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(CIA)
Lebanon has found itself in a constant state of crisis and confusion over the past couple of months. The murder of its influential former prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri on February 14 suddenly made the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, in accordance with U.N. Resolution 1559, very realistic. Combined pressure from America, Europe and the U.N. achieved a complete Syrian pullout within less than three months, at least according to Lebanese and Syrian sources. All of a sudden, after 29 years of Syrian military presence and political control over their country, the Lebanese are free, and confused.
Many ask themselves whether the complete Syrian control over Lebanon’s political life can vanish immediately, and whether Syria has really pulled out all its troops and agents. Opposition leaders are already saying that despite the military withdrawal, Syria will most probably try to maintain its grip over Lebanon using other means. Former prime minister Michel Aoun accused Syria of trying to postpone the May parliamentary elections, thus influencing their results; and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan shed doubt on the Syrian withdrawal, saying in his report released on April 26, that Syrian intelligence agents have taken up new positions “in the south of Beirut and elsewhere, and have been using headquarters of parties affiliated with the government of Syria, as well as privately rented apartments, for their purposes.” The question remains, how much influence these entrenched agents and the Syrian regime at large can exert on Lebanese politics.
The interim phase Lebanon is now going through, is also a time of changing terms. ‘Opposition’ and ‘pro-Syrian’ politicians might soon become obsolete concepts, with Syria out of the country. “It is [now] a period where everything is changing,” says the director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies at Oxford University, Dr. Nadim Shehadi. “There is no such thing as ‘pro-Syrian’ anymore, in the same way you could describe a pro-Syrian before the recent crisis. In the past 15 years, you accommodated the Syrian presence, and if you didn’t you were either sent to exile, sat in prison, or you were dead. So I do not think it is fair to categorize every politician that had to accommodate the Syrian presence as pro-Syrian. Even prime minister Hariri had good relations with Syria,” Shehadi adds.
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Dr. Nadim Shehadi (St. Anthony’s College, Oxford)
Until the elections (scheduled for May 29, 2005), and in order to avoid a political vacuum, President Emile Lahoud appointed an interim government headed by Najib Miqati. The former businessman is considered a pro-Syrian. Miqati has close ties with the Syrian regime, as do some of his ministers, but if he keeps his promises this should not discourage the opposition.
“The new government will supervise the elections… with the presence of international supervisors, to ensure their transparency,” Miqati told the Lebanese daily A-Nahar recently. Other demands the opposition made before his appointment, were: a) that his government would do its best to ease the work of the U.N. committee investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri; b) that the ministers and Miqati himself would not present themselves as candidates in the next parliamentary elections; and c) that Miqati would fire all the heads of the Lebanese intelligence organizations, as well as the attorney general. Miqati agreed to all of these demands in a public announcement in mid-April.
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Najib Miqati (Lebanese Presidency)
But even if Miqati implements these commitments, Syria will probably still remain a very influential element in Lebanon. “This is an interim period… when all eyes are concentrated on Lebanon and on Syria’s actions. Syria’s number one priority is to avoid further sanctions or pressures from the international community. It is already under a lot of pressure and it is complying with the Security Council’s resolution [1559], even more than the resolution requires. This is not something that will remain for ever – this sort of [international] attention. Eventually there has to be a resumption of normal relations on a different basis between the two neighboring countries,” explains Shehadi. “Lebanon and Syria have a lot of interests in common, economic as well as political. The relations will certainly not stay the same, as both countries have changed, and I think we are going to see some changes in Syria in the next few months. During the past 15 years [since the end of the Lebanese civil war] there has been [Syrian] control over institutions and politicians, and the army has been formed. There has to be a reversal of some of these institutions.”
Meanwhile, it seems, this Syrian control may still be imposed on Lebanon by other – more sophisticated – means. On April 26, the president of the Washington-based Reform Party of Syria, Farid Ghadry, told The Media Line that some 5,000 members of Syria’s security system have obtained Lebanese citizenship to integrate into the country and make their exposure more difficult. He said this was confirmed by Lebanon’s former pro-Syrian interior minister Elias Murr.
However, in the more public sphere, changes are already apparent. One of these changes is the retirement of pro-Syrian politicians who, according to Shehadi, were imposed by Syria. Among them is Beirut MP Bassem Yamout, who announced recently that he will not be running in the next elections.
Another change being discussed lately involves the election law. For years, Syria used the election law to influence the election results. The current law, dating back to 2000, divides the Lebanese constituencies into large and mixed electorates. Now the opposition is striving to reform the law, so that smaller and more clearly defined electorates would give them more seats. “We more or less always had free and fair elections as far as the process went, but the law and the lists’ formation were heavily influenced by the Syrians and their allies in Lebanon,” says Shehadi.
The Lebanese interim government will be a short-lived one, but with many responsibilities for the country’s future. As Lebanon begins to reformulate its relations with Syria, A-Nahar‘s Gebran Tuéni describes his hope: “Knowing the relations between Prime Minister Miqati and [Syrian] President Bashar Al-Asad, we wish the [Lebanese] government to change the relations between the two countries from those of master and servant to relations of friendship and respect.”