Hope, and a Sudden End
The end for Mr. Hariri as prime minister came in October after the Syrians sent him a message to step aside. He resigned on Oct. 20, somewhat relieved, his aides said.
The next months were consumed mostly with planning for parliamentary elections due in the spring and wrangling over the election law. The Syrians were trying to gerrymander districts around Beirut and the rest of the country to weaken the opposition. But the Christian-Sunni Muslim-Druse coalition appeared to grow ever more formidable.
During this period, while he was planning his comeback, Mr. Hariri seemed to become his old self again, friends and allies said. Mr. Renaud, the European Union ambassador, recalls visiting him at his combined office and mansion right after Christmas and seeing him emerge from behind his desk waving a sheaf of papers and grinning, saying, "We are going to win the elections!"
To test his Future Movement's popularity, Mr. Hariri announced that to celebrate the Muslim feast of Al Adha, he would receive visitors at his Beirut mansion on Jan. 10. The reaction was huge. Some 20,000 well-wishers poured through, said Ghattas Khoury, a member of his parliamentary bloc.
By late January, Mr. Hariri was feeling confident enough that he decided he would not accept any Syrian-nominated members on his election list, his advisers say. His 19-member bloc in Parliament included three men chosen by Rustom Ghazale, the head of Syrian intelligence based in Anjar in the Bekaa region, and the man Lebanese believe really ran their country, his aides said.
Mr. Hariri invited Mr. Ghazale to lunch in late January and told him about the decision.
"They were not happy," said Ghazi Aridi, a former minister of information who resigned in September over the Lahoud extension. He recalls Mr. Ghazale telling Mr. Hariri, "You have to think about it and we have to think about it."
It was beginning to look like the opposition could capture about 60 seats in the 128-seat Parliament, enough to elect a president other than Mr. Lahoud. Around this time, Mr. Hariri and Mr. Jumblatt, the Druse leader, had a meeting. Mr. Hariri's earlier confidence that he would not be assassinated had slipped; the two men figured one or the other would be killed soon.
"Any field where you challenge them, they get mad," Mr. Jumblatt said. "Such totalitarian regimes cannot understand that you can have the freedom to chose your own M.P.'s, or you choose your own local administrators or I don't know what."
Two weeks after that conversation, the huge bomb that rocked all of Beirut struck Mr. Hariri's motorcade. He, along with 18 other people, died.
"The goal of killing him was killing the political movement that could succeed in controlling Lebanon, particularly since it looked like the Syrians would have to leave," said Mr. Sebah, a member of Parliament from Mr. Hariri's bloc. "I think they killed him because they did not want a new political era in Lebanon."
3/15/2005
Translated Article -- from L'Orient Le Jour
(translated by the Google translation tool)
Thousands of lit candles place of the Martyrs, on the initiative of the Current of the future the "truth" in letters of light Of the young people light the candles which must form the words "the truth" and "Al-haqiqa" (Ramzi Haïdar/AFP) It is in letters of light that some 10 000 people wrote yesterday, on one of the quay levels of the place of the Martyrs, the word "Arabic and English Truth". Carrying their candles, they expressed once more, on the initiative of the Current of the Future, their claim relating to the elucidation of the mystery of the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and his companions. Twenty-four hours before the large gathering to which the forces of the opposition called the people today, the place of the Martyrs, which do not have désempli since the funeral of Hariri, was crammed. One needed some ten thousand people, according to organizers', to fill out the giant letters registered on sand, right in front of the mosque Mohammed el-Amine, where the victims of the attack of February were buried 14. But it much had gathered of it there on the place, as of 18 hours, retained by the cords of safety. Enthusiasm was such as the young organizers of the Current of the future had evil to contain crowd, and any difficulty at the proper time of filling out the letters of the two words. Crowd entonné the national anthem at the beginning of the event. The words of two songs dedicated to the memory of Rafic Hariri were distributed to the participants, so that they can the fredonner during the course of operation. Like all the organized activities place of the Martyrs, this one was characterized by the same climate of popular solidarity. "Abou Bahaa". The evocation of this nickname of the former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, transformed into slogan since its death, was continuous. On the podium as within crowd, her name remained omnipresent, just like its memory, still extreme since the terrible attack which cost him the life "Those which killed it do not know that there remains present of each one of us, in the heart of each young person who intends to continue the way that he traced", shouts a voice with the microphone. As usual, crowd was not tender outside towards Syria "Syria", stressed it, begun again in echo by interlocutors on the platform, who pointed out that "the fold already started". In addition, the deputy Ghazi Aridi as of other speakers commented on the term used Saturday by the president of the Republic, Emile Lahoud, who qualified the attack of "mean action". "These are the words which are mean actions", Aridi thundered. Whereas a member of the Current of the future was indignant qu ' "one can thus qualify such an abominable crime". Did all the participants present at this event yesterday show a great enthusiasm "If such a movement will not push me to move me, what could still move me? ", known as Thérèse. "We are there to show them that we exist, and that we are in 2005, not in 1975", Nour underlines. Another lady refuses to carry a candle and to join crowd "the truth, we know it, even if they make their possible to hide it", says it. John Orak is American and fact part of a group of three students who were in crowd "Since I am in Beirut for my research, I did not expect such significant demonstrations and also peaceful", it underlines. Before leaving the places, the participants planted their candles in sand so that the letters can remain illuminated all the night. S. B.
Thousands of lit candles place of the Martyrs, on the initiative of the Current of the future the "truth" in letters of light Of the young people light the candles which must form the words "the truth" and "Al-haqiqa" (Ramzi Haïdar/AFP) It is in letters of light that some 10 000 people wrote yesterday, on one of the quay levels of the place of the Martyrs, the word "Arabic and English Truth". Carrying their candles, they expressed once more, on the initiative of the Current of the Future, their claim relating to the elucidation of the mystery of the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and his companions. Twenty-four hours before the large gathering to which the forces of the opposition called the people today, the place of the Martyrs, which do not have désempli since the funeral of Hariri, was crammed. One needed some ten thousand people, according to organizers', to fill out the giant letters registered on sand, right in front of the mosque Mohammed el-Amine, where the victims of the attack of February were buried 14. But it much had gathered of it there on the place, as of 18 hours, retained by the cords of safety. Enthusiasm was such as the young organizers of the Current of the future had evil to contain crowd, and any difficulty at the proper time of filling out the letters of the two words. Crowd entonné the national anthem at the beginning of the event. The words of two songs dedicated to the memory of Rafic Hariri were distributed to the participants, so that they can the fredonner during the course of operation. Like all the organized activities place of the Martyrs, this one was characterized by the same climate of popular solidarity. "Abou Bahaa". The evocation of this nickname of the former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, transformed into slogan since its death, was continuous. On the podium as within crowd, her name remained omnipresent, just like its memory, still extreme since the terrible attack which cost him the life "Those which killed it do not know that there remains present of each one of us, in the heart of each young person who intends to continue the way that he traced", shouts a voice with the microphone. As usual, crowd was not tender outside towards Syria "Syria", stressed it, begun again in echo by interlocutors on the platform, who pointed out that "the fold already started". In addition, the deputy Ghazi Aridi as of other speakers commented on the term used Saturday by the president of the Republic, Emile Lahoud, who qualified the attack of "mean action". "These are the words which are mean actions", Aridi thundered. Whereas a member of the Current of the future was indignant qu ' "one can thus qualify such an abominable crime". Did all the participants present at this event yesterday show a great enthusiasm "If such a movement will not push me to move me, what could still move me? ", known as Thérèse. "We are there to show them that we exist, and that we are in 2005, not in 1975", Nour underlines. Another lady refuses to carry a candle and to join crowd "the truth, we know it, even if they make their possible to hide it", says it. John Orak is American and fact part of a group of three students who were in crowd "Since I am in Beirut for my research, I did not expect such significant demonstrations and also peaceful", it underlines. Before leaving the places, the participants planted their candles in sand so that the letters can remain illuminated all the night. S. B.
3/14/2005
Des milliers de bougies allumées place des Martyrs, à l’initiative du Courant du futur
Des milliers de bougies allumées place des Martyrs, à l’initiative du Courant du futur
La « vérité » en lettres de lumière
Des jeunes allument les bougies qui doivent former les mots
« the truth » et « al-haqiqa » .(Ramzi Haïdar/AFP)
C’est en lettres de lumière que quelque 10 000 personnes ont écrit hier, sur l’un des terre-pleins de la place des Martyrs, le mot « Vérité » en anglais et en arabe. Portant leurs bougies, ils ont exprimé une fois de plus, à l’initiative du Courant du Futur, leur revendication concernant l’élucidation du mystère de l’assassinat de l’ancien Premier ministre Rafic Hariri et de ses compagnons. Vingt-quatre heures avant le grand rassemblement auquel les forces de l’opposition ont appelé le peuple aujourd’hui, la place des Martyrs, qui n’a pas désempli depuis les funérailles de Hariri, était bondée.
Il fallait quelque dix mille personnes, selon les organisateurs, pour remplir les lettres géantes inscrites sur le sable, juste devant la mosquée Mohammed el-Amine, où ont été enterrés les victimes de l’attentat du 14 février. Mais il y en avait beaucoup plus rassemblés sur la place, dès 18 heures, retenus par les cordons de sécurité. L’enthousiasme était tel que les jeunes organisateurs du Courant du futur ont eu du mal à contenir la foule, et aucune difficulté à remplir les lettres des deux mots le moment venu.
La foule a entonné l’hymne national au début de l’événement. Les paroles de deux chansons dédiées à la mémoire de Rafic Hariri ont été distribuées aux participants, afin qu’ils puissent les fredonner durant le déroulement de l’opération. Comme toutes les activités organisées place des Martyrs, celle-ci s’est caractérisée par le même climat de solidarité populaire.
« Abou Bahaa ». L’évocation de ce surnom de l’ancien Premier ministre Rafic Hariri, transformé en slogan depuis sa mort, était continue. Sur le podium comme au sein de la foule, son nom restait omniprésent, tout comme son souvenir, encore brûlant depuis le terrible attentat qui lui a coûté la vie. « Ceux qui l’ont tué ne savent pas qu’il reste présent en chacun de nous, dans le cœur de chaque jeune personne qui compte poursuivre le chemin qu’il a tracé », crie une voix au micro.
Comme d’habitude, la foule n’était pas tendre envers la Syrie. « La Syrie dehors », scandait-elle, reprise en écho par des interlocuteurs sur la tribune, qui ont rappelé que « le repli a déjà commencé ». Par ailleurs, le député Ghazi Aridi ainsi que d’autres intervenants ont commenté le terme utilisé samedi par le président de la République, Émile Lahoud, qui a qualifié l’attentat de « vilenie». « Ce sont ses paroles qui sont des vilenies», a tonné Aridi. Alors qu’un membre du Courant du futur s’indignait qu’« on puisse ainsi qualifier un crime aussi abominable ».
Tous les participants présents à cet événement hier faisaient preuve d’un grand enthousiasme. « Si un tel mouvement ne va pas me pousser à me déplacer, qu’est-ce qui pourrait encore m’émouvoir ? », dit Thérèse. « Nous sommes là pour leur montrer que nous existons, et que nous sommes en 2005, pas en 1975 », souligne Nour. Une autre dame refuse de porter une bougie et de rejoindre la foule. « La vérité, nous la connaissons, même s’ils font leur possible pour la cacher », dit-elle. John Orak est américain et fait partie d’un groupe de trois étudiants qui se sont trouvés dans la foule. « Depuis que je suis à Beyrouth pour mes recherches, je ne m’attendais pas à des manifestations aussi importantes et aussi pacifiques », souligne-t-il.
Avant de quitter les lieux, les participants ont planté leurs bougies dans le sable afin que les lettres puissent rester illuminées toute la nuit.
S. B.
La « vérité » en lettres de lumière
Des jeunes allument les bougies qui doivent former les mots
« the truth » et « al-haqiqa » .(Ramzi Haïdar/AFP)
C’est en lettres de lumière que quelque 10 000 personnes ont écrit hier, sur l’un des terre-pleins de la place des Martyrs, le mot « Vérité » en anglais et en arabe. Portant leurs bougies, ils ont exprimé une fois de plus, à l’initiative du Courant du Futur, leur revendication concernant l’élucidation du mystère de l’assassinat de l’ancien Premier ministre Rafic Hariri et de ses compagnons. Vingt-quatre heures avant le grand rassemblement auquel les forces de l’opposition ont appelé le peuple aujourd’hui, la place des Martyrs, qui n’a pas désempli depuis les funérailles de Hariri, était bondée.
Il fallait quelque dix mille personnes, selon les organisateurs, pour remplir les lettres géantes inscrites sur le sable, juste devant la mosquée Mohammed el-Amine, où ont été enterrés les victimes de l’attentat du 14 février. Mais il y en avait beaucoup plus rassemblés sur la place, dès 18 heures, retenus par les cordons de sécurité. L’enthousiasme était tel que les jeunes organisateurs du Courant du futur ont eu du mal à contenir la foule, et aucune difficulté à remplir les lettres des deux mots le moment venu.
La foule a entonné l’hymne national au début de l’événement. Les paroles de deux chansons dédiées à la mémoire de Rafic Hariri ont été distribuées aux participants, afin qu’ils puissent les fredonner durant le déroulement de l’opération. Comme toutes les activités organisées place des Martyrs, celle-ci s’est caractérisée par le même climat de solidarité populaire.
« Abou Bahaa ». L’évocation de ce surnom de l’ancien Premier ministre Rafic Hariri, transformé en slogan depuis sa mort, était continue. Sur le podium comme au sein de la foule, son nom restait omniprésent, tout comme son souvenir, encore brûlant depuis le terrible attentat qui lui a coûté la vie. « Ceux qui l’ont tué ne savent pas qu’il reste présent en chacun de nous, dans le cœur de chaque jeune personne qui compte poursuivre le chemin qu’il a tracé », crie une voix au micro.
Comme d’habitude, la foule n’était pas tendre envers la Syrie. « La Syrie dehors », scandait-elle, reprise en écho par des interlocuteurs sur la tribune, qui ont rappelé que « le repli a déjà commencé ». Par ailleurs, le député Ghazi Aridi ainsi que d’autres intervenants ont commenté le terme utilisé samedi par le président de la République, Émile Lahoud, qui a qualifié l’attentat de « vilenie». « Ce sont ses paroles qui sont des vilenies», a tonné Aridi. Alors qu’un membre du Courant du futur s’indignait qu’« on puisse ainsi qualifier un crime aussi abominable ».
Tous les participants présents à cet événement hier faisaient preuve d’un grand enthousiasme. « Si un tel mouvement ne va pas me pousser à me déplacer, qu’est-ce qui pourrait encore m’émouvoir ? », dit Thérèse. « Nous sommes là pour leur montrer que nous existons, et que nous sommes en 2005, pas en 1975 », souligne Nour. Une autre dame refuse de porter une bougie et de rejoindre la foule. « La vérité, nous la connaissons, même s’ils font leur possible pour la cacher », dit-elle. John Orak est américain et fait partie d’un groupe de trois étudiants qui se sont trouvés dans la foule. « Depuis que je suis à Beyrouth pour mes recherches, je ne m’attendais pas à des manifestations aussi importantes et aussi pacifiques », souligne-t-il.
Avant de quitter les lieux, les participants ont planté leurs bougies dans le sable afin que les lettres puissent rester illuminées toute la nuit.
S. B.
3/09/2005
Pro-Syrian Rally
Although the rally was very large in size, there were people at the rally that were paid off, such as many Palestinian refugees who were given $65 a vanload if they attended. Also, a majority of the schools in the south were closed and required to attend by Hizballah. Not to take away from the powerful display, but there are benefits to being a deep social movement, while the US only acknowledges Hizballah as a "terrorist group". It is important to know the extent that an extremely large percentage of the population relies on the charitable side of Hizballah.
Lebanese youth beaten by men sporting Syrian flags in Beirut
Lebanese youth beaten by men sporting Syrian flags in Beirut
BEIRUT, March 8 (AFP) - A 21-year-old youth was taken to hospital Tuesday after being beaten by club-wielding men carrying Syrian flags in the latest incident between anti- and pro-Syrian followers, police said.
Bashir Daibess, 21, was admitted with head and back injuries as well as a fractured elbow which will necessitate surgery after the incident in the eastern Christian suburb of Furn el-Shebbak, the injured man and doctors told AFP.
In another incident in nearby Ain al-Remmaneh, men in cars bearing Syrian flags drove through the area honking their horns and insulting youths standing along the streets, police said.
Youths from both sides beat each other with clubs and stones before the cars sporting Syrian flags drove away and Lebanese army forces deployed in force in the area, they said.
"It is not the first time that men carrying Syrian flags pass by the neighborhood to provoke the youngsters here, and actually they have been also driving by and firing shots in the air at night," a police officer said.
Since Saturday, when Syrian president Bashar al-Assad harshly criticised the Lebanese opposition for calling for a Syrian troop pullout from Lebanon, young men with Syrian flags have been driving around the streets of Beirut and other cities and firing into the air.
A teenager was injured on Sunday in a shooting incident near an anti-Syrian opposition rally in Beirut. The Lebanese army later arrested three suspects.
At Mount Lebanon Hospital, Daibess said "I was driving around Furn el-Shebbak neighborhood with four of my friends, when a man insulted us from another car carrying seven people."
The car was decorated with a Syrian flag and portraits Assad and his Lebanese counterpart, Damascus protege Emile Lahoud, he told AFP from his hospital bed.
"Then, they got out of the car and we did too. My friends managed to escape, but I was beaten by a baseball bat on the head, the back and the elbow," he said.
"These are provocations that have been taking place every evening in the last few days, and we had been expecting this to happen today after the demonstration of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah," said witness Tufic Moawad.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah which maintains offices near the areas of the incidents, led a massive demonstration earlier Tuesday in downtown Beirut to express solidarity with Syria.
"These incidents are very dangerous, especially that they are targeting the residents of Ain al-Remmaneh where the war started," said Moawad, standing among dozens of young men vowing to remain on the streets to "protect our neighborhood."
The 15-year Lebanese civil war was sparked by an incident in the neighborhood when Christian militiamen fired on Palestinian civilian bus returning from a rally on April 13, 1975.
BEIRUT, March 8 (AFP) - A 21-year-old youth was taken to hospital Tuesday after being beaten by club-wielding men carrying Syrian flags in the latest incident between anti- and pro-Syrian followers, police said.
Bashir Daibess, 21, was admitted with head and back injuries as well as a fractured elbow which will necessitate surgery after the incident in the eastern Christian suburb of Furn el-Shebbak, the injured man and doctors told AFP.
In another incident in nearby Ain al-Remmaneh, men in cars bearing Syrian flags drove through the area honking their horns and insulting youths standing along the streets, police said.
Youths from both sides beat each other with clubs and stones before the cars sporting Syrian flags drove away and Lebanese army forces deployed in force in the area, they said.
"It is not the first time that men carrying Syrian flags pass by the neighborhood to provoke the youngsters here, and actually they have been also driving by and firing shots in the air at night," a police officer said.
Since Saturday, when Syrian president Bashar al-Assad harshly criticised the Lebanese opposition for calling for a Syrian troop pullout from Lebanon, young men with Syrian flags have been driving around the streets of Beirut and other cities and firing into the air.
A teenager was injured on Sunday in a shooting incident near an anti-Syrian opposition rally in Beirut. The Lebanese army later arrested three suspects.
At Mount Lebanon Hospital, Daibess said "I was driving around Furn el-Shebbak neighborhood with four of my friends, when a man insulted us from another car carrying seven people."
The car was decorated with a Syrian flag and portraits Assad and his Lebanese counterpart, Damascus protege Emile Lahoud, he told AFP from his hospital bed.
"Then, they got out of the car and we did too. My friends managed to escape, but I was beaten by a baseball bat on the head, the back and the elbow," he said.
"These are provocations that have been taking place every evening in the last few days, and we had been expecting this to happen today after the demonstration of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah," said witness Tufic Moawad.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah which maintains offices near the areas of the incidents, led a massive demonstration earlier Tuesday in downtown Beirut to express solidarity with Syria.
"These incidents are very dangerous, especially that they are targeting the residents of Ain al-Remmaneh where the war started," said Moawad, standing among dozens of young men vowing to remain on the streets to "protect our neighborhood."
The 15-year Lebanese civil war was sparked by an incident in the neighborhood when Christian militiamen fired on Palestinian civilian bus returning from a rally on April 13, 1975.
500,000 mass for Hizbullah in Beirut
500,000 mass for Hizbullah in Beirut
Shia poor throw their weight behind status quo
Brian Whitaker in Beirut
Wednesday March 9, 2005
Guardian
Syria's supporters in Lebanon struck back against the "cedar revolution" yesterday with a show of strength which easily dwarfed anything their opponents have been able muster.
They drove into Beirut throughout the morning in cars waving Lebanese flags and battered buses decorated with pictures of the Syrian-backed president, Emile Lahoud.
They came from towns and villages all over Lebanon: from the Beka'a valley, the mountains, and the far south. Opponents claimed that some had come from Syria.
Half an hour before the rally was due to begin Riad al-Solh Square, one of the largest open spaces in Beirut, was already full but more kept coming, often several hundred at a time, and overflowed into side roads and on to flyovers.
In the city centre many shops closed and streets were almost deserted. Large numbers of troops stood by on the fringes of the demonstration.
Trying to estimate the number was futile, but half a million would be plausible and a million not unbelievable.
From a distance it resembled a larger version of Monday's opposition rally. As on Monday, they patriotically waved the red and white Lebanese flag and the national anthem blared out several times over the loudspeakers.
But they also waved pictures of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his Lebanese counterpart. There were even a few of President Bashar's late and largely unlamented father.
Much of the language, unless decoded, sounded similar too: one of the slogans was "Sovereignty, not foreign intervention". But the foreigners referred to were the Americans, the Israelis, the French: anyone but the brotherly Syrians.
Looked at more closely, this was a very different crowd.
The anti-Syrian protesters who have attracted worldwide attention are mostly Christians, plus Sunni Muslims and Druze, and they are generally from the better-off sections of Lebanese society. Yesterday's masses were overwhelmingly the poorer - and historically downtrodden - Shia, who form 40% of the population.
Armani sweaters and flashy sunglasses were not to be seen. Some of the women were clad from head to foot in black, Iranian style, a few cradling babies in their arms. Among the men there was more than a smattering of beards.
All, ostensibly, had turned out to show their gratitude to Syria for its efforts in Lebanon.
From a platform in front of the sea-green windows of the UN building the Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah denounced security council resolution 1559 as a "coup" against the Taif accord which ended the Lebanese civil war.
The accord is Syria's justification for its leisurely moves to withdraw troops; the UN, citing resolution 1559, is demanding swift action.
Hizbullah has grievances of its own against 1559, because the resolution also calls for all militias in Lebanon to be disbanded. Although Hizbullah functions nowadays mainly as a political movement, it is loth to abandon its guerrilla wing entirely.
Yesterday it flexed its political muscles with conviction - though the rally was not entirely its own. Other supporters included Amal (the other main Shia party), Nasserists, Ba'athists and a long list of obscure organisations.
What cannot be disputed is Hizbullah's ability to organise.
On Monday loudspeaker cars toured the streets of Nabatieh and other towns, calling on citizens to show their "opposition to foreign interference in Lebanese affairs, solidarity for the preservation of national unity and civil peace, objection to the UN resolution 1559, denunciation of the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri and appreciation for Syria's sacrifices in Lebanon".
What is less clear is how many of those who joined the demonstration yesterday had strong personal feelings about any of these matters, and how many were pressed into attending or simply fancied a day trip to Beirut.
Opposition supporters alleged that influential figures in some towns and villages had strongly encouraged attendance, and there were groups of youngsters at the demonstration who looked like entire school classes.
None of this may be enough to save the Hizbullah militia from eventual extinction, but it plainly has no intention of going quietly.
Syrian troops made further moves yesterday in their planned redeployment to the Beka'a valley, according to witnesses in a mountainous area east of Beirut.
Two senior Lebanese officials said a major redeployment of the Syrian army from central and northern Lebanon would begin late last night and would be completed by March 23.
The Lebanese defence minister, Abdul-Rahim Murad, told the Associated Press: "All the force in the [central] mountains and north will move to the Beka'a as of 10pm [20.00GMT] tonight."
He said that included the main Syrian intelligence offices in Beirut.
Under an agreement between the Syrian and Lebanese presidents on Monday the redeployment will be followed at an unspecified date by complete withdrawal of the 14,000 Syrian forces personnel in Lebanon.
The controversial intelligence agents will also leave, a Damascus official source told Reuters yesterday.
"The fact that security forces were not mentioned in the [withdrawal] statement is merely because they move along with the armed forces. It is a given. The withdrawal is of all Syrian forces," the source said.
Shia poor throw their weight behind status quo
Brian Whitaker in Beirut
Wednesday March 9, 2005
Guardian
Syria's supporters in Lebanon struck back against the "cedar revolution" yesterday with a show of strength which easily dwarfed anything their opponents have been able muster.
They drove into Beirut throughout the morning in cars waving Lebanese flags and battered buses decorated with pictures of the Syrian-backed president, Emile Lahoud.
They came from towns and villages all over Lebanon: from the Beka'a valley, the mountains, and the far south. Opponents claimed that some had come from Syria.
Half an hour before the rally was due to begin Riad al-Solh Square, one of the largest open spaces in Beirut, was already full but more kept coming, often several hundred at a time, and overflowed into side roads and on to flyovers.
In the city centre many shops closed and streets were almost deserted. Large numbers of troops stood by on the fringes of the demonstration.
Trying to estimate the number was futile, but half a million would be plausible and a million not unbelievable.
From a distance it resembled a larger version of Monday's opposition rally. As on Monday, they patriotically waved the red and white Lebanese flag and the national anthem blared out several times over the loudspeakers.
But they also waved pictures of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his Lebanese counterpart. There were even a few of President Bashar's late and largely unlamented father.
Much of the language, unless decoded, sounded similar too: one of the slogans was "Sovereignty, not foreign intervention". But the foreigners referred to were the Americans, the Israelis, the French: anyone but the brotherly Syrians.
Looked at more closely, this was a very different crowd.
The anti-Syrian protesters who have attracted worldwide attention are mostly Christians, plus Sunni Muslims and Druze, and they are generally from the better-off sections of Lebanese society. Yesterday's masses were overwhelmingly the poorer - and historically downtrodden - Shia, who form 40% of the population.
Armani sweaters and flashy sunglasses were not to be seen. Some of the women were clad from head to foot in black, Iranian style, a few cradling babies in their arms. Among the men there was more than a smattering of beards.
All, ostensibly, had turned out to show their gratitude to Syria for its efforts in Lebanon.
From a platform in front of the sea-green windows of the UN building the Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah denounced security council resolution 1559 as a "coup" against the Taif accord which ended the Lebanese civil war.
The accord is Syria's justification for its leisurely moves to withdraw troops; the UN, citing resolution 1559, is demanding swift action.
Hizbullah has grievances of its own against 1559, because the resolution also calls for all militias in Lebanon to be disbanded. Although Hizbullah functions nowadays mainly as a political movement, it is loth to abandon its guerrilla wing entirely.
Yesterday it flexed its political muscles with conviction - though the rally was not entirely its own. Other supporters included Amal (the other main Shia party), Nasserists, Ba'athists and a long list of obscure organisations.
What cannot be disputed is Hizbullah's ability to organise.
On Monday loudspeaker cars toured the streets of Nabatieh and other towns, calling on citizens to show their "opposition to foreign interference in Lebanese affairs, solidarity for the preservation of national unity and civil peace, objection to the UN resolution 1559, denunciation of the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri and appreciation for Syria's sacrifices in Lebanon".
What is less clear is how many of those who joined the demonstration yesterday had strong personal feelings about any of these matters, and how many were pressed into attending or simply fancied a day trip to Beirut.
Opposition supporters alleged that influential figures in some towns and villages had strongly encouraged attendance, and there were groups of youngsters at the demonstration who looked like entire school classes.
None of this may be enough to save the Hizbullah militia from eventual extinction, but it plainly has no intention of going quietly.
Syrian troops made further moves yesterday in their planned redeployment to the Beka'a valley, according to witnesses in a mountainous area east of Beirut.
Two senior Lebanese officials said a major redeployment of the Syrian army from central and northern Lebanon would begin late last night and would be completed by March 23.
The Lebanese defence minister, Abdul-Rahim Murad, told the Associated Press: "All the force in the [central] mountains and north will move to the Beka'a as of 10pm [20.00GMT] tonight."
He said that included the main Syrian intelligence offices in Beirut.
Under an agreement between the Syrian and Lebanese presidents on Monday the redeployment will be followed at an unspecified date by complete withdrawal of the 14,000 Syrian forces personnel in Lebanon.
The controversial intelligence agents will also leave, a Damascus official source told Reuters yesterday.
"The fact that security forces were not mentioned in the [withdrawal] statement is merely because they move along with the armed forces. It is a given. The withdrawal is of all Syrian forces," the source said.
3/07/2005
One man, One Nation
by R.H. Wood and J.P. Orak
February 14th 12:55pm, I was walking down the Old Damascus Highway, a road once known as the “Green Line” during the civil war; dividing Beirut into West (Muslim) and East (Christian). It all happened so fast. The brutal force of the explosion resounded through my chest. Startled, I searched for answers. The uncertainty settled in my stomach, a band of butterflies fighting within me. The streets flooded with the curious masses. All too familiar with such events, they seemed aware of things I could not comprehend. My first instinct was to look up to the sky for an Israeli F-15, a common pest to the Lebanese, but instead of the expected “sonic boom” a mushroom cloud of black smoke rose over the city. I will never be able to adequately express my sense of fear and frustration or the emotional response of the people.
To people of Lebanon St. Valentine’s day is forever changed; Transformed from a day of heart filled balloons to one of nightmarish despair. It only took a matter of seconds and the demons of Lebanon’s not too distant past emerged from their shallow slumber to claim yet another victim. Not just any victim. But Mr. Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri.
In a country still rebuilding from the dark days of civil war, a war which forever stained the hands of nearly every Lebanese politician with the blood of innocents, Hariri was the one exception. He had spent the war years, 1975-90, amassing his fortune in Saudi Arabia. However, unlike many of his fellow expatriates, Hariri did not make his money and leave. Instead he used his influence and fortune to help assuage the pain of his people. Eventually his efforts worked as he was the impetus behind the Ta’if Accord, the treatise signed in Saudi Arabia by the different Lebanese faction that ended the brutal 15 years of war.
After Ta’if he returned to his country of birth with a vision to rebuild the nation that he once new and to work for its collective future. In life he rebuilt the war torn neighborhoods, created charitable foundations, invited foreign investments, and brought an independent movement to politics. All the while he dreamed of an inescapable unity in Lebanon. In death that unity was realized. As the masses of Muslim, Christian, and Druze prayed at his grave, as they march in the street in his honor and protested the Syrian presence that was thought to have killed him, he brought them together. How long this unity will last and what it shall accomplish is still unknown, as is the truth behind Hariri’s murder.
Hariri’s assassination has ignited a plethora of conspiracies putting the blame on anyone and everyone possible. The most telling is a sample of what can be heard from the Lebanese directly. “It was Syria 100%” a woman from Baalbak claimed as she continued, “but I am sure that America was behind it somehow.” Others have said that they will not decide who was responsible until hearing the report from the international investigation. Some remain very pessimistic about the political instability, “the removal of the Syrian troops will open a power vacuum in Lebanon comparable to the expulsion of the PLO from West Beirut” explained a Palestinian resident of Beirut, alluding to an increase in violence that occurred during the early 80s of the Civil War.
Sifting through the conspiracies to find the truth is an act of futility which may never bring the truth to fruition. Hariri was a threat to many different elements of the Syrian-Lebanese relationship. The Lebanese have been subjected to a Syrian presence both through its military and intelligence apparatus since 1976. Any Lebanese will tell you that the Syrian mukhabarat (intelligence agents) are everywhere. “They are running the fruit stands, they drive the taxis, and even the beggars are mukhabarat,” a Lebanese woman explained to me. This leads to why most of the Lebanese believe that Syria must have been behind the brutal assassination. There is even debate as to whether the assassination was carried out by a car bombing or if the bombs were planted underground. This conspiracy incorporates the Lebanese pro-Syrian government as being involved in the assassination plot.
Regardless of the answer, the assassination of Hariri has mobilized the people of Lebanon. They have been taking to the streets daily. Even after the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami’s government, the people continue to gather in Martyr’s Square.
Hariri’s vision of Lebanon is being realized today. People from all regions and religions of Lebanon flooded to the burial site to pay respects to their fallen Martyr and his family. Side by side, in unison, they chanted the Muslim prayer for the dead and performed the fatiaha. Together they mourned; a collective tear of sorrow fell from their faces. Within that tear, the dream of one man and the hope of a nation, and as the world watches hopefully that tear will wash away the memories of war and irrigate the fields of unity and understanding.
February 14th 12:55pm, I was walking down the Old Damascus Highway, a road once known as the “Green Line” during the civil war; dividing Beirut into West (Muslim) and East (Christian). It all happened so fast. The brutal force of the explosion resounded through my chest. Startled, I searched for answers. The uncertainty settled in my stomach, a band of butterflies fighting within me. The streets flooded with the curious masses. All too familiar with such events, they seemed aware of things I could not comprehend. My first instinct was to look up to the sky for an Israeli F-15, a common pest to the Lebanese, but instead of the expected “sonic boom” a mushroom cloud of black smoke rose over the city. I will never be able to adequately express my sense of fear and frustration or the emotional response of the people.
To people of Lebanon St. Valentine’s day is forever changed; Transformed from a day of heart filled balloons to one of nightmarish despair. It only took a matter of seconds and the demons of Lebanon’s not too distant past emerged from their shallow slumber to claim yet another victim. Not just any victim. But Mr. Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri.
In a country still rebuilding from the dark days of civil war, a war which forever stained the hands of nearly every Lebanese politician with the blood of innocents, Hariri was the one exception. He had spent the war years, 1975-90, amassing his fortune in Saudi Arabia. However, unlike many of his fellow expatriates, Hariri did not make his money and leave. Instead he used his influence and fortune to help assuage the pain of his people. Eventually his efforts worked as he was the impetus behind the Ta’if Accord, the treatise signed in Saudi Arabia by the different Lebanese faction that ended the brutal 15 years of war.
After Ta’if he returned to his country of birth with a vision to rebuild the nation that he once new and to work for its collective future. In life he rebuilt the war torn neighborhoods, created charitable foundations, invited foreign investments, and brought an independent movement to politics. All the while he dreamed of an inescapable unity in Lebanon. In death that unity was realized. As the masses of Muslim, Christian, and Druze prayed at his grave, as they march in the street in his honor and protested the Syrian presence that was thought to have killed him, he brought them together. How long this unity will last and what it shall accomplish is still unknown, as is the truth behind Hariri’s murder.
Hariri’s assassination has ignited a plethora of conspiracies putting the blame on anyone and everyone possible. The most telling is a sample of what can be heard from the Lebanese directly. “It was Syria 100%” a woman from Baalbak claimed as she continued, “but I am sure that America was behind it somehow.” Others have said that they will not decide who was responsible until hearing the report from the international investigation. Some remain very pessimistic about the political instability, “the removal of the Syrian troops will open a power vacuum in Lebanon comparable to the expulsion of the PLO from West Beirut” explained a Palestinian resident of Beirut, alluding to an increase in violence that occurred during the early 80s of the Civil War.
Sifting through the conspiracies to find the truth is an act of futility which may never bring the truth to fruition. Hariri was a threat to many different elements of the Syrian-Lebanese relationship. The Lebanese have been subjected to a Syrian presence both through its military and intelligence apparatus since 1976. Any Lebanese will tell you that the Syrian mukhabarat (intelligence agents) are everywhere. “They are running the fruit stands, they drive the taxis, and even the beggars are mukhabarat,” a Lebanese woman explained to me. This leads to why most of the Lebanese believe that Syria must have been behind the brutal assassination. There is even debate as to whether the assassination was carried out by a car bombing or if the bombs were planted underground. This conspiracy incorporates the Lebanese pro-Syrian government as being involved in the assassination plot.
Regardless of the answer, the assassination of Hariri has mobilized the people of Lebanon. They have been taking to the streets daily. Even after the resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami’s government, the people continue to gather in Martyr’s Square.
Hariri’s vision of Lebanon is being realized today. People from all regions and religions of Lebanon flooded to the burial site to pay respects to their fallen Martyr and his family. Side by side, in unison, they chanted the Muslim prayer for the dead and performed the fatiaha. Together they mourned; a collective tear of sorrow fell from their faces. Within that tear, the dream of one man and the hope of a nation, and as the world watches hopefully that tear will wash away the memories of war and irrigate the fields of unity and understanding.
2/17/2005
Hariri's Funeral
Today, I spent the day, walking through Beirut, a place I had felt I knew all so well, but looks so different after this horrific tragedy. The site of the bombing was worse then I imagined, and I originally imagined it to be devastating…The funeral began around 10am local time, but I didn’t make my way downtown until noon. There were massive crowds throughout the city; some gathered near the old theatre that was blown up during the war, some in the parking lot overlooking the mosque under construction…People with all sorts of backgrounds came to attend. You could see Junblatt’s Progressive Party flag being waved by so many of the young Lebanese in attendance. People, young and old, came to see the burial of the former prime minister. I felt touched both as an observer and as someone who supports Lebanon, and loves the country for its beautiful history, people, and culture... This love for Lebanon, which has become a mysterious relationship, especially with Beirut itself, is difficult to relay in words, especially to those who have not seen the country. I have renewed my security and safety after venturing around the city, to see what the atmosphere is, and if there was any reason to think that danger is lurking in the near future… I believe, on the contrary that the country is reaching a breaking point, which will hopefully push it into a more secure and free path… There is one feeling that echoes from all the Lebanese that I have spoken with, from Druze, Sunni, Shi’a, to Christian, is that the war was for nothing… and they are tired of the violence… The people want to reclaim their country… and in my humble opinion, they will. As a foreigner (ajnabi), I have my own respect for Rafik Hariri, and may he rest in peace…
I hope for peace for Lebanon….
For the people I have met and befriended….
For the most hospitable people I have encountered….
For those who cannot escape the tragedy when it erupts.
I hope for peace for Lebanon….
For the people I have met and befriended….
For the most hospitable people I have encountered….
For those who cannot escape the tragedy when it erupts.
2/15/2005
Syria is for sure to blame
I am not really into conspiracy theory, and particularly the ones that come from the Middle East...but I am almost certain, that this assassination was a professional job, premeditated by the Syrian intelligence...Syria could only carry it out if they could pass off the blame on someone or something else...In this case, Al Qa3da, which would presumebly be an acceptable culprit would dismiss any ties to Syria..Conspiracy? or reality?
"Al Qaeda” denies involvement in Hariri killing
A day following the attack in which former Lebanese premier Rafic al-Hariri was killed, a statement posted on the web Tuesday and attributed to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network denied any involvement in the incident. It said Lebanese, Syrian or Israeli intelligence were those behind the Beirut attack.
The statement, signed by an unknown group calling itself the Al Qaeda Organization in the Levant, was posted on an Islamist website often used by al Qaeda, a day after another unknown Islamist group claimed it was behind the massive blast that killed Hariri and eight others. Several hours after the attack, Al Jazeera TV broadcast a video tape from the unknown Islamist group which said it had killed Hariri because of his Saudi ties.
"Blaming the Jihadist and Salafist groups for what happened in Beirut is a complete fabrication," the statement said, according to Reuters. "The priorities of the jihadist groups in the Levant are supporting our brethren in Iraq and Palestine, not blowing up cars."
"This is clearly an operation that was planned by a state intelligence agency ... and we blame either the Mossad, the Syrian regime or the Lebanese regime."
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
The statement, signed by an unknown group calling itself the Al Qaeda Organization in the Levant, was posted on an Islamist website often used by al Qaeda, a day after another unknown Islamist group claimed it was behind the massive blast that killed Hariri and eight others. Several hours after the attack, Al Jazeera TV broadcast a video tape from the unknown Islamist group which said it had killed Hariri because of his Saudi ties.
"Blaming the Jihadist and Salafist groups for what happened in Beirut is a complete fabrication," the statement said, according to Reuters. "The priorities of the jihadist groups in the Levant are supporting our brethren in Iraq and Palestine, not blowing up cars."
"This is clearly an operation that was planned by a state intelligence agency ... and we blame either the Mossad, the Syrian regime or the Lebanese regime."
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
2/14/2005
Hariri Assassination - thoughts, comments, feelings, accusations
First of all, I want everyone to know, that i am obviously alive...and I do thank God for that, although it would have been unusual for me to be in that area around the time the explosion happened, you never know and I pass it all the time in a serveez (Lebanese taxi), to go to AUB to Hamra...It is a really beautiful and safe area...What was my day like?? well to start it off..I was feeling sick this morning..so I texted messaged one of my coworkers to tell him that i don't think that i was going to go in today, and then I felt better around noon, so I decided I would head in...It takes about 30-45 mins to get out of here, so I was heading down the Old Damascus Highway, just a normal day...and at 1pm almost perfectly, I heard an incredibly loud explosion..and felt it in my stomach..to the poin that i jumped and was freaked out...I looked towards downtown, and then I saw a dark dark mushroom cloud rise up from the buildings...I had no idea what had just happened, I looked to the sky for an Israeli jets, but I didn't hear any airplanes...and I saw the Lebanese scatter on the sidewalk and rush outside to see what was going on...There is nothing more frustrating then trying to find out what happened in Arabic...especially when I am not familiar with words concerning violence...I finally spoke with a man who told me sayara "boom"..sayara meaning car..and I knew...at first i thought it was just an attack on a hotel because everyone told me near St. Georges...so I had no idea... I went to meet my friend because we were going to check out an apartment that we might move into, and I found out that he was even more oblivious...I tried to call my friends, to see if they were ok, but the phone network was full and I couldn't get through to anyone....Finally, after looking at the apartment, just after witnessing a bombing, we headed back to the downtown office...we found broken glass all over the city because of the magnitude of the blast...I can't explain it any better....When I arrived at the office, I found that the car bomb was an attempted assassination...and it was targeting Hariri...We first were told he was alive and in the hospital, until CNN broke that Hariri was in fact killed in the attack...It has been a terrible experience, and a crazy shift in the atmosphere, for now, i am just staying inside my apartment in fear of any type of retaliation....these are my initial thoughts, and situation... I am in disbelief....and I am certain it involved syria....not 100% sure, but the timing, and the recent warnings...indicated that it just might be...don't automatically accept the group that claimed it as the ones responsible...I think there are definitely links to Syria... well as for now, i am going to stay indoors...I hope all clears up here peacefully, and there is no retaliation...as many of the Lebanese feel the same way.....well that is all for now...i will be sure and post more in the future...
1/28/2005
Israel Seizes Palestinian Land in Jerusalem Cut Off by Barrier
washingtonpost.com
JERUSALEM, Jan. 23 -- Israel has quietly seized large tracts of Jerusalem land owned by Palestinian residents of the West Bank after they were cut off from their property by Israel's separation barrier, attorneys for the landowners said.
The land was taken after the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided several months ago to enforce a long-dormant law that allows Israel to seize lands of Palestinians who fled or were driven out during the 1948-49 war that followed the establishment of the Jewish state.
The new policy, first reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, could affect hundreds of Palestinians who own property in Jerusalem and intensify the dispute over the city, which Israel and the Palestinians both claim as their capital.
The affected landowners live in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, just south of Jerusalem. Their land was taken in August, after the West Bank separation barrier cut them off from their land in the city.
The land was transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property, a body formed by a 1950 law that allowed the seizure of property of Palestinians who had left Israel during the war, according to documents from Israel's Finance and Justice ministries.
Johnny Atik, a Bethlehem resident, said Sunday that he lost eight acres of olive groves within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries as a result of the new policy. The land is 100 yards from his home, which sits on the other side of an electronic fence and patrol road that are part of the separation barrier.
Atik said land belonging to 40 families in his neighborhood had been taken.
Hundreds of other Palestinians are now at risk of having land seized, according to Daniel Seidemann and Mohammed Dahla, attorneys representing several of the landowners.
Atik said he planned to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Finance Ministry declined to discuss the policy, and a spokesman insisted he would only respond to written questions. The ministry's written response did not address how much land had been taken and whether landowners would be compensated.
Israel's absentee land law was first used in the 1950s. At least 20,000 Arab homes in the western part of Jerusalem were taken under this law, said Moshe Amirav, a former member of the Jerusalem City Council.
In the 1967 Middle East war, Israel captured the eastern half of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, then expanded Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and annexed the area.
Sharon's office declined to comment, except to confirm the government's decision that the Custodian of Absentee Property has the authority to "transfer, sell or lease" lands in East Jerusalem that belong to absentee owners.
The Finance Ministry said the properties of the Bethlehem-area landowners were transferred to state custody after the 1967 war. Asked what the state would do with the land, the ministry said the question was "not relevant."
JERUSALEM, Jan. 23 -- Israel has quietly seized large tracts of Jerusalem land owned by Palestinian residents of the West Bank after they were cut off from their property by Israel's separation barrier, attorneys for the landowners said.
The land was taken after the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided several months ago to enforce a long-dormant law that allows Israel to seize lands of Palestinians who fled or were driven out during the 1948-49 war that followed the establishment of the Jewish state.
The new policy, first reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, could affect hundreds of Palestinians who own property in Jerusalem and intensify the dispute over the city, which Israel and the Palestinians both claim as their capital.
The affected landowners live in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, just south of Jerusalem. Their land was taken in August, after the West Bank separation barrier cut them off from their land in the city.
The land was transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property, a body formed by a 1950 law that allowed the seizure of property of Palestinians who had left Israel during the war, according to documents from Israel's Finance and Justice ministries.
Johnny Atik, a Bethlehem resident, said Sunday that he lost eight acres of olive groves within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries as a result of the new policy. The land is 100 yards from his home, which sits on the other side of an electronic fence and patrol road that are part of the separation barrier.
Atik said land belonging to 40 families in his neighborhood had been taken.
Hundreds of other Palestinians are now at risk of having land seized, according to Daniel Seidemann and Mohammed Dahla, attorneys representing several of the landowners.
Atik said he planned to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Finance Ministry declined to discuss the policy, and a spokesman insisted he would only respond to written questions. The ministry's written response did not address how much land had been taken and whether landowners would be compensated.
Israel's absentee land law was first used in the 1950s. At least 20,000 Arab homes in the western part of Jerusalem were taken under this law, said Moshe Amirav, a former member of the Jerusalem City Council.
In the 1967 Middle East war, Israel captured the eastern half of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, then expanded Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and annexed the area.
Sharon's office declined to comment, except to confirm the government's decision that the Custodian of Absentee Property has the authority to "transfer, sell or lease" lands in East Jerusalem that belong to absentee owners.
The Finance Ministry said the properties of the Bethlehem-area landowners were transferred to state custody after the 1967 war. Asked what the state would do with the land, the ministry said the question was "not relevant."
UN envoy urges Israel to end "violations" of Lebanese airspace
UN envoy urges Israel to end "violations" of Lebanese airspace
Beirut, 26 January: The United Nations Information Office in Beirut issued the following statement:
"The personal envoy of the UN secretary-general in South Lebanon, Staffan de Mistura, has expressed deep concern over the continuing numerous Israeli air violations of the Blue Line." The statement added: "At 1300 [1100 gmt] this afternoon, 11 Israeli military planes and an unmanned B-7 aircraft violated Lebanese airspace, in addition to six violations recorded yesterday by five military planes and one unmanned aircraft."
The UN envoy said that "the UN had on numerous occasions drawn attention to the continued violations of the Blue Line, as was recently reported in the secretary-general's report to the Security Council. The personal envoy of the UN secretary-general reiterates his calls to Israeli authorities to put an end to these violations, and reminds all parties concerned that one violation of the Blue Line does not justify another violation."
Beirut, 26 January: The United Nations Information Office in Beirut issued the following statement:
"The personal envoy of the UN secretary-general in South Lebanon, Staffan de Mistura, has expressed deep concern over the continuing numerous Israeli air violations of the Blue Line." The statement added: "At 1300 [1100 gmt] this afternoon, 11 Israeli military planes and an unmanned B-7 aircraft violated Lebanese airspace, in addition to six violations recorded yesterday by five military planes and one unmanned aircraft."
The UN envoy said that "the UN had on numerous occasions drawn attention to the continued violations of the Blue Line, as was recently reported in the secretary-general's report to the Security Council. The personal envoy of the UN secretary-general reiterates his calls to Israeli authorities to put an end to these violations, and reminds all parties concerned that one violation of the Blue Line does not justify another violation."
1/27/2005
Israeli war planes conduct "mock" raids; fly over Beirut
Source: Lebanese National News Agency web site, Beirut, in Arabic 1151 gmt 26 Jan 05
The correspondent of the Lebanese National News Agency in Bint Jbayl reported that "Israeli war planes flew over Bint Jbayl and the border villages at 1105 Wednesday." The correspondent added: "At 1140 [0940 gmt], enemy planes renewed their flights over Bint Jbayl and the western sector, and conducted mock raids."
The Guidance Directorate of the Army Command has issued the following statement:
"An Israeli reconnaissance plane coming from the direction of the sea opposite the city of Tyre violated the Lebanese airspace this morning at 0725 [0525 gmt]. The plane flew in circles between Tyre, Sidon and Al-Nabatiyah, and departed back over the sea opposite Al-Naqurah at 1000."
The Guidance Directorate of the Army Command also issued the following statement:
"Four Israeli war planes violated southern Lebanese airspace this morning at 1100 [0900 gmt]. Two of the planes headed north towards the city of Shaka and flew in circles between Shaka and Beirut and then returned south. The four planes departed towards the occupied territories at 1200."
The correspondent of the Lebanese National News Agency in Bint Jbayl reported that "Israeli war planes flew over Bint Jbayl and the border villages at 1105 Wednesday." The correspondent added: "At 1140 [0940 gmt], enemy planes renewed their flights over Bint Jbayl and the western sector, and conducted mock raids."
The Guidance Directorate of the Army Command has issued the following statement:
"An Israeli reconnaissance plane coming from the direction of the sea opposite the city of Tyre violated the Lebanese airspace this morning at 0725 [0525 gmt]. The plane flew in circles between Tyre, Sidon and Al-Nabatiyah, and departed back over the sea opposite Al-Naqurah at 1000."
The Guidance Directorate of the Army Command also issued the following statement:
"Four Israeli war planes violated southern Lebanese airspace this morning at 1100 [0900 gmt]. Two of the planes headed north towards the city of Shaka and flew in circles between Shaka and Beirut and then returned south. The four planes departed towards the occupied territories at 1200."
1/12/2005
Israeli Gunboats Rake Lebanese Fishing Harbors with Machinegun Fire
Well the tensions are on the rise, but is this fair play????? US tax dollars going to Terrorism? Granted, there was a convoy attacked in the Sheb'a farms area of Golan, by Hizballah, but I don't think that targeting commercial boats in the south is very fair. Read it for yourself. I will post more at a later date.
Israeli Gunboats Rake Lebanese Fishing Harbors with Machinegun Fire
Israel's navy gunboats made repeated forays into South Lebanon's territorial waters overnight, raking fishing boats with machine-gun fire in the aftermath of Hizbullah's strike that killed an Israeli officer in the Shabaa farms over the weekend, the Beirut media reported on Wednesday.
Helicopter gunships provided air cover to the maritime incursions that were staged under the glare of parachute flares along the coastal strip stretching from Naqoura right on the borderline with Israel to the southern outskirts of Tyre, 10 miles north of the Jewish state..
There were no reports of casualties or serious damage. But Lebanese fishermen in the targeted area that houses the command headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force abstained from sailing out to earn their living early Wednesday morning, according to media reports.
An Nahar, which was the first to report the offshore tension, said a buildup of Israeli armor was spotted in the environs of the northern Jewish settlement of Zareit close to the U.N.-drawn blue line on the border of South Lebanon.
Earlier media reports said Israeli army tanks rolled up to hilltop positions facing south Lebanon in the aftermath of Hizbullah's Sunday attack, which provoked an Israeli retaliation of air strikes and field artillery barrages in which a French officer from a U.N. truce observer unit was killed along with a Hizbullah fighter.
The Frenchman, Major Jean-Louis Valet, a father of four children, was given a military sendoff at Beirut airport (as shown in photo). A cedar medal conferred by President Lahoud was pinned to Valet's flag-draped coffin before a French air-force plane carried the body to Paris.
Israel's naval belligerency came a few hours after the U.N. Security Council called on Lebanon, Israel and de facto irregular elements, meaning Hizbullah, to exercise "utmost restraint" to prevent the new wave of hostilities from spinning out of control.
The council statement, read by Argentina's U.N. Ambassador Cesar Mayoral, the current council president, paid tribute to the U.N. victims of the attack, extended sympathy to their families, and demanded respect for the security and safety of all U.N. personnel.
"The members of the Security Council reiterated their call on the parties to fulfill the commitments they have given to respect in its entirety the Blue Line and to exercise the utmost restraint," the statement said. (Naharnet-AP)
Beirut, Updated 12 Jan 05, 09:36
Israeli Gunboats Rake Lebanese Fishing Harbors with Machinegun Fire
Israel's navy gunboats made repeated forays into South Lebanon's territorial waters overnight, raking fishing boats with machine-gun fire in the aftermath of Hizbullah's strike that killed an Israeli officer in the Shabaa farms over the weekend, the Beirut media reported on Wednesday.
Helicopter gunships provided air cover to the maritime incursions that were staged under the glare of parachute flares along the coastal strip stretching from Naqoura right on the borderline with Israel to the southern outskirts of Tyre, 10 miles north of the Jewish state..
There were no reports of casualties or serious damage. But Lebanese fishermen in the targeted area that houses the command headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping force abstained from sailing out to earn their living early Wednesday morning, according to media reports.
An Nahar, which was the first to report the offshore tension, said a buildup of Israeli armor was spotted in the environs of the northern Jewish settlement of Zareit close to the U.N.-drawn blue line on the border of South Lebanon.
Earlier media reports said Israeli army tanks rolled up to hilltop positions facing south Lebanon in the aftermath of Hizbullah's Sunday attack, which provoked an Israeli retaliation of air strikes and field artillery barrages in which a French officer from a U.N. truce observer unit was killed along with a Hizbullah fighter.
The Frenchman, Major Jean-Louis Valet, a father of four children, was given a military sendoff at Beirut airport (as shown in photo). A cedar medal conferred by President Lahoud was pinned to Valet's flag-draped coffin before a French air-force plane carried the body to Paris.
Israel's naval belligerency came a few hours after the U.N. Security Council called on Lebanon, Israel and de facto irregular elements, meaning Hizbullah, to exercise "utmost restraint" to prevent the new wave of hostilities from spinning out of control.
The council statement, read by Argentina's U.N. Ambassador Cesar Mayoral, the current council president, paid tribute to the U.N. victims of the attack, extended sympathy to their families, and demanded respect for the security and safety of all U.N. personnel.
"The members of the Security Council reiterated their call on the parties to fulfill the commitments they have given to respect in its entirety the Blue Line and to exercise the utmost restraint," the statement said. (Naharnet-AP)
Beirut, Updated 12 Jan 05, 09:36
1/07/2005
Lebanon the first day
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