Blogging the democratic revolution
Today marks the one year anniversary of the assassination of Rafik Hariri and the start of Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution. At least 500,000 people took to the streets of Beirut to commemorate that fateful day. Images here. All the links you can handle here. Let’s hope that not only will today be used to commemorate the death of Rafik Hariri, but to help build momentum toward bringing the regime who killed him and occupied Lebanon to justice.
Michael Totten has a really good piece in today’s Opinion Journal talking about how it is Lebanon, not Iraq, that is the Middle East’s first liberal democracy. I’m certainly inclined to agree with him. Lebanon is just about everything we could hope to strive for in Iraq over the next decade. A lot of his article focuses on the electoral system used in Lebanon, which is very strange by Western standards but guarantees people’s liberties by forcing the different groups in the country to share power. He says that, “Syria and Iraq, which also are composed of rival ethnic-religious sects,…
The second Mehlis Report on the assassination of Rafik Hariri by Syrian and Lebanese security authorities has been released. You can download the PDF here. I know my headline makes it sound like a bad sequel, but this one actually goes beyond its predecessor, delving into a new depth of intrigue and plot twists. Yet the ending still remains the same. The Syrian regime and its allies in the Lebanese security apparatus have been further implicated in the slaying and have been further shown to be uncooperative with the investigation. This despite the unanimous demands of the UN Security Council.…
Today, the general manager of the anti-Syrian, pro-independence newspaper An Nahar and a legislator from Beirut was assassinated by a car bomb. Almost all of Gebran Tueni’s editorials that have been published in the English-language version of the paper, Naharnet, have been against Syria. The last one published called the mass graves discovered by Lebanese authorities a crime against humanity. It is so strange to think that someone who I read in the Lebanese press — and not just any Lebanese press, this is by far one of the most influential papers — can just be wiped out like that,…
I’ve never been one to put it past Assad to have much class, but this is a bit much. The Syrian government has called unequivocally, through its state-run media, for people to take to the streets of Beirut in order to topple Lebanon’s first independently elected government. Anyone else thinks the heat is starting to get to his head? Syria has called through its state-controlled Damascus daily Tishreen for a massive demonstration in Beirut Thursday to overthrow Premier Saniora’s government as Lebanon’s confrontation with the Assad regime and its Lebanese supporters seems to be climbing to a new peak. The…
The Mehlis Report, otherwise known as the Report of the International Independent Investigation Commission charged with investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on Feb. 14 of this year, indicated that high-level Syrian officials and their agents in Lebanon were behind the assassination. I posted a brief entry on it when it was published; this post is the more in-depth analysis I promised. Following the report, the United Nations renewed Detlev Mehlis’ mandate, and the investigation continues. Today Al-Sharq al-Awsat had two articles indicating that the pressure on Syria continues to accumulate. One, “Lebanon: Two of the…
The United Nations has issued another report regarding the situation between Lebanon and Syria, which takes notice of Syrian actions above and beyond that of the assassination of ex-PM Hariri as laid out in the Mehlis Report. The Larsen report, prepared by UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen for the purpose of measuring the success of implementing resolution 1559, warns about an increase of arms flow from Syria to Palestinian camps, as well as the continued presence of Syria-backed Hizb’allah and the economic pressures that Syria is trying to exert on Lebanon. The full text is here, and here are the relevant…
For those of you who have been here with Publius since the beginning, you may remember that I used to do daily roundups of the news in Lebanon during the Cedar Revolution. It’s been quite a while since then, but with the dissemination of the Mehlis investigation report (read my post on that here), a spark has been set anew in the country. The Lebanese blogosphere is quite active right now, so it’s important to highlight the awesome work and insight that’s being put out there. I’ve been watching From Beirut to the Beltway quite a bit, as it has…
The Mehlis report was released today, and it was the historic bombshell that everyone knew it would be. It implicated Syrian and Lebanese intelligence chiefs and military generals, all the way up to members of Assad’s family. The commission was also extended up until December in order to allow for further investigations into more recent developments and leads. And, speaking of those leads, Mehlis deleted the names of some of those suspected of conspiring in Hariri’s murder for reasons not yet known, though I can imagine it has to due with following up with evidence by December. Here’s what happened:…
I was sitting in a shisha bar with some friends the other night, and soon enough I was talking with my friend from Lebanon about the Mehlis report, the implications for Syria, and what will happen to President Lahoud. He is a Christian and a supporter of General Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and went out on the streets during the Cedar Revolution, so the topic always incites him (which is fine with me, who else am I going to discuss Lebanese politics with?). It was fun because I hadn’t written much about goings on there of late, and in particular,…
From the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on Feb. 14 to the almost successful assassination attempt on journalist May Chidiac this past Sunday, there have now been 13 attacks in Lebanon which have appeared to target Lebanese opponents of Syrian domination (Reuters:
I have already discussed thoroughly the ongoing trade embargo that Syria is imposing on Lebanon. By closing off the border, Syria is effectively shutting out Lebanon’s only means by which to transport their goods to the rest of the Arab world. This in the middle of an enormous fiscal crisis worth upwords of $30 billion. Effectively, Syria is waging a trade war against Lebanon to throw it into crisis while saying that the Lebanese “can’t govern themselves.” One of Syria’s other tactics at sowing discord has been the targeted assassination of politicians in Lebanon. Today, another bomb went off in…
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to pay a surprise visit to Beirut, Lebanon this fine Friday. The purpose of the visit is to give support to the new government after the withdrawal of Syria. Here are the details: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Beirut on Friday for a surprise visit, the first by Washington’s top envoy to Lebanon since Syria’s April troops withdrawal from this country under U.S.-led international pressure. Rice arrived on a private plane that landed at 1 p.m. (1000 GMT) and she is expected to meet President Lahoud, according to presidential spokesman Rafik…
After several attempts at presenting various cabinet line ups, President Lahoud has finally approved a package of ministers worked out by Premier-designate Seniora that will form the whole of the new government. Again, can someone say finally? It’s been exactly a month now since parliamentary elections were held. Now, Seniora will begin working with the cabinet toward fixing the country’s problems, especially dealing with Syria and the debt crisis. Prime Minister Fouad Seniora gave a dramatic assurance to the nation that he would not levy new taxes as his newly formed government went through the motions of taking office Wednesday…
The leader of the Christian political party Lebanese Forces, who has been in jail for over eleven years, has been given parole by the new parliament, thus securing one of the major demands of the original anti-Syrian opposition. Church bells rang across Lebanon’s Christian heartland Monday as parliament overwhelmingly passed a parole bill that put Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea on the homestretch of his race to freedom, hopefully by the end of the week. Long convoys of cars with honking horns joyously toured the streets of Besharri, Geagea’s hometown in north Lebanon’s cedar mountains and around his house in…
It’s disgusting to watch Assad, knowing that he’s going to lose in the end, as he continues to kick and scream all the way to the graveyard. Yet the man just can’t help himself. You have to wonder how some “experts” can still consider this guy a reformist when he is doing every thing he can to make sure that the progress being made in Lebanon. For that, he still has his goon in place, dearest President Lahoud, who continues to veto every single cabinet line up presented to him by the Premier-Designate. President Lahoud and Premier-Designate Fouad Seniora were…
Another car bomb has gone off in Beirut, but this time with a twist. This politician, Elias Murr, is considered pro-Syria. Lebanon’s caretaker Vice Premier and Defense Minister Elias Murr survived an assassination bombing ambush with minor and medium burns in Beirut’s suburban district of Naccache Tuesday. Local media reports spoke of one to four others killed in the explosion that ripped Murr’s motorcade to shreds. The reports said Murr, 45, the son-in-law of President Lahoud, was helped out of his armor-plated four-wheeler Porsche by onlookers and was taken to the nearby Serhal hospital in Lebanon’s Christian heartland where he…
It looks like some people in Lebanon are suffering post-electoral loss syndrome. That is, the pro-Syria crowd outside of Hizb’allah is going nuts out of office. Perhaps they don’t know what to do with themselves now that they can’t terrorize people’s lives with the government. With this dire impropriety in their lives, it must be hard for them to keep still and play cricket like the rest of the blue hairs, so they’ve had to resort to shooting rival politicians. Lebanon worried Sunday over the outbreak of post-elections violence that left one man dead and seven others hospitalized as Premier-Designate…
Interesting choice, too. It was a foregone conclusion that Saad Hariri probably wouldn’t try for it, as he and Lahoud would constantly clash — and that’s not good for a newcomer into politics (Lebanese politics, no less). But I thought that they may have stuck with Mikati, who replaced Karami. Here’s the article. By Lucy Fielder BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Lebanese parliament on Thursday chose Fouad Siniora, the anti-Syrian former finance minister, to head the first government in three decades to take office without Syrian troops in the country. President Emile Lahoud, a long-time Syrian ally, is obliged to respect…
One of the two key problems facing the new Lebanese government is what to do about pro-Syrian President Lahoud and who to elect to the position of Parliament Speaker. The new parliament, which has not yet convened, has called on Lahoud to resign, a call he is obviously ignoring. WASHINGTON (AFX) – Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who most of his parliament wants to resign, said he will remain in his post despite accusations he covered up assassinations. ‘I’m not resigning,’ he told CNN. ‘I’m staying until the end of my term.’ On Thursday, Lebanon’s new parliamentary majority called for Lahoud…
Pro-Syria, pro-Hizbollah Speaker Nabih Berri has been re-elected by the anti-Syrian parliament: The 128-seat assembly, dominated by opponents of Syria for the first time since the 1975-1990 civil war, voted by an overwhelming majority of 90 for Berri, despite international and local reservations over retaining one of the main enforcers of Syria’s grip over its tiny neighbor. Though the May 29-June 19 elections were won by groups that opposed Syria’s role, they had little choice but to back Berri for a fourth straight term after his alliance with the Hizbollah guerrilla group won over 80 percent of the Shi’ite Muslim…
This makes political influential number three after Rafik Hariri and Samir Kassir. Former Community Party leader George Hawi was killed in a car-bomb blast in Beirut’s Wata Mosseitbeh middle-class neighborhood at midmorning Tuesday in the latest link of a chain of political assassinations that rocked the nation in connection with Syria’s expulsion from Lebanon. He was 65. Police said the thunderous explosion went off as Hawi, an outspoken critic of Syria’s heavy-handed tutelage, climbed into his car, turned on the ignition and started the Mercedes-Benz rolling. Investigators have determined that the blast was detonated by remote control. A worker at…
Tony predicted an Aoun loss, so obviously that was going to be the outcome. Er, and it was! Saad Hariri’s alliance swept all 28 seats, cementing him in parliament with a 72 seat majority in parliament and shutting out the possibility of an Aoun 1/3 veto. Beirut, Lebanon – The anti- Syrian Opposition dealt a commanding blow to Michel Aoun’s return to the Lebanon political scene. In a clean sweep of the 28 contested seats for North Lebanon, the Opposition amassed over 56% of the total seats in the electionin what is being hailed a landslide victory. The official results…
I usually do an analysis every week right before each election round in Lebanon; this being the last. However, Tony at Across The Bay, who is a Ph.D. candidate in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, has an analysis that I agree with so much that I asked him if I could simply reproduce it here. It pertains to the election alliances shaping up in Northern Lebanon for the elections today, and his prediction. And again, I definitely recommend his blog! –Robert Mayer Although I don’t usually play the prediction game, I’m going to venture and say that the Karami-Frangieh-Aoun alliance is…
Yesterday I posted on the third round of the elections in Lebanon taking place in Bekaa and Mt. Lebanon. It was termed “the mother of all election battles” because it pitted in tightly contested races the electoral lists of the now split opposition led separately by Hariri-Jumblatt and Aoun. A lot of the success of the Hariri-Jumblatt anti-Syria coalition depended on their victory during this round, given that 58 out of 128 seats were at stake. If Aoun scored a steady political ground, it would make the aforementioned much more shaky. Well, he did, so let’s see how well I…