Jan23-2007
Opposition Enforces Strike with Burning Tires
Retrieved from Naharnet on January 23, 2007
Retrieved from Annaharonline on January 24, 2007
Picture taken by Mahmoud Tawil
Lebanon woke up Tuesday to spiraling riots by the Hizbullah-led opposition in an effort to enforce
a general strike aimed at toppling Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's majority government.
Thick black smoke billowed from blazing rubber tires in Beirut, east and south Lebanon as members
of the opposition tried to block traffic at key road intersections.
Despite that, children penetrated the smoke screens covering their faces with masks and heading
to schools in Beirut as well as cities and towns of east and south Lebanon.
Thousands of motorists waited in cars in determination to make it to work as army troops reopened
the main road linking the eastern Jizzine district with the provincial capital of Sidon.
A bunch of youngsters wearing black headbands ran away as the troops picked the blazing tires off
the road. Motorists blew horns in jubilation and kids were seen clapping and chanting as their bus
headed to school.
At least three people were injured in the northern town of Byblos (Jbeil) when they tried to stop
members of the opposition Free Patriotic Movement from blocking the road by setting up fire to rubber
tires.
On the coastal highway north of Beirut at the Christian town of Jal el-Dib, opposition activists mobbed
a fire engine and forced it to retreat. On the mountain road at Antelias, the very few motorists
maneuvered their way around burning tires to pass through. One got out of his car and kicked away
a burning tire to clear a path.
In the Beirut commercial district of Mar Elias, opposition activists used burning tires to block a column
of army armored personnel carriers from deploying in the area.
The strike was called by Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other opposition leaders.
But Saniora and his pro-government supporters urged all Lebanese to ignore the call.
The turnout Tuesday has become a test of strength between the government and Hizbullah-led
opposition. Although both leaders sought to avoid violence, tension in the streets between their
supporters was already high even before dawn.
The strike, which was backed by Lebanon's labor union, has deepened divisions among Lebanese.
But banking associations and business leaders have urged employees to report to work.
The planned strike came two days before the opening in Paris Thursday of an international donors'
conference for Lebanon.
The opposition has also said the grants and loans -- which local analysts set at around $5 billion -- would
only increase the national debt and further weaken the economy. The summer war between Hizbullah
and Israel deepened Lebanon's economic woes.(Naharnet-AP)
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PM
One day was more than enough
Opposition calls off strike but warns of 'far worse' to come if government refuses to give in
By Rym Ghazal
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
BEIRUT: The Hizbullah-led opposition's general strike against the government on Tuesday led
to a nationwide protest that paralyzed the country and left its capital engulfed in barricades of blazing
tires and bloodied by clashes that left at least three dead and over 130 wounded.
Late Tuesday, the opposition announced that it would lift its strike. Prior to the announcement, however,
the man whom the crippling protest was aimed at unseating - Prime Minister Fouad Siniora - issued
a brief, firm address to the nation in which he stood his ground and announced he would remain
in office, even as the country appeared to be drawing to the verge of another civil war.
"We are at a dangerous crossroads: Either we are heading to a civil war, or heading to dialogue," Siniora
said in a televised address from inside the Grand Serail, where he has been residing since the beginning
on December 1 of a sit-in in the heart of the capital aimed at deposing his government.
The peaceful anti-government campaign had been escalating slowly over the past two months, until
on Tuesday it suddenly surged and turned violent.
As The Daily Star went to press, unverified reports had emerged that at least seven had perished
in street clashes.
"We will stand together against intimidation. We will stand together against strife," Siniora said, calling
on the opposition to "get off the streets" and return to dialogue.
Fear gripped the country as residents of the capital watched columns of smoke rising in all directions,
fed by the blazing tires, cars and garbage that opposition protesters used to block all main routes
into Beirut.
It was the second time in less than six months that Lebanon was besieged, with its highways, main
roads, ports and airport completely blocked off - the predicament reminiscent of the summer 2006 war
with Israel.
Siniora was forced to cancel a flight to Paris, where he was to join the Paris III international donor
conference for Lebanon on Thursday.
The premier called for an immediate extraordinary session of Parliament to defuse the crisis, pleading
for "our brothers in the opposition" to join in.
In its announcement that the strike would end, the opposition said that the day's chaos had been
a "warning."
"This was a warning to the government," said Hizbullah MP Amin Cherri, reading a joint opposition
statement.
"The government has to respond to our demands, and if it doesn't, then it should expect even greater
escalation, far worse than today's," Cherri told The Daily Star.
Lebanese troops and police remained on high alert throughout the day, working to keep rival groups
apart.
Security forces made sporadic efforts to open roads but made little headway because of the crowds
of protesters.
Violent clashes erupted across the country, with two areas witnessing the return of old "fault lines" from
the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.
The Shiite supporters of Hizbullah and Amal clashed with the Future Movement's Sunni supporters in the
predominantly Sunni area of Corniche al-Mazraa. Stone-throwing and fistfights injured dozens of people
and wreaked damage on cars and private property.
At the same time, supporters of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun clashed with followers
of Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in several predominantly Christian areas, in fights recalling
the leaders' bitter rivalry in the late 1980s.
Lebanese officials were quoted as warning that the Aoun-Geagea struggle may turn into "a war
of elimination."
Many shops, schools and businesses were closed in Beirut, either because of business owners supporting
the strike, or because employees could not get to work past fiery barricades.
Many commuters were stranded, and an eerie silence hung heavily over most of the capital's commercial
districts.
"What is happening is a revolution and a coup d'etat," Geagea told local media.
"This is direct terrorism to paralyze the country," he said, going on to criticize the national security
apparatus for failing to "guarantee safe and open passage for the Lebanese."
After Defense Minister Elias Murr instructed the army to "avoid use of force," the troops remained
on alert, with shots fired in the air and tear gas released whenever riots erupted.
"Our campaign will escalate day by day," former Minister Suleiman Franjieh, an opposition leader, told Al
-Manar television earlier on Tuesday. "As long as they won't listen to us, we will not let them rest."
Some residents caught in the middle of the clashes between the two opposed Christian parties called
on their religious leader, Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, for help and for an end to clashes
before the situation deteriorated into a violent intra-Christian war.
Sfeir met Tuesday with the US ambassador to Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, but no statement was made
to the media following the meeting.
The US State Department released a statement blaming the opposition for the violence and saying it was
"deeply concerned" about Lebanese factions "allied with Syria" that "are trying to use violence, threats
and intimidation to impose their political will on Lebanon."
"Especially given the dangers of sectarian clashes, the United States calls on all parties to use peaceful
and constitutional means to debate the political issues before them, and to exercise restraint," said
the statement.
Germany, which holds the rotating EU presidency, also called on both sides in Lebanon to halt violence
that has killed three people and left scores of others injured, saying Tuesday that the only way to resolve
the ongoing dispute there was through dialogue.
The German government said the European Union continues to strive for a peaceful future in Lebanon
and that it would underline the point during Thursday's donor conference in Paris. - With agencies
__________________________________________________________________________
Lebanon's future is more important than its politicians' pride
Thursday, January 25, 2007 (Retrieved from Daily Star newspaper)
Editorial
Lebanon's people have been shown a preview of one possible future for their country, and experience
tells them to fear it. Lebanon's political leaders have seen the same thing and might be expected to share
the trepidation, if only the spectacle had not been their production from start to finish. The opposition
had vowed that Tuesday's general strike would be "peaceful," and the government had pledged to honor
their right to demonstrate, but solemn promises and pure intentions mean nothing when angry crowds
meet in the street. Anyone who needs more evidence of this unfortunate but unmistakable reality
is in a dangerous state of denial.
Much has been made of the fact that both the government and the opposition have uttered such
maximalist boasts that neither can now compromise without appearing to have lost "face." The real
problem is that neither side seems to understand that the stakes are incalculably greater than those
associated with the pride of a particular party or sect. This is why they continue to practice "politics
as usual" in the dysfunctional and self-destructive sense that the term has come to represent in Lebanon.
The immediate aftermath of Tuesday's national horror show has produced the usual blame game, itself
a tiresome and inflammatory product of the gossip contest that passes as political discourse in Lebanon.
The refusal to engage in factual debate has become so consistent, though, that intelligent people
are entitled to wonder whether the entire country is being dragged through a long and hazardous
gauntlet by a few individuals who either have very little of value to say or are too ashamed to say
it publicly.
The government and its supporters are certainly guilty of this befuddling reluctance to engage intelligibly
with their rivals, but at least their case is understandable: As the defenders of a largely indefensible
status quo, it is only natural that they would prefer not to define that which they mean to preserve,
relying instead on emotional appeals to buzzwords like "democracy" and "sovereignty."
The empty speechifying of the opposition and its supporters is more difficult to comprehend. They say
they are determined to establish a new order in Lebanese political life and insist that it will be more
equitable than that which prevails today. That is a perfectly viable notion. They steadfastly refuse
to explain in detail, however, what their vision involves - meaning that outwardly, their entire political
program consists essentially of beseeching the electorate to "trust us."
Those who demand change are frequently justified in doing so, especially in a backward country like
Lebanon. But being right is not enough: For one's policy proposals to legitimately triumph in a pluralistic
society, the merits of those proposals must be freely and openly discussed - and that cannot happen
unless considerable detail is released for debate. Anything short of this is a recipe for inchoate arguments
of the sort that lead to senseless brawls (or worse) among men (and boys) too caught up in the tribal
loyalties of the day to even guess at the substance - let alone the consequences - of that for which they
spill the blood of their neighbors.