Thousands of Hezbollah supporters shout anti-government slogans on December 3, 2006, the third day of protests in Beirut aimed at forcing the resignation of Western-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Prime Minister Siniora, emboldened by Arab and international support for his U.S.-backed government, vowed on Sunday to stay in office.
Photo: AP
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Lebanese Crisis Takes to the Streets
// Hezbollah Enlists the Support of Hundreds of Thousands of Demonstrators
In the wake of continuing mass demonstrations in Beirut by hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah supporters calling for the resignation of the "pro-Western" cabinet of Prime Minister Foaud Siniora, the ongoing political crisis in Lebanon is threatening to topple the country's legitimate government and engulf the country in an all-out civil war. British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier were dispatched in haste yesterday to the Lebanese capital to tackle what Washington is now calling a coup d'etat.
An official anti-government manifesto was announced last Friday. Early that morning, crowds began to gather on the Square of the Martyrs in central Beirut. People were bussed in from all corners of the country, and by the appointed hour the throng was packed so closely in the square that not even a dropped apple could have fallen to the ground. The square was surrounded by snack stands and portable toilets that had been specially set up for the occasion.
Within the first few hours, the huge crowd had peacefully blocked the entrance to the complex of government buildings in the center of the city. Activists from Hezbollah and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement were on hand to provide security, ensuring that the numerous policemen and soldiers who had been posted throughout the city on the eve of the protest mostly watched the proceedings without interfering. Cries of "Siniora out!" occasionally issued from the loudspeakers, echoed by the crowd: "out…!" "Give us a unified national government!" said the loudspeakers – "give us…" carried across the square.
According to witnesses, the events in Beirut look more like a festival than a political protest. Everywhere young people are singing and dancing, although the songs are occasionally interspersed with Hezbollah military marches with less-than-friendly lyrics. Most of the protestors go home to sleep at night and return to the square in the morning. "We will sit here as long as they [the ministers in Siniora's cabinet] don't leave. We won't give them a moment's rest," 20-year-old Ahmed Kayello, who came from southern Lebanon to participate in the protest, promised a reporter from Reuters.
However, the opposition does not intend to be limited by the peaceful manifesto. As Shiite parliamentary deputy Ali Hassan Khalil, who represents the movement "Amal," the opposition factions are giving the prime minister until the end of the day on Monday to step down. If Siniora's cabinet does not resign before the deadline, the second stage of the protest campaign will start. The deputy declined to lay his cards fully on the table, but, according to the Lebanese media, the second stage will be a general strike.
The Lebanese government has shown no sign of giving in. "Threats do not move us, and we have no fear of ultimatums," announced Fouad Siniora to his supporters. However, the prime minister is clearly in trouble. Under the banner of government resignation, Hezbollah has succeeded in uniting the entire opposition camp, including Sunnis, Shiites, Christians, and Druze – into a confederation of all those who believe themselves to have been slighted by the government. In these conditions, the opposition is fully capable of staging a nationwide general strike. Experts believe that such a strike will seriously devalue the Lebanese currency and lead to the economic collapse of the country, which still has not recovered from its summer war with Israel.
One needs to look no further than Israel's summer military campaign to find the reasons for the current unrest in Lebanon. Despite the ambiguous outcome of its confrontation with Israel, Hezbollah has declared itself the victor over the "Zionist enemy." The Islamists' powerful propaganda machine has convinced a significant portion of Lebanese of their victory, and as a result the movement's popularity – along with the ambitions of its leadership – have skyrocketed. Hezbollah finally decided that it was time to convert the group's popularity into real political dividends, and all that remained was to find formal grounds for the transfer of power.
The necessary pretext presented itself at the end of November when six opposition ministers quit the coalition government in protest over the cabinet's decision to support the creation of an international tribunal to investigate the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. According to Hezbollah, the tribunal will not bring the murderers to justice: it will be nothing but a star chamber in which to try those in the opposition who "do not wish to bow before the West."
After the Hezbollah deputies quit Fouad Siniora's cabinet, the opposition announced that the government is no longer legitimate. "This government has failed; it has turned out to be incapable of fulfilling its promises and has suffered defeat in all areas, in economics, politics, social programs, and national security, because only one team is represented, one team that makes all its decisions according to directions issued by the leaders of movements who are not part of the government," said Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. "Only Western puppets who do not reflect the will of the Lebanese people are left in power. We need a unified national government," he stressed, along with the demand that the cabinet quota for opposition ministers be increased.
Fouad Siniora noted that the opposition members quit the cabinet of their own free will and that, according to the constitution, only Parliament can dissolve the government. The prime minister's supporters have a majority in the legislature. In response, Hezbollah arrived at a method that has been used across the world in recent years, including in the post-Soviet region and in Lebanon itself as the "cedar revolution" of 2005, to bring about regime change.
Although Fouad Siniora is keeping his composure, the West has already termed the threat the "cedar counterrevolution." The protests on the streets of Beirut had barely begun when US State Department spokesman Tom Casey declared that the events in Lebanon "are aimed at toppling Lebanon's legitimate and democratically elected government. And certainly threats of intimidation or violence aren't something that I think anyone would consider democratic or a constitutional mechanism for changing government."
On Saturday British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and her German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, arrived in Beirut to try to calm the troubled waters. Working closely with the European diplomats is Saudi Arabia, whose representatives have succeeded in ending the blockade of government buildings by protestors. Yesterday the diplomats were also joined by Arab League General Secretary Amir Musa.
The last time the East and the West enjoyed such a unity of purpose was during the creation of the anti-Iraq coalition in 1990, following Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait. This time, the coalition effort is also being aided by a common threat, one that is not directed only at the Lebanese government: many experts believe that the current events in Lebanon are being orchestrated by Shiite Iran. Tehran, carried away by its nuclear tinkerings, has already gone beyond the pale. At best, its punishment is likely to be international sanctions, while in the worst-case scenario it could face American bombs. Its best hope for diverting attention from itself is the appearance of another hotbed of tension in the Near East. The crisis in Lebanon could turn into an armed conflict at any moment. There is already in essence a civil war going on in Iraq. The Israel-Palestine conflict is continually fraught with new explosions. As Washington tries to simultaneously juggle three "hotspots" in the Near East, the situation will only get more complicated, thus allowing the regime in Tehran to play for time.
Alexander Reutov
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 04, 2006
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