Jon Leyne (BBC): Lebanon's rocky road from Damascus

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Saturday March 5

Lebanon`s rocky road from Damascus
By Jon Leyne
BBC News, Beirut

The Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad announced a redeployment of his forces in Lebanon on Saturday amid a torrent of calls for him to withdraw his troops completely. Street protests have also continued in Beirut demanding that Syria's 14,000 soldiers go home . . . .

Nobody knows for sure whether the Syrians did order the assassination of the former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri last month.

On the face of it, it does seem amazingly counter-productive. The killing sparked this whole wave of anti-Syrian protests.

But the Syrians have used similarly brutal methods to maintain their control here in the past, and there are elements in Damascus, particularly in the intelligence services, who are sufficiently out of touch to think they could get away with it again.

Read more.

[bemildred]

1. This guy doesn't seem skeptical about Syria killing Hariri:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x110840

It is believed that Syrian intelligence, the mokhabarat, ordered the assassination of Hariri. It would not be the first time they undertook these violent measures here. The killing reminded the Maronites of the murder of their charismatic leader, Bashir Gemayel, in 1982, by a fanatic of the "Greater Syria" party. The killing reminded Jumblatt of the killing of his father, Kamal, one of the great men of the previous generation, by Syrian agents in 1977. The list could go on and on. Maronites are still prisoners-of-war in Syrian jails, and others are struck down by the mokhabarat in Lebanon itself. The murder of this one man - who had himself accepted Syria all the way until September - stands for them all.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Syria seems to think it has a right to govern several nations

Many Syrians have never accepted the partition of the old French Mandate into Syria and Lebanon.

Yasser Arafat and Hafez al-Assad never got on too well. Arafat was a Palestinian nationalist who had little use for the pan-Arabism of Assad and Gamel Abdul Nasser. I'm not going to look for the link right now, but I once read a story of how a PLO delegation went to Damascus and were told that Syria supported their struggle because they were, after all, "southern Syrians". I don't know how credible the story is.

[bemildred]

3. I've read that Damascus remembers the old days too,

under the Ottomans, when it was the capital of a much
larger fiefdom. I'm not convinced such thoughts affect
policy much today, although it seems clear that there has
been a certain ambiguity about it's respect for Lebanese
independence, and the Golan will not be conceded soon.

The story is good, whether true or not, that two such would
clash is to be expected.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Link seems to have changed

to this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4316417.stm

due to the misspelling of 'programmes' in the original.