Western
Powers Accuse Iran
And Syria Of Masterminding
Lebanese General Strike
By Chris Marsden
26 January 2007
World
Socialist Web
Lebanese
opposition parties and the trade unions called a halt on Wenesday to
a general strike that had resulted in violent clashes with supporters
of the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
Three people were killed
and 133 wounded in fighting in Lebanon on Tuesday, January 23, as hundreds
of thousands of demonstrators answered a call by trade unions backed
by Hezbollah and Amal, both Shia parties, and the Christian Free Patriotic
Movement (FPM).
The media focused attention
on sectarian aspects of the conflict—with crowds of mainly Shia
oppositionists facing off against supporters of Siniora’s government,
which is composed of Sunni, Druze and Christian parties. Sharp tensions
were apparent in the armed clashes, fistfights and stone-throwing that
took place. But sole blame for this was routinely placed on Hezbollah,
which was accused of acting as a proxy of Iran and Syria against a supposedly
democratic government. Siniora told Japan’s Kyodo News that Lebanon
has “been paying the price of imposed decisions coming from outside
countries, like Iran and Syria.”
“The decisions made
by the opposition in Lebanon are decisions coming from outside, like
Iran and Syria,” he reiterated.
“What is happening
is a revolution and a coup attempt,” Christian leader and former
warlord Samir Geagea told Al Jazeera.
US State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack made similar claims, declaring that “Lebanese factions
allied with Syria are blocking roads, preventing people from reaching
their jobs and schools, and obstructing the work of the security services....
These factions are trying to use violence, threats, and intimidation
to impose their political will on Lebanon.”
In reality, Hezbollah was
almost alone in publicly opposing sectarian violence. Moreover, it has
come to the head of what is in fact a mass popular social and political
protest of mainly impoverished Shias against a pro-Western regime that
has no real mandate to govern. The government has been kept in power
with the assistance of thousands of European troops and is intent on
implementing an economic programme that is plunging all of Lebanon’s
workers and peasants ever deeper into abject poverty.
Hezbollah, Amal and the Free
Patriotic Movement withdrew their combined total of six ministers from
the government in November last year and are demanding that it step
down and call fresh elections for a national unity government. On December
1, 800,000 protested in Beirut and a picket of government buildings
in Beirut’s commercial centre involving thousands has been maintained
ever since.
The Siniora government has
rejected all the demands placed on it and instead sought to impose austerity
measures dictated by the Western powers. This in a country that having
barely recovered from the impact of the 1975-1990 civil war was then
largely destroyed by Israel’s 34-day bombing campaign, ground
invasion and blockade that began July 12 last year. Israeli aggression
resulted in over a thousand casualties, the displacement of a million
Lebanese and massive damage to roads, bridges, buildings, power stations
and other vital infrastructure. Combined with economic dislocation,
the United Nations estimated that the war cost Lebanon $15 billion.
Lebanon’s public debt
stands at a massive $41 billion.
An international donor’s
conference in August last year pledged a paltry $1.2 billion. But this
was accompanied by the demands of the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank that the Lebanese government reduces its international
debts by raising taxes, cutting spending, and privatising state owned
industries such as the electricity network, telecommunications and water.
As well as the job losses this entails, there are also demands for greater
labour market “flexibility” under conditions in which many
workers still have no roofs over their heads.
The trade unions and the
opposition parties rejected proposed tax increases, a rise in fuel prices
and the planned privatizations and demanded wage increases for low-income
employees.
Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s
deputy secretary-general, said on the eve of the strike that the opposition
was not only facing the government, but an “international conspiracy
against us. For the US is in charge of every detail of the government.”
That same day, Hezbollah’s
leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah asked his followers to “avoid insults
and sectarian slogans,” adding that “if they kill 1,000
of us, we will not use our weapons against them.”
The Independent’s veteran
Middle East reporter Robert Fisk described the protests as a “violent
sectarian battleground.” He noted that Sunni supporters of the
government had held up pictures of Saddam Hussein in order to goad Shia
oppositionists. He also acknowledged that “the Hezbollah’s
tens of thousands of fighters were by far the most disciplined men on
the streets of Beirut.”
“I walked three miles
to the (airport) terminal, only to find the Hezbollah protecting both
the airport and the Lebanese troops who were guarding it,” he
continued.
Opposing what he described
as a simplistic claim that what is taking place is “an attempted
coup d’état by the forces of Syria and Iran,” Fisk
wrote, “The Shias are the downtrodden, the poor, the dispossessed,
those who have always been ignored by the dons and patriarchs of the
Lebanese government—for in one sense this is also a social revolution—and
on the other were the Sunni population so beloved of [assassinated former
Prime Minister Rafik] Hariri and the Druze and the Christians still
loyal to the Lebanese forces who were Israel’s allies in 1982
and who massacred the Palestinians in the camps of Sabra and Chatila,
as well as a majority of Lebanese innocents who voted Siniora’s
government into power.”
The strike was called off
as Siniora flew to a second international donor’s conference in
Paris that begins today (Thursday). Over 30 mainly Western and Arab
donor countries as well as international institutions are in attendance.
Siniora had described the strike as an attempt to sabotage the meeting,
which he portrayed as Lebanon’s best hope for survival.
It is nothing of the sort.
Analysts expect that an aid
package of around $5 billion will be assembled. But only a fraction
of this will be spent on reconstruction projects. Most will go towards
servicing Lebanon’s short-term debt and therefore back into the
coffers of the imperialist governments and financial institutions, while
leaving Lebanon’s long-term debts to climb ever higher. The rest
will go to paying the wages of the Lebanese army in order that it can
suppress opposition in the Shia areas in the south of the country. And
once again any money given will be made conditional on the government
implementing the reforms demanded by the IMF and World Bank.
Speaking on Tuesday, France’s
President Jacques Chirac said that said the Paris conference was “urgent”
because “there are things to pay: the Lebanese army that now,
fortunately, occupies southern Lebanon needs to be paid; weapons must
be bought; the full operation of Lebanon must be ensured.”
Chirac also echoed the claims
that the opposition to the Lebanese government was being engineered
or at least exploited by Iran and Syria.
“I don’t interfere
in Lebanon’s domestic affairs,” said the leader of the country
with the most foreign troops in Lebanon, “but there are those
who take advantage of certain situations to create social problems.”
“The international
community wants Lebanon’s neighbours to stop interfering in its
affairs and treat it as an independent and sovereign country,”
he said.
The denunciations of Iranian
and Syrian interference in Lebanon come amidst constant US provocations
against Iran and a major military build-up in the Gulf.
Washington gave its full
backing to Israel’s bombing and subsequent invasion of Lebanon
last year. The aim of both the US and Israel was to smash Hezbollah,
possibly annex southern Lebanon and reduce the country to the effective
status of a US protectorate. But this was conceived of as only an initial
stage in a wider war drive aimed at regime change in Iran and Syria.
As far as the Bush administration
is concerned that aim remains to be fulfilled, in part due to the failure
of Israel’s Lebanese offensive in the face of the massive resistance
that was led by Hezbollah. And the same holds true for Israel—despite
revelations last week that the governments of both Ariel Sharon and
Ehud Olmert had sought a settlement with Syria in secret talks that
continued into the first days of the July 2006 war even as the US was
urging a direct attack on Damascus.
Israel has said it is “closely
following” events in Lebanon and accused Hezbollah of serving
the interests of Iran. The day before the Lebanese general strike began
Israeli soldiers performed a combat exercise against troops dressed
as Hezbollah fighters in a mock Arab village at a military base near
Tzeelim, southern Israel.
The political crisis created
by the setbacks Israel suffered in Lebanon last year led to last week’s
resignation of Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz as the armed forces chief
of staff.
He was replaced on Monday
by Gaby Ashkenazy, a veteran infantry commander who Olmert and Defence
Minister Amir Peretz stated would successfully “implement the
lessons of the Lebanon war.”
The main criticism within
Israeli ruling circles of Halutz, a former air force commander, was
that he relied too heavily on an air campaign against Hezbollah and
should have mounted a (better-planned) ground invasion much earlier.
Ashkenazy has acted as director
of the Defence Ministry since he was passed over in favour of Halutz
in 2005. But his combat experience includes serving as a deputy brigade
commander in the 1982 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon and heading
the elite Golani infantry brigade from 1994 to 1996, one of the most
highly decorated infantry units in the Israeli Defence Forces. He also
headed the army’s northern command in the final years before Israeli
troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
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