The Rebirth of Conflict
by Sharad Venkat on June 27, 2008 in Blog, Live from Beirut
Today, while walking near downtown Beirut, I came across the Hariri memorial, a large tent-like structure that serves as a tomb as well as memorial to those who died in the bomb blast that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. I decided to take time out and explore the memorial.
Rafik Hariri was the former Prime Minister of Lebanon. He served from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until 2004. Hariri was loved by many and hated by many, which is a sure sign of political success here in Lebanon. Hariri was hated by the Syrians and by the pro-Hizbullah contingent, and he openly demanded the withdrawal of the Syrian presence. He was also incredibly rich, amassing billions of dollars thru business ventures, most prominently in Lebanon and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During his tenure Hariri’s accomplishments were a mixed bag, but he was praised for his role in reconstructing Beirut after the long and destructive civil war of the 1970’s and 80’s.
Here in Lebanon there is the pro-government coalition, called March 14, and the opposition, called March 8- both derive their names from the events that transpired after the assassination of Hariri. On March 14, 2005, one month after the assassination, which was widely believed to have been plotted by the Syrians, there was a massive show of solidarity in downtown Beirut. More than 1 million Lebanese showed up to mourn Hariri and peacefully protest the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. One month later Syrian president Bashar Assad put an end to the occupation by recalling the roughly 14,000 Syrian intelligence officers and troops that had been stationed in Lebanon since 1976. These events also led to the disbanding of the government and the removal of pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud. The pro-government coalition thus took its name from this day of mass protest, the ‘cedar revolution, as it was coined by U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula J. Dobriansky, more commonly known to the Lebanese as the Intifada-al-Istiqlal, or Independence Uprising. The opposition, the March 8th coalition, took its name from a Hizbollah rally held on March 8, 2005 to show solidarity for the Syrian occupation in Lebanon. The events of March 14th were a direct response to those of March 8th.
Outside the tent, there are large posters that depict the events surrounding Hariri’s death. I walked down the road looking at each poster- some show the March 14 gathering, people dressed in red and white, screaming and waving Lebanese flags, some have Hariri’s smiling face superimposed over the crowd as if he is looking down at them with pride. One shows policemen and inspectors standing in the crater left by the explosion. It looked to be more than four times the size of my hotel room.
Inside, pictures of Hariri are everywhere. His tomb is covered with flowers and in another room, the tombs of his seven bodyguards are arranged in a row. Photos of each one surround their tombs, and atop each one are flowers and prayer beads. My eyes are drawn immediately to one of them. He looks much younger than the rest- only in his early or mid-twenties.
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- The young one is on the far right
According to the guide at the memorial, the bomb was the equivalent of about 1,700 kg of TNT. It exploded as his motorcade drove past on February 14, 2005, killing him instantly, along with a prominent minister, his seven bodyguards, and a number of joggers running nearby. What can 1,700kg of TNT do? The crater itself is telling. This was no grenade or rpg, it was an incredible force, a cataclysmic event that left no room for doubt, and no chance for its intended victims. Even now you can see the damage. The buildings around the blast site are wrecked. Their facades are completely gone and the stages are sagging and pockmarked as if still suffering from the shrapnel wounds. I asked the guard about the force of the bomb and he pointed at the picture of the crater, ‘you can see for yourself. I live 3 km from the site and when it went off my building shook. The glass of every window of Hamra street (1-2 miles away) exploded’.
I had asked others about the blast too. The American University of Beirut (AUB) is about a mile away from the site of the explosion. Everyone who was there when it happened say the same thing: ‘my building shook from side to side, windows exploded and glass was everywhere’. One Lebanese woman told me that in her class, they thought that it was a science experiment gone bad that had blown up the science lab. It was a science experiment of sorts, one that aimed to see how big a bomb you needed to ensure the death of a moving target.
The Lebanese are no strangers to sudden explosions, and their familiarity sometimes borders on the absurd. Another person who lives a little under a mile from the site said she heard the blast and ran home. Inside there was shattered glass and furniture strewn everywhere. Her father sat on a chair in the living room, surround by a heap of upended furniture and broken glass. He was talking on the telephone and laughing. ‘Dad’ she cried, ‘the windows are all shattered and the furniture is everywhere. There was a bomb!’. Her father looked at her, looked at the destruction around him, turned back to her and said ‘yes, I guess it is’. Then he went back to his phone conversation.
Just across the street from the Hariri memorial is Martyr’s Square, named for the nationalists who were hanged by the Ottoman’s during World War I. There is a large monument at the center of the Square depicting the bravery of the martyrs. The significance of the martyrdom statues is continually renewed, as they are martyred over and over again even in effigy. On close inspection you can see the figures riddled with bullet holes from the civil war and more recent conflicts, the arm of one is completely blown off.
Sadly there is no lack of martyrs in Lebanon, and often times a politician can do more in death than in life. The killing of Hariri resulted in the end of the Syrian occupation one month later, something the Lebanese couldn’t do in the 15 years since the end of the civil war. But it also hardened the opposition forces, hastened the return of Lebanese Forces leader and war criminal Samir Geagea from an indefinite imprisonment, and left the country once again without a working government.
Every event here seems to creates both a positive and a negative force, so varied and polarized is the landscape. The assassination of Bashir Gemayel in 1982 saw the Israelis lose the influence they had worked so hard for militarily, but it again left the Lebanese fighting each other to fill the power void. If Hizbullah had not taken West Beirut, which hastened external intervention and the convening of the Leaders in Doha, Lebanon today would still most likely not have a president. With so many forces at play there are very few right answer. There is perhaps only one sequence of events among millions that could lead to a lasting solution, a sequence determined not only by a government composed of a group of leaders who have fought each other for almost half a century, but also by states that have vied for control over Lebanon for much longer.
The pictures at the Hariri memorial remind me of the forces that exist everywhere in Lebanon, the invisible discord that pulls constantly at the Lebanese national fabric . It is an unpleasant reminder that the beautiful architecture and beaches and the crowded energy of the streets came at a price, and that something ugly is hiding beneath all this beauty.
It is no surprise that many of the older generation of Lebanese here, those old enough to have witnessed the civil war and the many political assassinations that followed, are not optimistic about peace treaties or Lebanese unity. As I looked at that picture of the gaping bomb crater just a few hundred meters from the sea, I could understand why they believe that the only certainty here in Lebanon is the certainty that the next war has already been conceived. Many believe that today and always, Lebanon sits at the brink of a volcano. When they stand at its edge and look down into its silent depths, they don’t feel relief- they hear only the quiet gurgling of the next eruption, the coming conflict kicking gently from within the womb.
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