Little relief for Tripoli's grief

[Originally posted at NOW]

Reconstruction efforts are hampered by systematic corruption in relief distribution, say local citizens and politicians.

For residents of Tripoli’s Maarad and Zahrieh neighborhoods, where twin mosque blasts killed 47 civilians and damaged hundreds of homes moments after Friday prayers on 23 August, the task of reconstruction is being compromised by systematic corruption in government relief distribution, according to local citizens and politicians.

On 29 September, former MP Mosbah al-Ahdab of the Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement held a press conference in which he condemned what he called a “scandal” within the Higher Relief Commission (HRC), the government body tasked with providing emergency humanitarian aid, in which substantially higher cash amounts were being paid to those with well-placed connections.

In his spacious but crowded apartment opposite Tripoli’s Rashid Karami International Fair on Saturday, just a few hundred meters from the al-Salam Mosque explosion site, Ahdab spoke to NOW in between quick meetings with a constant rotation of visitors – clerics, youths from the troubled Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood, and a poet, among others. “My place is like a train station,” he grinned as he excused himself for what might have been the tenth phone call in as many minutes.

“It’s been the same story for over two years, during which we’ve had at least fifteen rounds of destruction” between the feuding Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods, Ahdab told NOW. “Certain people get compensation without even opening a file with the HRC. Others are registered in Tripoli but they actually live elsewhere. On the other hand, people who really live here, and had their homes destroyed, get cheques for a few hundred dollars.”

As evidence, Ahdab handed NOW photocopies of three cheques, clearly marked as paid by the HRC, issued to three individuals in July 2013 (see above images). One received 805,000LL ($537); another 380,000LL ($253); and the last 235,000LL ($157). “What’s the point? It costs more just to paint the house,” he said.

Another phone call later, and Ahdab arranged for the son of one of the cheque recipients, Mustafa*, to join us at the apartment, along with some friends, all of them in their mid-twenties. Dragging deeply on back-to-back cigarettes, Mustafa’s bony arms trembled as he told NOW how his family’s Bab al-Tabbaneh home was devastated twice during clashes with Jabal Mohsen.

“We lived without electricity or water, and the state did nothing to help us. The first time, we rebuilt the place by ourselves,” he said.

The second time, the HRC offered them $537. “It would cost 100,000LL [$67] just to open a bank account. I’d rather rip the damn thing in half,” he told NOW bitterly.

“You’re one of the lucky ones,” snorted a friend. “Others got just 50,000LL [$33].”

The difference between those who receive hundreds of dollars and those who receive several thousands, they allege, is connections – with security forces, with army intelligence officers, or simply with “the state” (they use the word contemptuously, as though describing an enemy). Ahdab, moreover, says Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati, who lives just a few buildings away, is the most valuable contact of all, since the HRC legally falls under the control of the prime minister’s office. Indeed, under previous administrations, the HRC has faced similar accusations of favoring partisans of the incumbent prime minister.

NOW was unable to obtain comment from the HRC, though its Secretary General Gen. Ibrahim Bashir previously denied to NOW in December 2012 that bribery took place within the organization, dismissing such allegations as having “a political dimension” intended to “tarnish the reputation of the Lebanese army.”

As far as Mustafa and his friends are concerned, however, the institution’s corruption goes far beyond inflating cheque payments.

“The state sides with Jabal Mohsen. Their agents in Tabbaneh call up militants in the Jabal and tell them to fire shots at Tabbaneh, and they collect more money from the state that way. Others block the roads, fire machine guns into the air, and then call up army intelligence and get money to open the roads again,” said Mustafa.

“I don’t want to do things like that. I don’t want anything but my rights.”

*At the interviewee’s request, a pseudonym has been used due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Tripoli figures skeptical of security plan

[Originally posted at NOW]

City leaders tell NOW plans to replicate Dahiyeh's security measures in Tripoli are fraught with complications.

The deployment of state security forces across dozens of new checkpoints in Beirut’s southern suburbs – intended to replace the controversial private measures taken by local Hezbollah strongmen – has sparked proposals to implement a similar move in the northern city of Tripoli.

Both Dahiyeh (as the southern suburbs are informally known) and Tripoli were struck by highly deadly car bombings in August, prompting a nationwide security clampdown that critics from both sides of the political divide argue has favored Dahiyeh at Tripoli’s expense. “Is what happened in Tripoli any less serious than what happened in Dahiyeh?”asked Caretaker Youth and Sports Minister Faisal Karami, one of Hezbollah’s relatively few allies in the northern city. “The people of Tripoli have the right to ask: Why is it that every time we ask for security measures […] we are told […] that we must make do with what we have?”

Accordingly, Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati – himself a Tripoli native – has called for a meeting Friday with Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel along with security officials and other politicians to discuss the possibility of replicating the Dahiyeh plan in Tripoli.

No specific details of the proposals on the table have thus far emerged. Yet leading political figures in the city told NOW that while they would welcome effective measures by state institutions to tackle Tripoli’s chronic instability, they were highly skeptical that anything meaningful would come out of Friday’s discussions.

“This is a déjà vu phenomenon, because we have seen previous plans about fourteen or fifteen times over the past few years in Tripoli, and many of them were really serious, and we as citizens and politicians don’t understand why they have ceased to exist all of a sudden,” said Future Movement MP Mustafa Alloush. “What we [typically see] in Tripoli is all of a sudden we have a security plan, thousands of troops and security officers gather for a week or two, maybe a month, and then it disappears.”

“I don’t see anything new,” agreed former MP Mosbah al-Ahdab of the Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement, who added that such efforts have invariably been sabotaged in the past by corruption and political patronage, some of it involving Miqati himself. “Miqati has requested the state many times to make this security plan in Tripoli, and it’s always secretive, and at the end of the day it ends up having roadblocks stopping people, but those who should be arrested have permits to pass and are not allowed to be arrested.”

“If Miqati wants to […] do something, let him stop financing fighters,” said Ahdab, echoing prior accusations that the caretaker prime minister is a prominent sponsor of various armed groups in the city.

Adding to the complications is the question of whether these militias, many of which distrust state security forces, would accept the deployment of the army in their quarters. In June, gunmen clashed with the army when it intervened to quell the latest in a long series of battles between the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods.

Sheikh Salem al-Rafei, a cleric with ties to many of Bab al-Tabbaneh’s militants who narrowly escaped assassination in one of the car bombs last month, told NOW he did not know enough about the security plan to comment on whether or not he would support it. He implied, however, that it was unnecessary because there were no checkpoints comparable to Hezbollah’s in Dahiyeh to replace.

“I do not understand the nature of this security plan because we don’t have ‘self-security’ in Tripoli, as they did in Dahiyeh,” Rafei told NOW. He added that he thought investigating who carried out the previous car bombs was a more pressing concern.

Alloush, for his part, opined that if militants would actively oppose the security plan, that in itself would only underscore the urgent need for it to be executed.

“If we have to wait for the agreement of militiamen to surrender their arms, we will be in a comedy, not a state.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

Tammam Salam: between Future and Miqati

[Originally posted at NOW]

Having reportedly secured the nominations of Future Movement leader Saad Hariri and, crucially, Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) head Walid Jumblatt, Beirut MP Tammam Salam appears to have sufficient backing to become the next prime minister of Lebanon when President Suleiman polls parliamentarians on the matter this weekend. NOW profiles Salam’s historical, political, and personal record.

Born in 1945, the son of six-time Prime Minister Saeb Salam, Tammam hails from a family whose wealth and prestige in the Sunni community date back to Ottoman times. An Arab nationalist who in the 1958 war allied with then-PSP leader Kamal Jumblatt against the pro-Western policies of President Camille Chamoun, Saeb Salam was resentful of his displacement as de facto Sunni chieftain by Rafiq Hariri in the 1990s. Though a reconciliation of sorts later occurred, when Tammam was first elected MP in 1996 his relations with Hariri remained lukewarm, and indeed he ran against him in Beirut in 2000, the same year his father Saeb died.

It was not until Hariri’s 2005 assassination that Salam (who had opposed the emerging campaign against the Syrian occupation) grew closer to the Future Movement, and though he never joined the party, he began thereafter to run on Hariri’s electoral lists; he eventually was appointed minister of culture in Fouad Siniora’s cabinet following the 2008 Doha Agreement. Following that cabinet’s dissolution in 2009, Salam became MP for the Beirut III district, running as an independent on March 14’s list.

Analysts thus summarized him to NOW as a March 14 dove – “between Future and [Caretaker PM Najib] Miqati” – a label further borne out in his somewhat conciliatory attitude toward March 8 magnate Hezbollah. In a leaked US embassy cable from late 2006, then-US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman recalls a meeting with Salam in which he “both defended and criticized” the Party of God, reproaching the US for labeling them “terrorists” and praising their alliance with Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement. Another cable quotes him implying that the party’s arms are legitimate as long as Israel occupies Shebaa Farms.

At the same time, since 2005 he has firmly (if quietly) opposed the Syrian regime, whom he accuses in the same cable of waging a “vendetta” against Lebanon and of posing the greatest risk to the country in general. “He never joined the bandwagon of insulting [Syrian President] Assad,” said one analyst who preferred to remain anonymous. “But he doesn’t hide his March 14 credentials.” More recently, Salam condemned Miqati’s cabinet for politicizing the Syrian refugee issue and failing to “fulfill its humanitarian mission.”

As a person, too, Salam is said to be of moderate temperament – a trait that may prove useful if and when the complex business of forming a cabinet gets underway. “Anyone who knows Tammam either as a public figure or in private knows that he’s a quiet person who approaches problems in a positive manner with a firm will to get a solution rather than complicating the issue,” said Antoine Haddad, secretary-general of the Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement, an independent party that has previously run on March 14 tickets. “He’s not confrontational, but he also does not surrender on basic principles. So if he is accepted by March 8, he could be a good prime minister for the coming period.”

However, another analyst told NOW he “doubts Hezbollah would endorse” Salam. Were that the case, Salam would secure the nomination only by a slim majority, and face serious difficulties appointing Shiite cabinet ministers. “I don’t see him as someone who is ready to appoint anti-Hezbollah Shiite ministers, it’s not part of his character; he has a moderate, dialogue-prone character.”

Haddad agrees, telling NOW that Salam may try to tailor his cabinet in such a way as to bring Hezbollah on board. “My guess is that he will try to form a government acceptable by more than the majority that has nominated him [i.e. Future and Jumblatt]. I think this is the purpose behind nominating someone like Tammam and not, for example, Saad Hariri. It’s a clever approach to try to rebalance the government without excluding the other parties.”

By the same token, however, should Hezbollah reject him out of hand, his viability as a prime minister would likely prove short-lived.

Jumblatt's jockeying

[Originally posted at NOW]

As the April 5 deadline approaches for President Suleiman’s meeting with parliamentarians to decide the next prime minister, few politicians’ moves are being scrutinized as closely as those of Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and de facto chieftain of the Druze community. Just as Jumblatt’s MPs determine which of the two March 14 and March 8 minorities becomes the majority in parliament, so too will their votes prove decisive on Friday, when a simple poll will grant the premiership to whichever candidate receives the most nominations.

Thus far, neither of the major coalitions has announced a candidate, and in the meantime they are placing fundamentally irreconcilable conditions on the nature of the cabinet overall. March 8 powerhouse Hezbollah has called for a “political” (i.e. partisan) cabinet that affirms the party’s right to bear arms – a demand roundly rejected by March 14, which calls instead for a “neutral” (i.e. non-partisan) cabinet that upholds the Baabda Declaration to “dissociate” Lebanon from Syria; an implicit jab at Hezbollah’s use of its arsenal against the rebels next door.

Nor has Jumblatt named a candidate, though in an intriguing move following a trip by a deputy to Riyadh, he reportedly cut a deal with March 14’s Future Movement leader Saad Hariri to agree to whomever he nominates. Given that Future is expected to coordinate its nomination with March 14 overall, this ostensibly suggests victory for March 14. However, informed PSP sources who spoke to NOW on condition of anonymity interpreted the deal somewhat differently.

“What actually happened was Hariri mentioned four or five names he would support, and Jumblatt will now take those to the other side [i.e. March 8] to see which one is acceptable to them,” said one source. “The candidate which has the best chance at the moment is Tammam Salam,” a former minister of culture under the cabinet of Fuad Siniora.

Conversely, another source told NOW Jumblatt’s offer to Hariri was designed to coerce him into nominating Najib Miqati, the recently resigned PM who, according to some reports, is March 8’s preferred candidate.

“The only person not on board to name Miqati is Hariri,” the source told NOW. “So Jumblatt is trying to pressure Hariri into accepting his nomination.”

“But this puts Hariri in a tough position, because he was ousted from government using Miqati last time,” the source added. “So he’s going to play hard-to-get in order to appeal to the so-called Sunni ‘street’.”

A PSP minister’s spokesperson told NOW that senior party officials were refraining from talking to the press until after Jumblatt’s interview Thursday evening on LBCI’s Kalam Ennas.

Jumblatt has, however, been quite explicit about his preferences for the overall nature of the next cabinet. In a wide-ranging interview Friday, he called for a “national unity” cabinet that would include ministers from all parties across the political spectrum.

He also specifically opposed the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) retaining control of the energy and telecom ministries, referring to the March 8 heavyweight as a “destructive political force”. “[The] FPM will not be handed over the energy and [telecom] ministries […] It’s impossible and will not happen again,” he later told as-Safir. Relations between Jumblatt and FPM leader Michel Aoun have soured after disagreements over electoral law and the extension of security officials’ tenures, reaching new lows over the weekend with mutual accusations of Zionist sympathies.

Other reports suggest Jumblatt also opposes Caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour taking up any position in the next cabinet.

NOW’S PSP sources ascribed various motives to Jumblatt’s stance on the FPM ministers. “Jumblatt always likes to empower his traditional ally, which is [Parliament Speaker] Nabih Berri. These are lucrative ministries, which neither Jumblatt nor Berri want to go to Aoun,” said one.

“Aoun is too politically contentious,” said another. “Berri, Jumblatt and of course all March 14 parties are against Aoun. So you can’t give these important ministries to Aoun and then say this cabinet is ‘non-political’.”

Dr. Imad Salamey, professor of political science at Lebanese American University, added that with potentially substantial natural gas extraction in the near future, the energy ministry in particular will take on singular importance.

“Big companies are bidding for these gas reserves, this is no joke,” he told NOW. “There’s going to be a lot of money there. So whoever controls the ministry of energy is going to be invested with a lot of political and financial gain. This ministry is going to become very powerful, and obviously Jumblatt is not in favor of Aoun having that power.”

As for Jumblatt’s rejection of Mansour, “even Berri doesn’t want this guy again,” said the PSP source. “He is the puppy of [Syrian ambassador] Ali Abdul Karim Ali.”

Jumblatt’s most important precondition, however, may be one he hasn’t explicitly stated, believes the other PSP source.

“The key ‘red line’ for Jumblatt is what the next electoral law will look like,” he told NOW. “If this law doesn’t give him enough parliamentary seats, he will not go ahead.” Ultimately, continued the source, Jumblatt’s ideal law – “what would really seal the deal” – is the 1960 law, subject to minor amendments.

If Jumblatt can indeed secure a commitment to that law – shunned by March 8 and March 14 parties alike – it will be a testament to the power his “kingmaker” status grants him. In the meantime, March 14 will apparently announce their candidate Thursday evening. Should that name differ from March 8’s nominee, it will fall – once more – on Jumblatt to decide the outcome

Yara Chehayed contributed to this report.

The battle for Rifi's successor

[Originally posted at NOW]

That former Prime Minister Najib Miqati brought down his own cabinet on Friday over a failure to agree on the leadership of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) is testament to the extraordinary political significance of the position. As NOW reported last week, MPs from the March 14 coalition as well as the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) had urged cabinet to extend the term of current director-general Major General Ashraf Rifi, who is seen as a political ally of theirs. When the cabinet majority loyal to March 14’s rivals Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement opposed the idea in a session last Friday, Miqati announced his resignation.

March 14 is still attempting to extend Rifi’s term, presenting parliament speaker Nabih Berri with a proposed draft law Wednesday that would put the issue to parliament in its next session. But in the event that such efforts fail – as Rifi himself has suggested they will – then a fierce battle over Rifi’s successor may follow.

In the wake of Miqati’s resignation, allegations emerged from sources including PSP leader Walid Jumblatt that the March 8 coalition had pushed for controversial former ISF head Gen. Ali al-Hajj to replace Rifi. Indeed, al-Hajj himself proclaimed his entitlement to the position on Saturday. ISF sources, by contrast, told NOW that, according to internal procedure, the post would go to Rifi’s deputy, Inspector Gen. Roger Salem.

From March 14’s perspective, few candidates could be less welcome than al-Hajj, whose tensions with the Future Movement date back over more than a decade. Head of security for former PM Rafiq Hariri since 1992, Hajj had come to be distrusted by Hariri over time due to his close ties with Syrian military intelligence. He was thus fired in 2000, after which Syria appointed him head of the ISF in the Beqaa. By 2004, he had risen to the ISF premiership, and incurred Hariri’s further suspicions by reducing his personal protection unit from 40 officers to 8. When Hariri was assassinated in a car bomb the following year, al-Hajj was accused of tampering with evidence at the crime scene, and was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on the orders of Detlev Mehlis, commissioner of the UN International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC) into Hariri’s killing. Though he was eventually released from prison in 2009 due to lack of evidence, there remains a conviction in March 14 and other circles that he was not fully innocent, with Walid Jumblatt saying Friday that he continues to “consider him politically involved in [Hariri’s] assassination.”

Accordingly, should al-Hajj secure nomination to the post, it would likely provoke major objections from March 14. “Al-Hajj cannot take over this position,” Future MP Ahmad Fatfat told NOW. “If we imagine the scenario of al-Hajj coming back to power, we are imagining the return of the Syrian intelligence dominance era.”

On the same question, Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement former MP Mosbah al-Ahdab – who, as an early opponent of Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, has had his own run-ins with the Damascus regime – told NOW that, “unfortunately, March 8 is trying to put their hands on all the security institutions in Lebanon, and this is not correct and not viable.”

Without a cabinet currently in place, however, it’s unclear how al-Hajj would actually obtain nomination. On Wednesday, NOW met with former judicial police commander Gen. Anwar Yehya at the ISF’s military beach club in Ras Beirut, who said ISF rules clearly dictate that, as the next-highest ranking official after Rifi, Inspector Gen. Roger Salem will take over as director-general when Rifi steps down on April 1st, until Salem himself reaches the maximum age of 59 on June 13th. Al-Hajj’s claims that he outranks Salem, Yehya added, were invalidated by an April 13th, 2005 decree to cancel al-Hajj’s ISF position and move him to the Interior Ministry.

“The only way for al-Hajj to become director-general is if a cabinet is formed and it meets and agrees to appoint him by a two-thirds majority,” Yehya told NOW. By implication, the March 8 coalition would need to make up at least two-thirds of the next cabinet – a prospect that looks improbable amid the various current proposals for non-partisan “unity,” “salvation,” and technocratic cabinets.

Assuming al-Hajj is not appointed, there remains the question of who will replace Salem in June. Yehya told NOW that, as next-highest in rank, the post would go to Brigadier Gen. Ibrahim Basbous, who will remain eligible for office for another year at his current rank, and two more if he is promoted to Major General.

While Yehya declined to discuss the political leanings of Salem and Basbous, he remarked that Rifi is unlikely to have appointed successors to whom he is personally opposed.

If this is the case, the ISF may well remain amicable to March 14 for the foreseeable future after all.

Yara Chehayed contributed reporting.

A feud in the corridors of Sunni power

[Originally posted at NOW]

A long-brewing feud in the corridors of Sunni power took a turn for the worse this week, in spite of mediation efforts undertaken Monday by the community’s premier representatives, with a group of Future Movement MPs describing Grand Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Rashid Qabbani as a “dictator” and “tyrant” in a statement Wednesday.

The controversy was first triggered by Qabbani’s call last year for elections in the Higher Islamic Council, the clerical body in charge of Dar al-Fatwa, the Sunnis’ officially established religious authority. The call was rejected by 21 of the 32 members of the council reported to be loyal to the Future Movement, ostensibly on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. The Mufti has dismissed this claim, accusing the 21 members of “working on dividing the Muslim [community] for political reasons.”

Elections, if they were to occur, could impact not only the Sunni community, but all Lebanese. The council’s role is not limited to Sunni religious affairs, such as issuing fatwas and managing the awqaf [financial assets] – it also holds considerable sway over national parliamentary decisions, according to lawyer Nabil al-Halabi. For example, a 2011 draft law that sought to criminalize domestic violence was blocked by Dar al-Fatwa on the grounds that it “violat[ed] Islamic law.”

From a strictly legal perspective, it appears both sides in the current dispute have grounds to argue their cases. On the one hand, the Mufti is correct in saying that the current term of the council members has expired, according to lawyer and council member Muhammad al-Mrad. Indeed, the term expired in 2009, but has been extended by decree every year since then due to agreement among members that extraordinary circumstances in the country made the holding of elections undesirable.

By the same token, however, Mrad told NOW that elections cannot be held without the consent of all council members. “It is not possible to call for elections without referring to the council. The council is the authority that decides whether the extraordinary circumstances are still present. Any call for elections by the Mufti must be based on a council decision that these circumstances are over.”

According to Halabi, the Mufti argues in turn that since the council’s term has ended, it has become a “caretaker” one, which does not have the legal authority to reject his call for elections.

However, protocol was also violated in other ways, according to Mrad. “Article 12, Item 2 of the 1955 decree stipulates that the electoral check lists must be published in the first month of every year. The Mufti cannot call for elections” since this has not been done.

In any case, beneath the legal dispute lies deepening political antagonism that may be the key driving force of the rift. Over the past year, the Mufti and the Future Movement have waged a public war of words over a number of issues, with Future accusing the Mufti of favoring their March 8 opponents, and the Mufti in turn accusing them of “slandering” him, “disregarding [his] dignity” and trying to “take away [his] powers.”

“Undoubtedly, there are political problems such as [the Mufti’s] receiving a Hezbollah delegation [and] the Iranian and Syrian ambassadors,” Halabi told NOW. “Some consider this a dangerous sign that the Mufti may take the council to another path that does not serve the interests of the Sunni sect.” Indeed, in their statement Wednesday, Future MPs accused the Mufti of “serving [Iran] and [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad’s regime.”

The Mufti dismisses these allegations as “lies”, saying, “I am not one to be on one side and move to another like politicians.”

Others, including Mrad, believe the Mufti is maneuvering to extend his own term for the rest of his life. “I think there are personal calculations for the Mufti. His insistence on holding elections [aims] to provide a certain majority in the council, in order to extend his term for life. The law gives him the right to choose 8 members and there is someone who promised to provide him a majority,” that “someone” being “well-known parties that are controlling all issues,” likely a reference to Hezbollah and/or Syria.

The Mufti denies this too, saying via a Dar al-Fatwa statement that he would leave the institution when his term ends on September 15, 2014, and “go back home […] [A]ny other talk is just rumors and fabrications.”

At present, PM Miqati is trying to push through a solution that would see the current council remain for two to three months, after which time the elections would be held. While Qabbani has accepted the proposal subject to minor adjustments, it remains to be seen whether it will satisfy the Future Movement.

Amani Hamad contributed reporting.

What's next for March 14?

[Originally posted at NOW Lebanon]

Wednesday’s postponement until January of a national dialogue session scheduled for Thursday demonstrated the continuing failure to break the political deadlock into which the country plunged after October’s dramatic assassination of intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan.

In the days following Hassan’s killing, which groups including the March 14 coalition and Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) blamed on Syria, March 14 announced a complete boycott of all government and parliamentary activity until the current cabinet, led by Prime Minister Najib Miqati, was dissolved.

One month later, however, the cabinet remains intact and even appears to have a degree of support from March 14’s international allies, including the United States and the European Union, who have expressed fears of a power vacuum.

Accordingly, March 14’s boycott tactic has faced criticism even from those sympathetic to its broader vision. A leading independent politician with close ties to March 14 told NOW Lebanon that he preferred not to comment on the boycott, “because I would be forced to criticize it, and now is not the time to do that.”

Recently, both President Michel Suleiman and the PSP have been trying to coax March 14 back into all-party talks.

How exactly March 14 could be induced to embrace dialogue, however, is unclear. One option, proposed by former MP Mosbah al-Ahdab of the independent Tajaddod Movement, is for the coalition to launch a separate initiative on its own terms. “A solution would be for them to set the points that should be taken into consideration and agreed by the other side in order to launch a new dialogue,” he told NOW. “We’re back to square zero, we need to start all over again, and I think they should be setting a priority list, or let’s say starting points, for a new discussion.”

However, Dr Imad Salameh, political science professor at the Lebanese American University, believes nothing short of the cabinet’s collapse will bring March 14 to a dialogue table. “March 14 has no way out other than confronting the current government,” he told NOW. “For years, March 14 has been trapped over and over into senseless dialogue in which it always ends up making concessions. That’s why the resignation of this government is a pre-requisite for further dialogue.”

Certainly that was the view of March 14 partisans interviewed by NOW at the sit-in opposite Beirut’s Grand Serail on Tuesday evening. Since October 20 – the day after Hassan’s assassination – around half a dozen tents have been erected outside the Prime Minister’s office, and the activists who have spent their days and nights there told NOW they aren’t budging.

“The only compromise we will accept is that the government goes. Nothing less,” said Jihad Naamani of the Future Movement. When asked if he felt the sit-in was achieving its goals, Naamani said, “Yes, just by keeping our camp alive and having lots of people coming down every night for meetings and seminars, we are accomplishing our part of the goal.” While admitting that the government had succeeded in fending off March 14’s demands thus far, Naamani asserted that the cabinet would fall “within two or three months” at the most.

Contra Ahdab, Salameh argues the onus is in fact on March 8, not March 14, to break the deadlock. “The way out is not March 14’s responsibility as far as I’m concerned, it’s the responsibility of the current government and those who control it, particularly Hezbollah. If [the latter] want to yield a fair share of power and control of security apparatuses, which seem to have totally slipped into the hands of [March 8], then March 14 will have reason to negotiate.”

PSP secretary-general Zafer Nasser, however, questions how such an agreement could be reached without March 14 agreeing to talk in the first place. “One cannot offer anything to them if they don’t participate in dialogue,” he told NOW. “One has to sit with them and talk so they offer something and the other party offers something. You cannot tell them, ‘Here you go, this is a settlement’ and then ask them to attend dialogue. They would say, ‘Why attend dialogue if a settlement has already been reached?’”

To this, Salameh retorts that March 8 shares the blame for the lack of talks. “The media says [that March 14 is the one blocking dialogue], but in actuality one should ask what are the issues being discussed? Are we going to negotiate whether Hezbollah’s arms will become subject to government control? Are we going to negotiate a new government? Are we going to negotiate the restructuring of the security apparatuses?” Without these items on the table, says Salameh, dialogue “will only lead to additional concessions on March 14’s behalf and will strengthen the position of the government and Hezbollah.”

Amani Hamad contributed reporting.

The baby and the bathwater [deleted NOW editorial]

[This editorial - not written by me - was removed from the NOW Lebanon website on the evening of 6 November, about 24 hours after its initial publication. Following complaints from staff, as well as a campaign of (perfectly justified) ridicule on social media, it has been (sort of) replaced, hidden behind an older editorial with a bizarre disclaimer. I re-post it here not merely out of principle, but because I believe it's an excellent piece of writing.]

If we are to believe a report in al-Joumhouria newspaper on Monday, French President François Hollande and Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, in a meeting also attended by former Lebanese PM and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri, will not back current Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Miqati if a new government is formed.

Do the Lebanese not have a say in any of this? We should worry at the carefree way in which Lebanon’s future is always being decided by outside actors, no matter who they are. The region is already polarized between the Sunni and Shiite communities in a dangerous standoff between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Such horse-trading will only serve to entrench further the sense that foreign powers control Lebanon’s destiny and that each side of the political divide is justified in having its regional backer.

Another worrying aspect was the presence of Hariri, a man who must surely concede that his role in Lebanese political life must now be confined to the margins of Sunni politics. He is living in LaLa Land if he still feels that the Lebanese public would welcome him back with open arms and see him as their salvation. In fact, it would be scandalous if he stood for parliament in the next general elections, let alone offer himself as a candidate for the premiership. (Ditto Nayla Tueni and the rest of the absentee MPs who, by their negligence, have done their best to snuff out the flame that was March 14 and insult the intelligence of the voters who sent them to Najmeh Square).

For it is not enough to simply oppose March 8’s fiendish agenda and make all the right noises about democracy, independence, sovereignty and the sanctity of the state. March 14 members must also take seriously their roles as public servants. The recent deterioration of infrastructure and the apparent collapse of law and order during August have woken up the public to the fact that if they want a functioning, safe, peaceful and prosperous country, and if they want laws enacted, it will not happen if the people they elect to achieve these ends are nowhere to be seen.

Which brings us back to the issue of Miqati and his suitability for the premiership. When he accepted to lead the Hezbollah-dominated government in the spring of 2011, many saw him as an opportunist who would trade what was left of Lebanon’s integrity for a place in the history books.

In reality and with hindsight, he has not done a terrible job. He has advanced the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (despite the Syrian dream of killing the process altogether) and spoken out against Syrian violations of Lebanese territorial integrity. Given the fact that he has had to work with a cabinet of which Hezbollah and its obstructionist allies in the FPM are a part, he has made a decent fist of holding things together.

Hollande and the rest of the international community are right to condemn the current government, which has set new standards in uselessness, but we should avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater. With the exception of former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Miqati is arguably the best candidate we have to lead this country in troubled times. In the meantime, the Lebanese must fight to wrestle their destiny from the hands of those who see Lebanon as a strategic asset instead of a sovereign nation, and all our MPs, without exception, should show up for work.

Hizbullah brings Lebanon once more to the brink of collapse

The Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced on Thursday that he will resign next week if a Cabinet meeting scheduled for November 30^th fails to agree to fund the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the UN-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Other ministers, such as those of the National Struggle Front, loyal to Walid Jumblatt, now say that they will follow Mikati in that event. These are honourable decisions, not only in their commitment to international law (Article 5.1 of Security Council Resolution 1757, signed and agreed by the Lebanese government in 2007, makes it unequivocal that Lebanon will provide 49 percent of the funding of the STL), but in their obvious justice – how, after all, can one Prime Minister of Lebanon be expected not to endorse the punishment of the murderers of a previous Prime Minister?  

As things stand, twelve of the thirty Cabinet ministers have confirmed they will vote for the funding – six on Mikati’s behalf; three on President Michel Suleiman’s behalf and three on behalf of PSP leader, Walid Jumblatt. Mikati’s task, therefore, is to persuade four more to join his side. This may not be impossible – indeed, An-Nahar has cited “informed sources” as saying that as many as five more will “most likely” vote with him (from the Tashnag, Marada and Lebanese Democratic Party seats) – but there are reasons to be pessimistic. Hizbullah, the most powerful faction in Lebanese politics despite having only two official seats in the Cabinet, has repeatedly denounced the entire tribunal as an American-Zionist conspiracy, a position that its Minister of State, Mohammad Fneish, described on Thursday as unchanged. And Michael Aoun, whose Free Patriotic Movement commands seven seats, has promulgated the absurd falsehood that Lebanon isn’t even legally bound to pay its share of the funding in the first place. These are forces against which the undecided members of Cabinet will not act without reluctance. 

If, then, the majority votes against funding, and Mikati keeps his word and resigns, the Lebanese government will once again cease to exist, and once again it will be the people who pay the price. According to “ministerial sources” quoted in the Daily Star, “it will be difficult if not impossible to form a new government” after this one, meaning that that price could be very extortionate indeed. The irony that this ‘March 8’ coalition was brought down for the same reason, by the same party, that felled its ‘March 14’ predecessor is one that should not be missed by the Lebanese people, who will have to suffer all over again for that party’s arrogant intransigence. For if the Cabinet puts its interests before the country’s and votes ‘no’, will it ever have been plainer that there cannot be a Lebanese government so long as there is a boneheaded gang called Hizbullah pulling the strings? A militia that exploits its illegal arsenal to negate the country’s obligations under international law; to insult the sovereignty of the national army; to recklessly endanger the lives of Lebanese civilians with its unilateral attacks on Israel; to force Islamic law on drink merchants in the south; and to show nothing but loathing and contempt for the democratic process in general? In a week that has seen their brothers and sisters in Egypt, Syria and Bahrain escalate their courageous struggle for liberation, it’s high time the Lebanese reassessed their devotion to the Mubaraks, Assads and Khalifas amongst their own purported ‘leadership’.