Beirut has been my home for ten breathtaking if at times terrifying years. Lebanon has been my story for even longer than that – twenty five years in all. It is where I first saw a dead body, that of an unknown man who had been shot during the Civil War in the early 1980s.
Lebanon is where I too was eventually shot and wounded, caught in a burst of fifty caliber heavy machine-gun fire in the village of Damour, south of Beirut in 1983. Lebanon is where my friend the former British Anglican church envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped. It is a country where I have faced at least a dozen life threatening experiences so dangerous that I am fortunate to be alive. Lebanon was once known as the terror capital of the world and Beirut was a divided city, Muslims on one side, Christians on the other. I was sure the country would never be able to recover fully from the vicious self inflicted wounds and re-build, let alone turn into a country I could one day call home.
So when CNN agreed to re-open the Beirut Bureau back in 1997 some six years after the civil war ended I was thrilled. I unpacked my bags in what was still called Muslim West Beirut but the capital as a whole was beginning to rise from the proverbial ashes.
I began to both live and work alongside the Lebanese – the Sunni Muslims, the Shia Muslims, the Druze, as well as the Christians most days of my life. The old green demarcation line that divided Muslim West Beirut from the Christian East came down. With snipers gone long disused roads were soon re-opened. Underpasses that once hid heavy weaponry were eventually cleared and traffic flowed through them. It seemed to me that the ghosts of the past were being laid to rest.
The real estate market boomed, and tourists rediscovered Lebanon under the unwavering stewardship of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri who was a Sunni Muslim. Lebanon enjoyed a surge of self confidence. It was true rival political leaders often bickered and that tension sometimes blew up into a serious verbal war. But at that time Syria was in a position to rule over Lebanon’s politics with an iron-grip and a casting vote that decided who was in or out of the top political posts.
Even under that strange and unyielding set-up a newly constructed Downtown Beirut sparkled with gleaming boutiques selling high-end ladies fashion like Chanel, Dior and Versace. Expensive restaurants rubbed shoulders with the hubbly bubbly crowd drawing clouds of apple-scented smoke from banks of water pipes at places like Grand Café. The well-ordered streets were filled with cool cafes, tourists flooded back and once bombed-out central Beirut became a sought after destination for both the well well-heeled and the adventurous.
Prime Minister Hariri often walked around the area late at night like a proud father watching the growth of a new-born child. The new commercial center was the jewel in his re-construction crown and it was where he sipped his last espresso coffee on Valentine’s Day two years ago minutes before his armored motorcade was blown up in a massive bomb attack. Many blamed Syria for having at least a hand in the crime but nothing has been proved beyond reasonable doubt in any court of law.
After Hariri’s death Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and pro-Syrian Lebanese politicians were swept away by the so-called Cedar Revolution. Following that a string of unsolved murders of anti-Syrian politicians and journalists plagued the nation. I saw at first hand how many of them were killed or maimed, the victims of bombs planted under their cars or cold-blooded killing by silenced pistols in broad daylight. Smiling faces of the dead stared out at me from giant billboards along main roads. I knew many of them personally in the same way that I have also got to know most of Lebanon’s leaders of political groups and religious sects over the years.
But now for the first time since the end of Lebanon’s civil war some sixteen years ago the specter of a renewed conflict has reared an ugly head. The area around my sixth floor office in Riyadh El Solh Square in Downtown Beirut has turned into a front line of sorts. Heavily armed Lebanese Army troops with armored personnel carriers are entrenched in the streets below. It is hard to imagine that just a few months ago Lamborghinis, Porsche’s and Ferraris of the Middle East’s rich and famous queued up for valet parking to enter Buddha Bar. There is so much razor wire that the once vibrant commercial center of the capital resembles a prisoner of war camp. Most commercial life is being strangled to death as part of a political duel that has already drawn blood.
On one side stands the Western-backed government of Fouad Siniora who eventually filled the huge political vacuum after his friend and mentor, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was murdered.
On the other side of the great divide outside Siniora’s office which is close by our bureau sits a well-organized opposition group that has occupied Downtown Beirut since last December using hundreds of tents. It is led by Hezbollah and is predominantly Muslim Shia in nature but also has the support of Christians and some Druze as well.As I move around the country I often get asked the same question by almost everyone I bump into. ‘Hello Mr Brent. How is the situation?’ Of course most people already know my likely answer and nod before I have even spoken a word. The situation, I say, is ‘bad’.
Everyone knew the situation was ‘bad’ last summer when for 34 days Israel and Hezbollah waged a merciless war against each another. The underground car park of my sea-front apartment block overlooking Beirut’s famed Corniche promenade turned into a refugee shelter for terrified women and children.
‘It smells like garlic’ says Mike Khalil the owner of a barber shop, summing up his post-war analysis of the situation. Mike has run his hugely popular business at the end of Bliss Street close to the sea for around thirty years. He has been the eyes and ears of this area all that time. ‘When I say garlic I mean it’s a smell that won’t go away easily and it makes me worried.’ explains Mike.
The trouble with Mike’s life and that of every one living is Lebanon is that the country is once again on a collision course with itself. ‘I was shocked when I heard stories about Shia customers switching to Shia-run businesses and Sunnis doing the same. It seemed that it was the start of something we don’t want.’ he adds,
Mike’s sensitive finger was recently on the Lebanese pulse when he registered an irregular heartbeat long before deadly sectarian clashes broke out in and around the capital in January, triggered by the dangerous political deadlock that exists today.
Like the opposition Prime Minister Siniora’s Government is also backed by Christians, his supporters claim a majority of them, and most of the Druze community. The battle for power is being fought in a labyrinth of complex alliances with ruthless zeal over a key issue; the creation of an International Court to try suspects in the Hariri bombing.
Pro-Government politicians claim the opposition is trying to de-rail the legal process to protect Hezbollah’s ally Syria. While Siniora’s political foes have accused his Government ministers of hogging power and trying to railroad the country into a politically motivated Hariri trial that could harm Lebanon.
Last month hundreds of thousands of Lebanese poured onto the street of Downtown Beirut to commemorate the day Rafik Hariri was killed. Tension was so high between the rival camps around Martyrs Square, where Hariri is buried, that the Army deployed in such force that it worried many who watched. ‘We all want the truth, nothing but the truth and we will never let these criminals get away from their crime,’ said Lama Ghalayini whose father Abdul Hamid was one of twenty two others who perished when the Hariri bomb went off.
Although Hariri’s name towered over the tragedy often forgotten victims of the Valentine’s Day attack understand that if the truth behind Hariri’s assassination is eventually revealed it will close their files too. And as I disc
overed reporting for this month’s edition of Inside the Middle East ease some of their pain.
But for decades it has been all too easy to get away with murder in Lebanon and many people doubt that with or without an International Court the long history of killing will stop.
In the meantime all of us who live in Lebanon are having a hard time trying to predict how ‘bad’ it might get this year. What backlash could there be if either the United States or Israel struck Iran over the nuclear issue? What if Hezbollah and Israel engaged in another war? And what if suspected al-Qaeda elements in Lebanon launched terror attacks? Is Lebanon a place to live and prosper? People are no longer sure.
Tune in to CNN to watch this month’s Inside The Middle East on Thursday March 8 at 19:30 GMT.
