Really serious

"UN alert: One-fourth of world's wheat at risk from new fungus

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in March that Iran had detected a new highly pathogenic strain of wheat stem rust called Ug99.

The FAO warned stated east of Iran — Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to be on high alert.

Scientists and international organizations focused on controlling wheat stem rust have said 90 percent of world wheat lines are susceptible to Ug99. The situation is particularly critical in light of the existing worldwide wheat shortage." (Thanks Steve)

This is REALLY serious. It could easily spell the eradication of traditional wheat farming in the countries of the Levant, where wheat originally came from. It could also mean further dependency on imported grain, but also on new breeds of wheat, GMO or otherwise, which would be protected with strong patents and therefore out of reach of small farmers. I have blogged about it earlier, latest here. For more, search the blog under wheat rust.

Stop Press

The Council of Ministers just declared the cancellation of the 2 decrees. Hopefully this will come as a first step towards a resolution of the stalemate.

Round up

Nothing new today on the security front: precarious calm. The Arab league envoys are here and they have spoken to Berri, Hariri, Jumblat Gemayel, Geagea and others. The government is still undecided whether or not to cancel or the infamous decrees. According to the media, the ministers are divided over the matter. That's the news till now.

Akkar

Akkar is the poorest district of Lebanon: a recent UNDP report found that 63% of the families are deprived and face serious poverty. Located in the extreme north of the country, Akkar is an agricultural district, with an estimated rural population of 80%, the highest in Lebanon.

The landscape of Akkar is breathtakingly beautiful and extremely diverse. There are 3 principal physiographic zones: the plain (al Sahl), the mid-elevation plateau, and the mountains (al Jurd), which reach up to the tallest peak of Lebanon, the Qornet al Sawda. Akkar is home to the Qammou`a fir forest, a unique environmental treasure, and to vast expanses of oak and pine forests. The plain is endowed with rich, fertile soils and generous water resources. On the coast, small scale fishing and vegetable production are a major source of income. Besides farming and fishing, enrollment in the Lebanese army is one of the few livelihood options open to the poor of Akkar.

Akkar was under quasi-feudal rule till recent times, and the current social and economic relations are still heavily impregnated with this history. As in all feudal societies, resources, especially land, was in the hand of a few. This has resulted in tremendous social and economic inequality: Akkar has, according to the UNDP, the highest level of inequality in Lebanon. The Lebanese state bears much responsibility for this situation: public investments in basic infrastructure and services such as health and education but also in agricultural development and small industries have been minimal.

Poverty and inequality lead to extremism and to political violence. Major investments are immediately required in the basic sectors, such as health and education, but also in the productive sectors, such as agriculture, in order to help the poor construct sustainable livelihoods. Akkar’s natural resources endowment combined with a significant rural society offer a tremendous potential that must be captured. In light of the dramatic increase in world food prices, this is the moment to do so.

Photos by Tanya Traboulsi

Small carrots and big sticks

As Egypt continues to guide Lebanon towards normalization, its own backyard is in flames. Mustapha Basiouni, writing in Al-Akhbar (in Arabic), offers his analysis of the current socio-economic situation in Egypt, after the increase in food prices of about 100% and the promised rise in salaries of 30%. Below is a summary of selected sections of the article.

The Egyptian regime has traditionally addressed the demands of the population with a combination of small carrots and big sticks. While repressing the demonstrators with live ammunition and leaving many dead, a rise of 30% was promised, but not yet enacted. The raise translates in a wage increase of about $15 for most employees. And while the raise is not expected to be effective until the end of the month, the 100% increase in food prices that was also determined by government came into effect at the beginning of the month, leaving the people one month short. The salary increase will cost the government 12 billions Egyptian Liras, but the increase in food prices will save them 15 billions Egyptian Liras. Thus, the government, largely made up of business men found a way to make money off the people. The new rallying cry of the workers unions is "Take back the raise and the price increase".

Hidden cost

War is an opportunity to make money, and not only for Haliburton. In Beirut, the price of local fruits and vegetables has increased by 100% as disaster capitalists of all sides and sizes have seized the opportunity to make a quick buck. A large number of people live hand to mouth in Lebanon, and they have not been able to work in the past week. This article (in Arabic by Rasha Abu Zeki in Al Akhbar tells many stories, like that of the old woman trying to cook a meal for 5 persons with only 5,000 Liras ($3) to spare. This is the real sadness of Lebanon.

Round up

The situation today is calmer than yesterday. I went around today, and saw that the army has taken position where I had previously seen armed men from the SSNP in Hamra and Rawcheh, although there were unarmed youth, sometimes in military fatigues, hanging about.

In the mountain, the situation is also calm, and the Lebanese Army has taken position in many locations previously occupied by Jumblat’s PSP. However, I believe that the situation remains very fragile, and that this is at best a wait-and-see period. There are 2 reasons for that:

1. The Lebanese Army appears to be disempowered. Whether this is a temporary tactic in order to preserve the unity of the last major state institution, or because it is really powerless is not important at this stage. What is relevant is that the army will probably vacate any position it occupies if it is asked to do so by the militias, because it is avoiding confrontation.
2. Waleed Jumblat represents the vast majority of the Druze. Figures of 90% are often quoted. The Druze are believed to constitute just 5% of the Lebanese population, but their strategic location in the mountain gives them the advantage of the terrain, and they are also thought to be well armed. They will not easily give in.
   

In the North, the situation has also quieted down, and peace agreements are being signed between the belligerents. But the issue of the SSNP militants executed in Halba might still have repercussions, although this will probably happen at a later stage.

The Council of Ministers was expected to meet today to cancel the two ill fated decrees, as it was requested to do so by the army. PM Sanioura seems to have backed down on this as he declared that he will wait for the Arab Foreign minister’s delegation sent to mediate before calling for a meeting of the council of ministers. This is understandable: why give the cancellation for free, let it be a negotiating chip in a general settlement.

Most roads in and out of Lebanon are closed or dangerous. The Damascus highway is closed in Majdel Anjar by masked men belonging or close to the Future movement, although there are rumors and press reports that they are closers to Salafis than to the Future. In any case, all the hotels of Damascus are fully booked, and travelers will have to spend the night in the airport if they find seats of a flight. The airport road is still closed. A new luxury yacht transport system has been initiated from the Dbayyeh and Jounieh ports by seafaring entrepreneurs. The yachts are fully equipped with satellite TVs and cell phones and will take you to Cyprus in 6-7 hours for $1,500 per adult. One way. They take 14 passengers. Do the math: that’s a quarter of a million US$ in a week’s work.

I’ll stick around.

Behind the Sport City

Najwa cleans the houses of the rich in Beirut. She lives with her son in the limbo spreading between the Stadium (Cite Sportive) and the Sabra Palestinian camp. Sociologists often refer to the Palestinian camps in Lebanon as a "space of exclusion": the laws governing life in the camps are different from those governing life in the rest of Lebanon. Najwa's neighborhood is an exclusion from the exclusion: no laws apply there.

Najwa's one-room house has been put together from various materials: a bit of cement, some wood, and a couple of glass windows. Electricity and running water are occasional guests. There is a small platform in front of the house where she keeps plants in old powdered milk containers. She sits there sometimes in the evenings, after a day's work and talks to her neighbors.

They have drifted in from all over the place. Some are Shi'a from the Bekaa, some from the South, some are Sunni from 'Aarsal, in the Bekaa, and others are settled nomads. There are also a few houses built from wood, plastic and corrugated iron, where Nawar (Roma or Dom) people live. They were all brought here by poverty and the need for shelter.

The area is known as "Behind the Sport City". For the past 3 years, its inhabitants have been living in tremendous tension. The sectarian parties of Lebanon have found fertile ground among the poor. There are many reasons for that: occasional payments and aid, the need for protection when the bulldozers will come to clear the illegal settlement, but also fear. An irrational perhaps, but very powerful fear from "the other", a state that was cultivated by the various sectarian media in the past 3 years.

"Behind the Sport City" sits in the middle of an explosive cauldron: The Future Movement's Tariq al Jadidah stronghold to the north, Jumblat's PSP-controlled Wata Mussaytbah to the west, the Palestinian camp to the east and the Rihab neighborhood dominated by Amal to the south. Around Najwa's house, everybody was armed, but the Future movement's militias were the most powerful. They became bolder after the events of the Beirut Arab University last year, when organized shooting took place between Amal and Future supporters and resulted in several dead and wounded.

On Wednesday, Najwa told me, the Future militia established armed presence around her and shot at the houses of opposition supporters. Many left. When the skirmishes started on Thursday afternoon, the neighborhood filled up with armed men. She looked out of her door and saw her neighbors sitting outside the house. Their 17 years old stood up and walked towards the street. He was shot and died there.

Najwa and her son left the house in a hurry and ran down the hill to seek shelter in Sabra. The Palestinian camp was boiling, filled with armed men. Hamas and Fateh supporters were eying each others menacingly. Hama's people support Hizbullah, and Fateh are sympathetic to Hariri and the Future movement. But when the night fell, they all joined rank as the camp began to tremble. As the sound of explosion and gunfire increased, a rumor had spread through the camp: Samir Geagea men, the Lebanese Forces, were coming back to massacre everyone, as in September 1982. Najwa tells me that as of this moment, the camp established serious guard rounds till the morning, and only relaxed when the news came that the Opposition had taken over the city.

When she went back to her house, Najwa found the neighbors in mourning. Being Shi'a, their grief and anger had been adopted by the Amal militiamen. These had gone around shooting and terrorizing some of the known Future supporters. The Nawar people, she told me, paid the price. But her neighbor's son was dead.

The poor, regardless of color, race or creed, always pay the price.

Perspective

I know we are all immersed in the Lebanese crisis, but lets get some perspective here: an estimated 100,000 have died in Burma in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis, and agencies estimate that the death toll could rise to 1.5 millions if clean water and sanitation are not provided. A 7.8 Richter earthquake hit south-east China, and the number of victims is still unknown. Elsewhere in the world, the food crisis is still unfolding, and the number of people who are hungry keeps increasing by about 5 millions a year. That's 10 persons becoming hungry every minute.

Now back home. West Beirut is fully paralyzed, there are road blocks everywhere (see previous post) and, in spite of what the Opposition has declared, there are still armed elements in the streets. The ones I saw were very young, and did not really look like the seasoned fighters who can control a city or even a street. They were hanging out at short distances from their headquarters.

In the mountains, the fighting that took place yesterday afternoon had almost ended by last night. The army is taking over some of the offices and some of the strongholds of Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party. No doubt that Jumblat did not want a war, although it is said that his militia, which used to be called the Popular Army- Al Jaysh al Shaabee, has kept some of its structure and much of its weapons. In 1991, Jumblat refused to surrender his weapons to the Lebanese Army, and preferred to give it to the Syrian Army, which may have allowed him to keep some. This was when Jumblat was still a close ally of Syria.

Negotiations between the Loyalists and the oppositions have of course already started. I say "started" and not "resumed" because we are in presence of a totally new balance of power, as if the last card game had been stopped, a new one has been started, and new hands distributed to the players. Now, before formal negotiations (euphemistically called "dialogue", al hiwar) take place the players are trying to consolidate their hand.

For the Loyalists, this means rallying as much external support as possible, from the Arab League to the Sixth Fleet. This is taking place concurrently with the establishment of physical control over regions that are traditional Loyalists strongholds: Tripoli where street battles are still going on, and Akkar, where several members of the SSNP were killed yesterday in what appeared to be an execution; Koura and the North, where the Lebanese forces moved to take control, which prompted some of the inhabitants to call for the Lebanese Army to take over.

For the opposition (and this refers mainly to Hizbullah) the most important goal is probably to preserve its ability to physically communicate with "its" regions: the South and the Bekaa. There are 3 main roads that are important for that purpose: 1) the Damascus road through Aley, 2) the Coastal road to the South through Shweifat, the lower Shuf and the carob district, and 3) the Mashghara-Jezzine road, which passes near the High Shuf, Niha and not very far from Barouk and Mukhtara, where Jumblat's palace is located. Yesterday's fighting took place around Shweifat, Aley and the Mashghara Jezzine road. While the Shweifat and Aley roads appears to have been secured by the Lebanese army, the situation in the high Shuf is still unclear.

Shut down

Below is the main text of an email sent by one of the UN agencies to staff in Lebanon. It indicates the streets that were closed yesterday and which are probably still closed today.


1- Mar Elias (blocked near Cornich il Mazra'a and Center Makassed)

2- Cornish il Mazra'a on 4 locations

3- Intersection of Verdun and Ramlit il Bayda and the Beginning of the
Cornish

4- Near Rawsheh on Cornish

5- Dinaweh and the road leading to Sodeco Square

6- Ein il Mrayesseh (may open later on)

7- High Bshara il Khoury (2 locations)

8- Airport Road as well as Msaitbeh, the tunel is completely closed, only
entrance is from those living on the bridge, roads leading to the bridge
are also closed

9- Sodeco square and the road leading to downtown Beirut, part of the
protective element of the Grand Serail

10- Ring Highway, both sides, 4 lines of blockade

11- The two streets on top of Hamra leading to LAU as part of the
protective element of the Hariri Residence

12- The Kroitem High Way, near britstol also as part of the protective
quadrant of Hariri residence

13- Tayyouneh Rondpoint completely closed

14- Shatila Rondpoint completely closed

Unsung heroes

Two days of mini-civil war were sufficient to drown the city in garbage: The Lebanese are a nation of consumers, and they produce large quantities of solid waste. During the 1975-1991 wars, Beirut's rubbish was all disposed of on the seafront and in the sea, near what used to be the Normandy hotel and the place came to be known as the Normandy dump. During times of heavy fighting, piles of garbage would be left to rot at street corners, and when the stench became too strong, these piles would be set on fire, smothering the city with the characteristic smell of burning rubbish and filling our lungs and houses with poisonous smoke.

After 1991, solid waste disposal became a priority goal of the new republic, but alas only in Beirut. The operation of solid waste removal and disposal was subcontracted to Sukleen, a private company whose owner is close to the top politicians of the country. The process for awarding the contracts as well as the costs of the contracts have all been severely criticized, and there were widespread accusation of corruption. The location of the solid waste disposal dump, in the Naameh area south of Beirut, as well as its design and its capacity have also come under fire. Yet, and while the rest of Lebanon's cities and villages are still awash with their own rubbish (because the state is not interested in anything aside from Beirut), the city (at least the central part of it) has become, in the past few years, cleaner than I have ever known it.

The system is simple and human intensive: People throw their garbage in large rectangular bins situated at street corners and the Sukleen trucks come and collect it on a very regular basis. But people are often careless, and throw their rubbish around the bins. Many do not close the bags properly. As a result, there is often as much garbage inside the bin as there is outside.

But the Beirutis have found another function for these bins: they use them to block roads whenever there are strikes or demonstrations. Their contents spill out, and the roads are closed to the collectors. Garbage accumulates again on street corners, and at these times, I can start smelling the burn again. This is what Beirut looked like yesterday.


West Beirut is still unsure of what to make of the latest political developments. Although the army is said to have taken over the whole city, people are cautiously evaluating the situation behind the safety of their TV sets. There are occasional sounds of gunshots, but we are told it is in mourning as people bury their dead. The streets are empty, but they are clean. Another, silent army has deployed, clad in bright green: the Sukleen cleaners. Many come from India, Bengladesh, or Sri lanka, and they are here, in the middle of this conflict, to clean the Beiruti's mess. Like an army, they follow orders. Fear or disobedience means the loss of a much needed wage. I spoke in a combination of broken Arabic and English with Asam this morning, as he and his 2 colleagues were cleaning an empty street in Hamra. The 3 of them are from Madras, India. Two of them have been here 2 and a half year and one just 6 months. They are given $200 a month (the minimum wage in Lebanon), and health insurance, and they are all housed together (I couldn't tell how many to a room) in common sleeping quarters. He did not seem to be aware that the government has decreed a 40% increase in the minimum wage.

To those unsung heroes.

Time zones

This is what I have to say about the latest series of political speeches in Lebanon: Nasrallah speaks as if there is no future, but Jumblat, Hariri and Sanioura speak as if there is no past. For Nasrallah, the past performance and actions of the Loyalists is the only reference point. The past (?) collusion of some of them with Israel, their current alliance with the US and the intersection of some of their positions with the Israeli agenda, as well as the incapability of the Lebanese state to liberate the South and to protect the resistance appear to be the only unit of measure. On the other hand, the trio JHS has been delivering speeches and addresses as if the past did not exist, as if the resistance was not under threat of physical elimination by the Loyalists very allies, as if members of the Loyalists had not destroyed Beirut many times and invited and supported the Israelis when they invaded it, as if there had not been a number of youth killed by the thugs of the Future movement in Tarik al Jadideh and Ard Jalloul, as if there was no Future movement militia in Beirut brought from the North (seen by many on TV and in the streets before the fighting) or PSP (Jumblat) militia (which has murdered Druze political opponents in the mountains), and as if the State was all powerful, belonged to all its citizen, and capable of extending its authority onto the 4 corners of the country and to fend off Israeli agendas. When you start so far away from each others, the next stop is Xanadu, as my friend Anna would say. The first thing these guys should do is get into the same time zone. This is if they want to find a way out.

PM Sanioura gave a speech today from the grand serail. Besides the attacks and refutations of Nasrallah's rhetoric, he made the following offer: The fate of the contentious decrees (which, he said, have not come into effect) is to be decided by the Army; all armed presence is to be removed from the streets; the sit in and the strike are to be lifted and the airport re-opened, a new president is elected (I assume he meant army general Sleiman, but he didn't say that) following which a national unity government is created in which neither the parliamentary majority nor the opposition have veto power, and the new government will prepare for elections on the basis of the qada (district), with minor "demographic" (read sectarian) adjustment. He added that this offer can form a basis on which one can build to get to a compromise. I think so too.

Moments later, the army responded by taking positive steps and reinstating the airport chief of security. The Opposition accepted to remove all armed presence, but promised to keep the "civil disobedience" going. En passant, it reminded Sanioura that the decrees are as effective as can be, as they have been sent to the UN for support in implementation.

In West Beirut, and for a reason I cannot fathom, sand barricades have been erected, blocking traffic in almost all the main streets.

Walk through the city

I took a walk through West Beirut this morning to check on my parents who live in Moussaytbah (see the map below, my itinerary in yellow). On Sadat, near Smith's, and at the cross road with Hamra, there were a few damaged shop windows, but almost all shops were open. I encountered the first serious damage in the street perpendicular to Hamra, one that leads at one end to the Hariri residence-cum-bunker and at the other to the Ministry of Economy and Trade, where there was heavy Future Movement presence. There are signs that a battle took place in this street, and one of the shops and the floor above it have been hit with a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG). As I stood there, an army unit made up of several armored vehicles and a few 4x4 took position on Makdessi Street (army car in the picture, at the far end of the street). A bit further down Hamra, an unlucky shop owner was clearing his clothes shop that had been severely hit. The circulation in Hamra was not what I'd call "normal" for a Saturday morning, but it was pretty busy, and every other street walker was a foreign reporter, complete with multipocket vest and satellite dish-crowned van.

The rest of Hamra was normal bar the mounds of rubbish that had accumulated over the past 3 days. This city won't last one week if Sukleen stops collecting the rubbish. Luckily, the ubiquitous green trucks are back in action.

I walked up towards Zarif from the intersection near the old Al-Nahar building. I passed Zarif, and then got to Aisha Bakkar. This is an old, middle class, traditionally Sunni neighborhood, one of the oldest in the city. Most shops were open and trading. There were some signs of fighting, mostly bullet riddled cars. Further down, in Zaydaniyyed is where I started to see more damage: a couple of burnt cars, and a lot of bullet holes in walls and shop windows. At the intersection with Mar Elias street, a couple of unarmed men clad in Amal flags superman-style were closing the road with the (multi-purpose) rubbish disposal containers. I asked one of them why he was closing the road and he said, slightly startled, that there were skirmishes in Zarif (!).

I came back through Moussaytbah. The road was blocked near the house of the late Saeb Salam (old prime minister) and I took the street that runs from Sodeco-Bechara el Khoury, all the way to Mar Elias through the Malla area back to Zarif. This is where the fiercest battles took place: rubble, burnt cars, and broken glass all the way. I have marked it in thicker yellow on the map. In Malla, there was a Future Movement office: it has been burnt.

I had gone through all these areas without encountering one single person carrying visible weapons, although I did see a number of young and less young men grouped at street corners not looking particularity cool. By the time I got back to Zarif, there were two young armed men under a building where my friend lives. The same building has a Future TV relay antenna on the roof, and the top floor apartment belongs to the TV. My friend, who works for the TV told me that a group of armed men have taken over the apartment, that they caused damage to the installation, and that they questioned the 2 technical staff. They placed armed guards on the street, barely 200m from a Lebanese army field post. My friend tells me they are Hizbullah people. Another dark shameful spot on the Resistance's record. No one, NO ONE, has the right to shut down the media, and Hizbullah (or whoever, it is still Hizbullah's responsibility) is not allowed to occupy apartments, and certainly NOT in residential buildings.

Back in Hamra, cafes had opened and people were chilling out on the trottoir a couple of hundred meters away from the besieged Hariri guards in the Koreitem palace. I continued towards Rawcheh, and this is where I saw more armed men: SSNP militia. A group of 5 or 6 young men, with new guns and fatigues and clips, relaxing at a street corner, a few hundred meters away from their main office. Rawcheh looked desolate, dirty and damaged.

When I got home, I heard the bad news: Three men from Hizbullah had been kidnapped in Aley by Jumblat's goons and 2 of them had been executed. An armed man had shot at a group of mourners in the martyr's cemetery near Dahiyeh and killed 2. Members of the SSNP had been kidnapped in the North allegedly by Lebanese forces. By that time the streets where empty again

Time machine

The SSNP (Syrian Social National Party) has taken its flags out of the cupboards, dusted off the naphtalene, and hung them at 50 meters interval from street lights and balconies in Ras Beirut. With this simple step, it has created a time machine: we are back in 1978.

The Future movement supporters in Hamra have removed the Hariri pictures from streets and windows. They are timidly starting to come out of hiding and to hang out on street corners. Some are bolder and louder than others: one can see they are ready to shift their allegiance to the new street rulers. In the corner shop, there was a long queue and little fresh foods. We bought a few cans and as we were leaving, a bread delivery van stopped, and we also purchased fresh bread. There were young students wearing keffiehs walking around the AUB area. Then a black SUV with dark windows stopped and armed men with talkie-walkies came out in that very-important-fashion men develop when they are given a machine gun. They looked around and everybody instinctively made way. They bought bread and cigarettes and left. They were dressed in Internal Security Forces uniforms, but their car's number plate was civilian.

I don't like armed men (or women) in general, not in city streets, and certainly not when normal people are coming out of two days of armed battles. These ones looked like para-security forces, which makes me like them even less. I hope we won't be seeing more of this type in the "new era". But somehow, I don't think so. This is the price Hizbullah (and Hasan Nasrallah in particular) might have to pay for the take over of West Beirut. Even if they give the control of the city back to the army, the latter has been weakened because it has watched all the events take place without intervening. I do not particularly like armies, and a lot of criticism can be poured on the Lebanese army, not least because of its actions against Palestinian civilians in Nahr el Bared, but it is an institution that can maintain some form of order and rule of law. And when you weaken it you leave void that has to be filled. Unless Hizbullah wants to step in (and I don't think it does), it will have to deal with the repercussions of having strengthened goons and parasites.

There are signs that things might slip: One of the old Future TV's building , the one adjoining the Saudi embassy in Rawcheh, was set on fire today, allegedly by SSNP militants. It may be true that the building served as a barrack for Future Movement thugs. It is also true that over the past 3 years there has been tremendous tensions between the thugs in there and those at the SSNP central office, which is around the corner. But setting a building on fire, and especially a media-related one, was a pointless act of vandalism which reflects very badly on the opposition and its leadership. The same can be said for silencing Future TV by sabotaging its installations. There were also motorcades going around the streets today shooting in the air for no other purpose than showing off and celebrating the take over. This is not what Hizbullah did in the South when it kicked the Israelis out. In Beirut, the stakes are even higher.

The evening is quiet. Uneasy quiet.

Grief

There are no clean wars and no intelligent deaths, but civil strife certainly takes the prize for dirtiest and dumbest. Anything -anything- is better than civil strife.

I just came back from the funeral wake of my neighbor's son. He was 16 and he and his friend were shot this morning in my street. His family owns a bakery and a cafe in my neighborhood. They are also very involved in the local mosque. He and a bunch of other kids always hang out between the bakery and the cafe. They are Hariri supporters by default, like many other Beirut Sunnis. At around 10:30, when the fighting intensity was beginning to decrease, they went out to have a look. The sniper caught them both.

Fools plus

In the same ill fated meeting in which it took the decision to outlaw Hizbullah's communication network, the council of minister also decided to stop the Export Plus program for one year "to save money". The program is one of the few agricultural support programs, and it has come under criticism for targeting exporters and middle men by subsidizing cost of freight. The government had decided to amend it and continue supporting it. Not anymore, apparently.

Kids in battles

My children and their cousin hiding after coming under fire in our house this morning.

Now what?

We found another bullet in our house, in my daughter's room, right over her bed. But the fighting has subsided in Ras Beirut, although we still hear explosions and gunfire. The TV news reports say that the whole of West Beirut has fallen to the Opposition. I say Opposition, not Amal and Hizbullah because apparently, Hamra and the rest of Ras Beirut are in the hands of the SNP (Syrian Nationalist Party, Qawmiyyeh). SNP is a secular party with members from all sects, and, during the 1975-1991 war it was in control of Hamra and Ras Beirut. But I am not 100% sure about this, and I'll confirm later. There are also news that the large contingents of fighters that had joined the ranks of the Future Movement from Akkar and the rest of the North have surrendered. The army is taking control of many "sensitive" areas, but I think this does not mean much as the army is avoiding engaging in confrontation and is only playing the role of the neutral moderator. But then again, this might be what is needed at this stage: a "moderating" army in Beirut.

Now what?

It is too early to say anything, but there is no doubt that, as Nasrallah made it clear yesterday, this is a totally new epoch. I assume Berri will be in charge of negotiations with the loyalists. Whether a compromise that will safeguard "Lebanon" is still possible at this stage is difficult to predict. The Lebanese politicians have a history of wiping the slate clean and starting again as if nothing had happened, with a quick prayer for the unlucky dead. But these are new times, and the situation in Iraq and Palestine is worse than ever, and the Arab countries are themselves divided and aligned with opposite sides. The US has now much more at stake in the region. And there are new players: Iran, Al Qaeda who thrive on instability in Lebanon, and who possess a loaded agenda. On the more local level, what will be the response of the local population to this take over especially that for the past 3 years the Lebanese have been relentlessly hammered with a sectarian discourse? Will they consider this to be an "occupation" and respond to it as in Iraq?

I know I may be sounding over dramatic. Blame it on lack of sleep and being shot at. But I cant help thinking that all bets are off.

Baptism of fire

I live in Ras Beirut, between Hamra and Manara. We woke up this morning to the sound of machine gun shooting. I looked from the window and there was a few young armed civilians running in all directions. The kids were startled and we did what everybody does at times like these: seek the news. I sat at my computer and logged into the usual websites, then left the laptop to go to the tv, in the same room. The kids came in the room. Suddenly there was a small explosion, like a firecracker, with a cloud of dust and smoke. My 10 years old was the nearest to the source and we all looked towards him. There was a little hole in the glass door of the balcony, and another one in the wall a meter or so away from him. A bullet had come through the balcony, passed between the children and removed a small chunk of the wall, a meter or so away from my kid. We are now all huddled in a small room with no windows, waiting for the storm to pass. As I write, the fighting and shooting is still going on.

My kid had his baptism of fire at 10.

Return of the Dragon

It has been smoldering for 150, 50, 30, or 17 years, depending on who you read. This week, the sleeping dragon woke up, infuriated by 3 years of relentless drumming. The civil war is upon us once again. As I write, there are sounds of explosions and automatic weapons fire in my neighborhood. There is fighting in most of West Beirut: Ras el Nabeh, Mazraa, Barbour, but also Rawsheh, Sakiet al Janzir and Ayn el Tineh, near the official residence of the speaker of the parliament and the head of the Amal movement, Nabih Berri.

A quick round up of the latest events: out of the blue, and just when we thought they were going to come to some sort of agreement, the belligerents increased the pressure. The Siniora government took a decision that will go into the annals of the nation, famously or infamously, depending on who wins the round and gets to write history. It declared illegal the communication network of the Resistance (led and dominated by Hizbullah) and called for the army and the internal security to implement the decree. It also sought support from the UN security council on this issue.

Communication is the backbone of war and without it both resistance and resistants are exposed. Hizbullah's command and control is impressive, and this is what allowed it to fend off the Israeli attacks in July and August 2006. It was specifically mentioned in the Winograd report as the Resistance's main strength, and the report also called for its destruction. For Hizbullah, giving up the communications network is tantamount to disarming. This, of course it will not do, especially that the party is listed as a terrorist organization in the US, and that there is a death warrant on its leadership. They are convinced that the Israelis will hunt them down one by one, and will eliminate them, as they have done with many before them, latest being Imad Mughniyyieh.

This governmental decision came on the morning of the Worker's Union strike to protest the high costs of living. The Union is close to the Opposition led by Hizbullah, which used the opportunity to make a show of strength in Beirut. The airport road was closed, and tens of neighborhood thugs, mostly belonging to the Amal movement, an allied Shi'a party were unleashed . They went on a rampage called "civil demonstration". The thugs on the other side, mostly from the Sunni Future movement, met them in the streets, and stone throwing quickly became AK47 rapid fire. After a while both sides upgraded to rocked propelled grenades. That was last night.

Today was quiet, everybody was waiting. Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's leader maximo had promised a press conference at 4 pm. What he said, we expected to hear: that this had been the last straw, that targeting the communication network is the same thing as targeting the Resistance's weapons, that those who dare to touch the weapons will be treated as traitors, and we all know the fate of traitors. He also gave an ultimatum to the government: either withdraw its decrees or face the consequences. Another important thing he said is that he does not fear the Shi`a-Sunni strife anymore, and called on the loyalists to stop using this issue to blackmail Hizbullah. Yet, he made Waleed Jumblat, the Druze leader, the target of his attacks and did not mention either Saad Hariri or Saudi Arabia. I am sure the speech will be dissected and deconstructed ad infinitum tomorrow, so I'll leave it at that.

Saad Hariri, the head of the Future movement, appeared on TV a few minutes ago and read from a prepared statement. He derided Hassan N. a little bit and defended the government's decisions. His discourse was very "islamist" and "arabist" and contained a lot of one-upmanship, especially on Israel and Palestine. He attributed the position of Hizbullah towards the decrees to a "misunderstanding", but whoever wrote the speech for him could not resist the urge of the insulting bon mot and said also "lack of understanding", in other words stupidity. This won't go down very well.

Hariri gave a 3-steps plan to diffuse the tension and stop the hostilities: first, the government's decrees will be considered as "misunderstood" and given to the army to deal with. If the army decides not to follow up on them, then this decision would be accepted. He then asked for a complete withdrawal of all armed elements, the removal of the barricades and the opening of the airport. And thirdly, he asked for the immediate election of Army General Michel Sleiman as the new president. Sleiman will then lead the new rounds of dialog between the different parties, in order to find a compromise over the future of Lebanon.

Since then, there has been more fighting, and there were also several very loud explosions. It doesn't look like Hariri's offer will be readily accepted.