Anti-Syrian pogroms point to darker future in Lebanon

[Originally posted at NOW]

With refugees now fearing for their lives, Lebanon is edging closer to breakdown.

Abu Gaby’s life hasn’t been the same since Saturday evening. He’s not sleeping properly. He’s changed his daily routine – no longer using taxis after dark; “taking precautions,” as he puts it, “that I never thought about before.” His work as a filmmaker has ground to a halt. “I’m unable to focus on anything,” he says. “I’m thinking only about how I can stay safe in this situation.”

As NOW’s Rayan Majed reported Tuesday, Abu Gaby (a pseudonym) was one of dozens of Syrian refugees physically assaulted across Lebanon Saturday after news broke of the execution of a second Lebanese Army captive by Islamic State (ISIS) militants. Hearing his Syrian accent in a shared Beirut taxi, a passenger beside him asked him his name. He replied with a fake Armenian one, hoping it would spare him. Brandishing a knife, the passenger then grabbed him by the collar and shook him, saying, “I’m letting you go [only] because you’re Armenian.”

Under the circumstances, Abu Gaby was fortunate: many Syrians suffered far worse in the ethno-sectarian pogroms that ensued from Beirut to the south coast to the eastern Beqaa Valley. Pictures soon surfaced of Syrian refugees and laborers lying on the streets being kicked and beaten by mobs. In one case, residents in Baalbek tied up two men and left them as human roadblocks facing the traffic at the town’s entrance. Meanwhile, gunmen set up flying checkpoints on several Beqaa roads, checking motorists’ IDs and detaining Sunni Muslim passengers, leading one columnist to dub it another “Black Saturday,” in reference to an infamous 1975 massacre of motorists at militia checkpoints based on sectarian identity. Notices appeared on walls in numerous neighborhoods demanding the departure of all Syrians within hours, with one in Beirut’s Zoqaq al-Blat threatening those not complying with “slaughter or torture until death.” Tents in makeshift refugee camps were torched, prompting hundreds of families in Shiite-majority areas of the Beqaa to pack up their tents and flee to Sunni regions.

A sign of how frightened those doubly-displaced refugees are is the lengths they’ve gone to conceal themselves. In Al-Rahma Camp, the largest Syrian refugee settlement in the central Beqaa’s Bar Elias, a representative of the charity running the camp told NOW Tuesday there were no new arrivals as a result of Saturday’s attacks. “I heard they went to Jeb Jenin,” he said. A half-hour drive later, a camp official in Jeb Jenin assured NOW they weren’t there, either. “I have no information on their whereabouts,” he said, echoing what the UNHCR, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the municipalities of three major refugee-hosting towns in the Beqaa, and Human Rights Watch had all said as well. “You have to understand, they’re terrified,” said Nabil al-Halabi, a lawyer and activist who runs a local human rights NGO, LIFE, working with Syrian refugees. “They’re not willing to work with the authorities. They’re not even telling us where they are.”

Indeed, with reports Wednesday that the Lebanese Army itself has begun dismantling camps in the southern Tyre region, refugees’ distrust of Lebanese state institutions may yet grow more pronounced. “I never thought this could happen to me in Lebanon,” Abu Gaby told NOW of his Saturday evening experience. “I had the same feeling as when I was arrested by Syrian intelligence in Damascus. In Lebanon, I now have the same level of fear and worry as I had in Syria.”

Should these events lead to further and long-lasting deteriorations in relations between Syrian refugees and their Lebanese hosts, there could be grave social and political repercussions, analysts told NOW.

“What happened on Saturday is a first sign potentially heralding the breakdown of Lebanese society,” said Hussam Itani, columnist at Al-Hayat newspaper. “It’s very dangerous. We’re in a situation of total disconnection between the government, civil society, and all the middle grounds that could unite the Lebanese people.”

The underlying cause of this crisis, argued Itani, was repeated sectarian and political incitement against Syrian refugees by Lebanese political parties, particularly within the Hezbollah-led March 8 bloc.

“These incidents were not spontaneous. They are the result of three-and-a-half years of a discourse opposing the Syrian uprising and the Syrian people’s right to decide their fate, and categorizing the Syrian people as supporters of the Islamic State and opponents of the so-called ‘resistance.’ This created a tense atmosphere that only needed one reason to explode.”

An especial concern for the longer run is the potential future militarization of some Syrian refugees, emulating the history of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees in the 1960s. To be sure, 80% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon are women and children. But the worse the situation becomes, the greater is the chance of a fringe minority developing a desire to take up arms, says Itani.

“This is an important question that very few are thinking of,” he told NOW. “If things get worse, the refugees’ reaction could turn dangerous, and it could turn uncontrollable. The lack of organization of the refugees makes them vulnerable to political manipulation.”

“They might today be occupied with their daily life problems, but this doesn’t mean they might not one day join the political battlefield and defend their interests.”

Myra Abdallah contributed reporting.

Aoun rumors costing Future support on ground

[Originally posted at NOW]

Speculation that the Future Movement might back Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun for president is angering supporters across Lebanon.

TARIQ AL-JADIDEH, Lebanon – On the restless streets of this crowded south Beirut neighborhood, where posters of former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri vie with Sunni Islamist graffiti for dominance on the walls, the most common reaction NOW got from residents Tuesday to the rumors of Hariri’s possible support for arch-rival Michel Aoun’s presidential candidacy was one of simple disbelief.

“It just can’t happen,” said an incredulous shop-owner. “For ten years, their policies have been opposed, how can they support each other now?”

Others went further, clearly angered by the idea. “[Hariri] will be a traitor if he does it,” said a woman pedestrian in a colorful hijab. Asked which candidate she would rather see the Future Movement leader support, her young friend instantly replied, “[Lebanese Forces head Samir] Geagea.”

Geagea is still Future’s official nominee, as the bloc reiterated in a statement Tuesday. But speculation remains that Hariri might make a surprise switch to backing the Hezbollah-allied Aoun, whose son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, lunched with Hariri in Paris Tuesday in a meeting he described as “positive.” One report Wednesday claimed Hariri had in fact already accepted Aoun’s candidacy, on the condition that the Free Patriotic Movement leader agreed to align himself politically with his current foes in the March 14 coalition.

Even a concession on that historic scale, however, would be unlikely to appease most Tariq al-Jadideh residents, many of whom recall the war days when they were on the receiving end of Aoun’s – and Geagea’s – military attacks.

“Neither Geagea nor Aoun [for president],” was a response NOW heard several times. “It has to be someone independent, with no blood on his hands,” said an elderly man sitting outside a sandwich shop. Asked who might meet those criteria, he thought for some time before offering Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh.

Others said they simply didn’t care who became president. “We’re not going to benefit from any of them,” said a telephone accessories shop owner. Despite his apparent apathy, however, he was convinced of one thing: “No one here will accept Hariri backing Aoun.”

Such hostility to the idea is even sharper in pro-Future areas that have felt a more direct impact from the neighboring Syrian war, in which Aoun’s ally Hezbollah is a key participant. In the view of Ahmad Fleeti, deputy mayor of the border town of Arsal, Hariri would be “covering up [for] Hezbollah” if he backed the FPM leader.

“If Hariri supported Aoun, he would be giving away [March 14’s] principles, especially [that of defending Lebanon’s] sovereignty,” Fleeti told NOW. “Whenever one of March 14’s members gives away its principles, they will not get the support of their followers.”

Like the woman in Tariq al-Jadideh, Fleeti said “the only” acceptable candidate was Geagea, on account of his refusal to join the current cabinet due to Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria.

Indeed, Geagea also received endorsement from another perhaps unlikely source in the southern city of Sidon. A sympathizer of the fugitive Islamist cleric and militant Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, who declined to give his name, told NOW by telephone that the LF leader was the only “non-hypocrite” among all Lebanese politicians. Hariri, by contrast, would be “betraying the Cedar Revolution and the blood of the martyrs” by backing Aoun’s candidacy.

Similarly, in Tripoli, where another Aoun ally – the Syrian regime – has been implicated in the bombing of mosques, many also staunchly oppose any Hariri-Aoun reconciliation. Sheikh Bilal Baroudi, an imam who narrowly escaped death when his Al-Salam mosque was car-bombed in August 2013, told NOW, “We would consider that Hariri gave away all his previous [stances] and principles, and ours as well,” if he backed Aoun.

“Future is losing a lot of supporters because of [the Aoun rumors],” said Tripoli-based civil society activist Shadi Nashabi. At the same time, Nashabi told NOW, the presidential question ranks relatively low on many residents’ list of priorities, given the more immediate concerns of ongoing armed violence and instability in the northern city.

In the face of such widespread objections, Hariri would clearly find it tough to sell Aoun’s candidacy to his supporters, and vice versa, according to Hussam Itani, an analyst at the al-Hayat newspaper.

“It is not only a problem for Hariri’s supporters, but also for Aoun’s, especially after all the campaigns he led against the Future Movement and Hariri,” Itani told NOW.

Nonetheless, Itani believes that if the decision were made, both groups of partisans would ultimately have little choice but to fall in line.

“In Lebanon, politicians take decisions regardless of the opinions of their supporters, [and those] supporters end up accepting the decisions,” he told NOW.

Indeed, as an elderly woman in Tariq al-Jadideh told NOW with an amused grin: “We Lebanese are always ready for surprises.”

Myra Abdallah contributed reporting.