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There was alarm when Walid Jumblatt used the word "war" in a statement on Sunday in Baaqlin. The Druze leader's words were harsh, even if he did not say that he welcomed war, but only made his willingness to fight one conditional on the opposition's wanting war. But Lebanon has been split by a cold civil war for over a year now, and as the country commemorates the third anniversary of Rafik Hariri's assassination today, Jumblatt's rhetoric may have, paradoxically, helped stabilize the situation - even if stabilization remains a relative concept.
The assassination in Damascus of Imad Mughniyeh, whatever its larger implications, may actually bolster this modest stability. Hizbullah's leadership will likely need time to assess where it is, and what Mughniyeh's killing means for the party and its relations with Tehran.
Jumblatt surely calculated what he said based on a reading of the mood in Saudi Arabia and Russia, countries which he visited recently and that support the Arab League plan to elect General Michel Suleiman president. This must have made the Syrians perk up, particularly when Jumblatt said that Moscow had decided to pay into the fund for the Hariri tribunal. But the Druze leader, you have to suspect, was also sending a message to the Iranians, which went something like this: "Do you want your prize investment, Hizbullah, to be shattered by a Lebanese civil conflict?"
The comments of Jumblatt, but also those of Samir Geagea last week warning that there were Lebanese who sought a Syrian return, and Saad Hariri's promise to thwart Syrian and Iranian ambitions in Lebanon, were part of a package. In January, Hizbullah initiated a new strategy of organized street demonstrations, under the guise of social protests. The objective was to harass the army, undermine the presidential ambitions of Suleiman, and permit Syria to impose an alternative. But more generally, this threatened to shake confidence in the army - particularly when individuals began firing at soldiers - and therefore strike at the last remaining state institution that enjoys broad national backing.
The judicial inquiry into the Mar Mikhael deaths, but also the deep polarization that surrounded the episode, which isolated the Shiite parties, led to a suspension of efforts to erode the army's credibility. The recent March 14 statements were designed to shore up this interregnum. In so many words, Jumblatt warned that if weapons were used against the army again, it might be the majority that would respond.
Did he mean it? Probably not, but that's the point of brinkmanship. And since Hizbullah does not want a civil war any more than March 14 does, it will have taken that message to heart. The move may have also succeeded in blocking, or greatly delaying, a new recourse to the street by Hizbullah and Amal. In that way, March 14 managed to safeguard the army, which will only make Damascus more suspicious of a Suleiman presidency.
No one likes a balance of terror, but in some ways having one today may be preferable to what we had in the weeks when Hizbullah was looking to seize the initiative by blocking roads. But such a balance can only be meaningful if March 14 continues to respect the rule of law. A good start would be to permanently end the practice of shooting in the air when Saad Hariri Saad-Hariri-Profile Sep-07 speaks. Twice this happened last week, in what was an imitation of Hizbullah's response to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's appearances. If you claim to have confidence in the state, such behavior is counterproductive.
For March 14, the commemoration of Hariri's murder is seen as an opportunity to remind Syria's vice president, Farouq al-Sharaa, that Syria's friends in Lebanon are not as strong as he claimed last December. When asked in a Tuesday interview whether the Hariri tribunal was being politicized, Jumblatt answered that everything about the case was political. That's true in a way, and no amount of non-interference by the parliamentary majority will ever persuade Hizbullah of the contrary. However, March 14 errs in using the tribunal debate as a domestic battering ram. That will only polarize the Lebanese on the case, when the power of Hariri's death was that it unified most of them.
Several weeks ago, I interviewed Detlev Mehlis for The Wall Street Journal. Mehlis, the first commissioner of the United Nations-mandated team investigating the Hariri assassination, cast doubt on the work of his successor, Serge Brammertz. "I haven't seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward," Mehlis said.
He recalled that when, during the 1980s and 1990s, he headed the successful investigation of the LaBelle discotheque bombing in Berlin, an essential goal was to ensure the case stayed present in the public consciousness. "For years the LaBelle case dragged on with small successes and failures, but it was always kept alive on the prosecution's side by my working to inform the media; and on the victims' side because their families created pressure groups. I feel that in the Lebanese case, the families of the deceased can certainly play a much more active role."
The message to the victims was simple: stick to the rule of law, demand a thorough and open investigation, and force the international community to fulfill its promise of providing justice. That's why it is internationally that the Lebanese should be working the Hariri case, asking for more clarifications, particularly whether Mehlis is right about Brammertz.
Recently, the top UN legal official, Nicolas Michel, tried to reassure the Lebanese that the investigation and tribunal were moving forward. However, responding to a query from an Al-Hayat interviewer, Raghida Dergham, as to whether Brammertz had information contradicting Mehlis' conclusions, Michel answered, astonishingly: "If I knew the answer to your question this would indicate that I am interfering in the process. I am not, so I don't know the answer to your question."
But if anyone should know where the Hariri investigation is today, it is Michel. After all, he is the person setting up the tribunal's institutional and financial framework. Was he seriously suggesting that keeping abreast of the investigation would constitute interference? Michel will have a lot of egg on his face if there is not enough evidence in commissioner Daniel Bellemare's folder to take to trial this year.
Those are the issues March 14 should be raising, not adjusting their positions to the prospect that the tribunal will begin operating in June.
The majority's imposing a balance of power on the opposition may be the flip side of a strategy to move swiftly toward the trial of Hariri's assassins. That may be smart, or it may not be. But the tribunal must be shielded from domestic Lebanese power struggles, even as the UN needs to be pushed harder to clarify where the process is going. Michel did not do so.
Failing to question his vague statements doesn't honor Hariri's memory.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Talking To: Detlev Mehlis
This an extended version of an interview of Detlev Mehlis by Michael Young used as the basis for an article published in the Wall Street Journal on January 26.
The first commissioner of the UN investigation team into the Hariri assassination was Detlev Mehlis, a Berlin native who is now a senior prosecutor at the city's Superior Prosecutor's Office. His successor was the Belgian Serge Brammertz, who recently left the Hariri investigation to take up duties as prosecutor of the special tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. A Canadian, Daniel Bellemare, has replaced Brammertz, and once the investigation is completed he is expected to become the first prosecutor of the Hariri tribunal. After two years of virtual silence, Mehlis agreed to go on the record for a Wall Street Journal interview I conducted with him, in which he criticized the slow progress in the investigation. This is an expanded version of that interview, which took place in Berlin.
NOW Lebanon: For a long time after you left your post as commissioner of the United Nations-mandated Hariri inquiry in December 2005, you refused to go on the record to talk about the case. Why do so now?
Detlev Mehlis: My successor, Serge Brammertz, has just left after two years on the job, and a new commissioner, Daniel Bellemare, has been installed. So it's a good time for a summing up on my part. To have spoken up earlier would have created an impression of interfering in the investigation. I also feel I owe it to the people I worked with during my eight months as commissioner. This is my final statement, except for one exception when I will be interviewed by a German newspaper.
NOW: Recently, however, you did go on the record to tell a Frankfurt daily that you "regretted" having left the investigation in December 2005. Why did you say this?
Mehlis: From what I am hearing, the investigation has lost all the momentum it had [when Brammertz took over] in January 2006. Had I stayed on, I would have handled things differently. But I couldn't stay because the UN told me that for security reasons, I could no longer remain in Lebanon after January 2006. They offered to relocate me outside the country, but this was impossible for me. The permanent representative of Germany at the UN told the organization that it would be unacceptable for a German prosecutor to stay away from his team in Beirut. I fully agreed with this. I also left for professional and family reasons.
NOW: What would you have done differently than Brammertz?
Mehlis: Above all I would have continued informing the UN Security Council and the Lebanese on progress in the investigation. When I arrived in Beirut, I said that participation of the media was central for democracy. The Lebanese public has to be informed, even if there are setbacks in the investigation. In a democracy, people have the right to know, particularly when a prime minister was murdered and people don't trust the authorities. This was an opportunity to restore credibility to the justice system.
There is also a practical rationale: To have the support of the public, to encourage witnesses to come forward with information, and for governments to send specialized investigators, you need to give them an idea of what you are doing.
NOW: What makes you think that Brammertz has not moved forward? After all, he wrote in his reports that he had identified "persons of interest."
Mehlis: Unfortunately, I haven't seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward. When I left, we were ready to name suspects, but [the investigation] seems not to have progressed from that stage. There is no judicial term that I have ever heard of called a "person of interest." You have suspects, and a "person of interest" is definitely not a suspect. If you have identified suspects in a case like this one, you don't allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence, flee the country or commit similar crimes.
NOW: But what if Brammertz did not reveal his information for tactical reasons? He has defended preserving the "secrecy of the investigation."
Mehlis: I don't accept the concept of the "secrecy of the investigation," nor is it a judicial principle that I know. For me, as a German, the notion of a secret investigation sounds ominous. For the reasons I outlined earlier, the public has the right to know, and the UN Commission has to inform without endangering its investigation.
NOW: Brammertz reopened the crime scene after he took over from you. What was your reaction to that move?
Mehlis: I wondered what he was doing. We already had Swiss, French and German expert opinion indicating that the explosion that killed Hariri was beyond doubt an above-ground explosion. By reopening the crime scene, he cast doubt on the credibility of the investigation that I had led. He also wasted valuable time and manpower. All this only to end up confirming our initial findings. But this is typical of a broader problem, namely that in the past two years, the UN investigation has told us little we didn't already know before Brammertz became commissioner. We are now told that Hariri was killed for political reasons and that there were several layers of participation in the conspiracy. We needed two years of investigative endeavor to discover this?
But let me hasten to add that my criticism is not personal. I'm the one who recommended Brammertz, among others, for the post of commissioner, so I must bear some responsibility for what happened afterward.
NOW: Do you feel Brammertz's silence may have been due to his fear that being more open about the inquiry might have led to political conflict inside Lebanon?
Mehlis: I don't buy the argument. The assassination was always going to have political repercussions. It was a political crime. We had to accept this, and it came with the territory. For many Lebanese, we did too little; for the United Nations, we did too much. Many at the UN would have preferred a softer approach. I understood this. The UN didn't want another problem.
NOW: So, was there interference by the secretary general's office in your work, particularly from then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan?
Mehlis: Annan made it clear to me that he did not want another trouble spot. I respected this, but he also respected my point of view. Traditionally, there is tension between politics and justice, and I accepted that Annan did not want more problems because of the Hariri case. Relations are helped little when a prosecutor [like Brammertz] uses terms such as the "secrecy of the investigation." Yet Annan was always very supportive of my work and well-being. The UN did not interfere in my efforts and had no leverage over me, as I was not after a position in the organization. Even had the UN tried, there were investigators from 17 countries who might have thought differently, making this impossible.
NOW: There was the famous case where, in your first report, one could access through the track-changes command the edits in the initial draft of the document. It was clear that you had edited out the names of two very senior members of the Syrian leadership mentioned by a Syrian witness. Was leaving the track changes in intentional, so people could see which officials might have been implicated?
Mehlis: Not at all. When I prepared the original report, it was my impression that it would be confidential; that we would release to the public a version containing fewer details. However, in New York I learned that Annan wanted to make the report public. I intervened to say that, therefore, we needed to remove the names in question, because the persons mentioned were not suspects, but had merely been mentioned by a witness. Only the names of suspects and certain prominent witnesses were in the report. The UN press office made an unfortunate mistake in releasing the document with the track changes. It was definitely not intentional.
NOW: Your reports, the fact that you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest four pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence chiefs, and your requests to interview Syrian officials and intelligence officers all showed who you suspected of being involved in the crime. What was it like dealing with the Syrians, and how many times did you travel to Syria?
Mehlis: My interlocutors always treated me courteously and professionally, even in a friendly way. But they also made it clear to me that there were limits to their cooperation. I twice went to Syria: once for preliminary talks and once to interview witnesses.
NOW: Before leaving, you had put in a request to interview Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad as a witness. The Syrians were quite bothered by this. In the end, you never spoke to President Assad. What happened?
Mehlis: I left before the process could go through and don't know what later happened. There were reports that Brammertz held a meeting with President Assad, but that is legally quite different than taking down a witness statement. In fact, I took down the statements of many Lebanese politicians, who did not seem especially keen to put their signature on a document having legal repercussions. I also interviewed the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, who seemed to have no problem with this.
NOW: Two of your key Syrian witnesses did not seem particularly reliable. One told a press conference in Damascus that his testimony was fraudulent; the other, a former intelligence officer, later became a suspect in Hariri's murder, and has made contradictory statements.
Mehlis: In such crimes, you cannot be choosy about whom you are dealing with. What do you expect: white angels coming out from the blue? Those two gave us a lot of information, which we could sometimes corroborate with information received elsewhere. In the end, the tribunal will determine their credibility and ask why they agreed to sign their statements. Maybe the witnesses were there to discredit the investigation, but that can help us determine who wants to discredit the investigation.
NOW: The four intelligence chiefs you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest are still in jail. Their lawyers are saying that they are entitled to be set free, pending a trial. What are your thoughts about this?
Mehlis: That is one reason why it's important to accelerate the trial process, to protect the rights of the accused. At the same time, we did find sufficient evidence that all four generals were involved in the Hariri case. This was not my assessment alone, but also that of my commission's investigators and the Lebanese judiciary. Recently, I was accused in press reports in Beirut of having interviewed one of the suspects, Jamil al-Sayyed, without his lawyer. That is nonsense. But there has been a lot of media misinformation on my participation in the Hariri case in order to derail the investigation.
NOW: Last week there were reports that judges had been appointed to the Hariri tribunal, which will try suspects identified in the ongoing investigation. The tribunal was established last year under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and will be based near The Hague. This suggests that there is progress.
Mehlis: Perhaps, but because I haven't seen a word on new suspects in the past two years, I have my doubts. I think people should not expect a trial within the next two to three years, unless the investigation regains momentum. I fear that the suspects will end up in a judicial no-man's land, with Lebanon claiming they are under the UN's jurisdiction, and the UN saying that they must remain under Lebanese jurisdiction.
NOW: You seem to believe that the problem with the Hariri tribunal is not so much the likelihood of a cover up, but that the process will stall. Do you think a cover up, like [with the] Lockerbie bombing, is possible?
Mehlis: The Hariri case is an unusual one. Usually in investigations, you start at the bottom and work your way up. In the Hariri case, we started pretty much at the top and worked down. We had an accurate view of how the assassination took place from above, but less clear a view of what happened on the ground. That is why the investigation was supposed to continue [when I left].Therefore I think that it would be very difficult to have a Lockerbie II.
NOW: There is palpable international reluctance to carry the Hariri case to its conclusion, and you alluded to this earlier. Few at the UN, for example, are particularly eager to destabilize Syria's regime, assuming its involvement in the Hariri murder is proven. Do you think this might derail the case?
Mehlis: You can't prosecute governments and countries; you prosecute individuals. When I headed [the UN investigation], there was a will to get to the bottom of the crime – shown in all the Security Council resolutions on the matter. Why not now? One of the most helpful [member nations] was Russia, which persuaded Syria to comply with the resolutions. Even with states having different interests, common understandings can be reached.
NOW: What do you know of Daniel Bellemare, the new commissioner?
Mehlis: I have never met him, heard of him or been contacted by him.
NOW: What advice would you give to Bellemare?
Mehlis: Concentrate on the Hariri case itself; don't try to write a history book. Focus on the whos, hows and whys of the crime. Analysis can never replace solid investigative police work. As my top Swedish investigator once put it, "A case like this cannot be solved through a PowerPoint presentation."
NOW: What does the Hariri case mean for the UN?
Mehlis: This can either be an example of efficient UN involvement or a one-time experiment. The UN's image is at stake, particularly in Lebanon, where people put high hopes – perhaps too high – in the Hariri investigation.
NOW: It took you nine years to bring convictions for the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in Berlin, in which you accused Libyan officials of being behind the attack. What did that experience teach you?
Mehlis: That justice prevails, but you have to have patience. I also recall that for years the LaBelle case dragged on with small successes and failures, but it was always kept alive on the prosecution's side by my working to inform the media, and on the victims' side because their families created pressure groups. I feel that in the [Hariri] case, the families of the deceased can certainly play a much more active role. It's important to keep such cases in the public eye.
NOW: In conclusion, do you feel the Hariri tribunal will go forward?
Mehlis: Someone committed a terrible crime, and someone is responsible. Definitely, no one can abolish this tribunal. I may not be happy about the time frame, but am deeply convinced the case can be solved and will be solved.
The first commissioner of the UN investigation team into the Hariri assassination was Detlev Mehlis, a Berlin native who is now a senior prosecutor at the city's Superior Prosecutor's Office. His successor was the Belgian Serge Brammertz, who recently left the Hariri investigation to take up duties as prosecutor of the special tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. A Canadian, Daniel Bellemare, has replaced Brammertz, and once the investigation is completed he is expected to become the first prosecutor of the Hariri tribunal. After two years of virtual silence, Mehlis agreed to go on the record for a Wall Street Journal interview I conducted with him, in which he criticized the slow progress in the investigation. This is an expanded version of that interview, which took place in Berlin.
NOW Lebanon: For a long time after you left your post as commissioner of the United Nations-mandated Hariri inquiry in December 2005, you refused to go on the record to talk about the case. Why do so now?
Detlev Mehlis: My successor, Serge Brammertz, has just left after two years on the job, and a new commissioner, Daniel Bellemare, has been installed. So it's a good time for a summing up on my part. To have spoken up earlier would have created an impression of interfering in the investigation. I also feel I owe it to the people I worked with during my eight months as commissioner. This is my final statement, except for one exception when I will be interviewed by a German newspaper.
NOW: Recently, however, you did go on the record to tell a Frankfurt daily that you "regretted" having left the investigation in December 2005. Why did you say this?
Mehlis: From what I am hearing, the investigation has lost all the momentum it had [when Brammertz took over] in January 2006. Had I stayed on, I would have handled things differently. But I couldn't stay because the UN told me that for security reasons, I could no longer remain in Lebanon after January 2006. They offered to relocate me outside the country, but this was impossible for me. The permanent representative of Germany at the UN told the organization that it would be unacceptable for a German prosecutor to stay away from his team in Beirut. I fully agreed with this. I also left for professional and family reasons.
NOW: What would you have done differently than Brammertz?
Mehlis: Above all I would have continued informing the UN Security Council and the Lebanese on progress in the investigation. When I arrived in Beirut, I said that participation of the media was central for democracy. The Lebanese public has to be informed, even if there are setbacks in the investigation. In a democracy, people have the right to know, particularly when a prime minister was murdered and people don't trust the authorities. This was an opportunity to restore credibility to the justice system.
There is also a practical rationale: To have the support of the public, to encourage witnesses to come forward with information, and for governments to send specialized investigators, you need to give them an idea of what you are doing.
NOW: What makes you think that Brammertz has not moved forward? After all, he wrote in his reports that he had identified "persons of interest."
Mehlis: Unfortunately, I haven't seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward. When I left, we were ready to name suspects, but [the investigation] seems not to have progressed from that stage. There is no judicial term that I have ever heard of called a "person of interest." You have suspects, and a "person of interest" is definitely not a suspect. If you have identified suspects in a case like this one, you don't allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence, flee the country or commit similar crimes.
NOW: But what if Brammertz did not reveal his information for tactical reasons? He has defended preserving the "secrecy of the investigation."
Mehlis: I don't accept the concept of the "secrecy of the investigation," nor is it a judicial principle that I know. For me, as a German, the notion of a secret investigation sounds ominous. For the reasons I outlined earlier, the public has the right to know, and the UN Commission has to inform without endangering its investigation.
NOW: Brammertz reopened the crime scene after he took over from you. What was your reaction to that move?
Mehlis: I wondered what he was doing. We already had Swiss, French and German expert opinion indicating that the explosion that killed Hariri was beyond doubt an above-ground explosion. By reopening the crime scene, he cast doubt on the credibility of the investigation that I had led. He also wasted valuable time and manpower. All this only to end up confirming our initial findings. But this is typical of a broader problem, namely that in the past two years, the UN investigation has told us little we didn't already know before Brammertz became commissioner. We are now told that Hariri was killed for political reasons and that there were several layers of participation in the conspiracy. We needed two years of investigative endeavor to discover this?
But let me hasten to add that my criticism is not personal. I'm the one who recommended Brammertz, among others, for the post of commissioner, so I must bear some responsibility for what happened afterward.
NOW: Do you feel Brammertz's silence may have been due to his fear that being more open about the inquiry might have led to political conflict inside Lebanon?
Mehlis: I don't buy the argument. The assassination was always going to have political repercussions. It was a political crime. We had to accept this, and it came with the territory. For many Lebanese, we did too little; for the United Nations, we did too much. Many at the UN would have preferred a softer approach. I understood this. The UN didn't want another problem.
NOW: So, was there interference by the secretary general's office in your work, particularly from then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan?
Mehlis: Annan made it clear to me that he did not want another trouble spot. I respected this, but he also respected my point of view. Traditionally, there is tension between politics and justice, and I accepted that Annan did not want more problems because of the Hariri case. Relations are helped little when a prosecutor [like Brammertz] uses terms such as the "secrecy of the investigation." Yet Annan was always very supportive of my work and well-being. The UN did not interfere in my efforts and had no leverage over me, as I was not after a position in the organization. Even had the UN tried, there were investigators from 17 countries who might have thought differently, making this impossible.
NOW: There was the famous case where, in your first report, one could access through the track-changes command the edits in the initial draft of the document. It was clear that you had edited out the names of two very senior members of the Syrian leadership mentioned by a Syrian witness. Was leaving the track changes in intentional, so people could see which officials might have been implicated?
Mehlis: Not at all. When I prepared the original report, it was my impression that it would be confidential; that we would release to the public a version containing fewer details. However, in New York I learned that Annan wanted to make the report public. I intervened to say that, therefore, we needed to remove the names in question, because the persons mentioned were not suspects, but had merely been mentioned by a witness. Only the names of suspects and certain prominent witnesses were in the report. The UN press office made an unfortunate mistake in releasing the document with the track changes. It was definitely not intentional.
NOW: Your reports, the fact that you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest four pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence chiefs, and your requests to interview Syrian officials and intelligence officers all showed who you suspected of being involved in the crime. What was it like dealing with the Syrians, and how many times did you travel to Syria?
Mehlis: My interlocutors always treated me courteously and professionally, even in a friendly way. But they also made it clear to me that there were limits to their cooperation. I twice went to Syria: once for preliminary talks and once to interview witnesses.
NOW: Before leaving, you had put in a request to interview Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad as a witness. The Syrians were quite bothered by this. In the end, you never spoke to President Assad. What happened?
Mehlis: I left before the process could go through and don't know what later happened. There were reports that Brammertz held a meeting with President Assad, but that is legally quite different than taking down a witness statement. In fact, I took down the statements of many Lebanese politicians, who did not seem especially keen to put their signature on a document having legal repercussions. I also interviewed the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, who seemed to have no problem with this.
NOW: Two of your key Syrian witnesses did not seem particularly reliable. One told a press conference in Damascus that his testimony was fraudulent; the other, a former intelligence officer, later became a suspect in Hariri's murder, and has made contradictory statements.
Mehlis: In such crimes, you cannot be choosy about whom you are dealing with. What do you expect: white angels coming out from the blue? Those two gave us a lot of information, which we could sometimes corroborate with information received elsewhere. In the end, the tribunal will determine their credibility and ask why they agreed to sign their statements. Maybe the witnesses were there to discredit the investigation, but that can help us determine who wants to discredit the investigation.
NOW: The four intelligence chiefs you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest are still in jail. Their lawyers are saying that they are entitled to be set free, pending a trial. What are your thoughts about this?
Mehlis: That is one reason why it's important to accelerate the trial process, to protect the rights of the accused. At the same time, we did find sufficient evidence that all four generals were involved in the Hariri case. This was not my assessment alone, but also that of my commission's investigators and the Lebanese judiciary. Recently, I was accused in press reports in Beirut of having interviewed one of the suspects, Jamil al-Sayyed, without his lawyer. That is nonsense. But there has been a lot of media misinformation on my participation in the Hariri case in order to derail the investigation.
NOW: Last week there were reports that judges had been appointed to the Hariri tribunal, which will try suspects identified in the ongoing investigation. The tribunal was established last year under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and will be based near The Hague. This suggests that there is progress.
Mehlis: Perhaps, but because I haven't seen a word on new suspects in the past two years, I have my doubts. I think people should not expect a trial within the next two to three years, unless the investigation regains momentum. I fear that the suspects will end up in a judicial no-man's land, with Lebanon claiming they are under the UN's jurisdiction, and the UN saying that they must remain under Lebanese jurisdiction.
NOW: You seem to believe that the problem with the Hariri tribunal is not so much the likelihood of a cover up, but that the process will stall. Do you think a cover up, like [with the] Lockerbie bombing, is possible?
Mehlis: The Hariri case is an unusual one. Usually in investigations, you start at the bottom and work your way up. In the Hariri case, we started pretty much at the top and worked down. We had an accurate view of how the assassination took place from above, but less clear a view of what happened on the ground. That is why the investigation was supposed to continue [when I left].Therefore I think that it would be very difficult to have a Lockerbie II.
NOW: There is palpable international reluctance to carry the Hariri case to its conclusion, and you alluded to this earlier. Few at the UN, for example, are particularly eager to destabilize Syria's regime, assuming its involvement in the Hariri murder is proven. Do you think this might derail the case?
Mehlis: You can't prosecute governments and countries; you prosecute individuals. When I headed [the UN investigation], there was a will to get to the bottom of the crime – shown in all the Security Council resolutions on the matter. Why not now? One of the most helpful [member nations] was Russia, which persuaded Syria to comply with the resolutions. Even with states having different interests, common understandings can be reached.
NOW: What do you know of Daniel Bellemare, the new commissioner?
Mehlis: I have never met him, heard of him or been contacted by him.
NOW: What advice would you give to Bellemare?
Mehlis: Concentrate on the Hariri case itself; don't try to write a history book. Focus on the whos, hows and whys of the crime. Analysis can never replace solid investigative police work. As my top Swedish investigator once put it, "A case like this cannot be solved through a PowerPoint presentation."
NOW: What does the Hariri case mean for the UN?
Mehlis: This can either be an example of efficient UN involvement or a one-time experiment. The UN's image is at stake, particularly in Lebanon, where people put high hopes – perhaps too high – in the Hariri investigation.
NOW: It took you nine years to bring convictions for the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in Berlin, in which you accused Libyan officials of being behind the attack. What did that experience teach you?
Mehlis: That justice prevails, but you have to have patience. I also recall that for years the LaBelle case dragged on with small successes and failures, but it was always kept alive on the prosecution's side by my working to inform the media, and on the victims' side because their families created pressure groups. I feel that in the [Hariri] case, the families of the deceased can certainly play a much more active role. It's important to keep such cases in the public eye.
NOW: In conclusion, do you feel the Hariri tribunal will go forward?
Mehlis: Someone committed a terrible crime, and someone is responsible. Definitely, no one can abolish this tribunal. I may not be happy about the time frame, but am deeply convinced the case can be solved and will be solved.
Bernard Kouchner scores an own-goal
You know that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner didn't expect to be long for the Sarkozy administration when he decided to talk to James Traub of The New York Times. Traub has just written a long profile of Kouchner in the paper's Sunday magazine, and the foreign minister used the occasion to make an unwelcome enemy at the Elysee Palace.
In a much cited passage, Kouchner criticized France's opening to Syria last November, the purpose of which was to bring about a Lebanese presidential election. At the time, the foreign minister had tried to push for an election by visiting Beirut. At the same time, two close advisers to President Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Gueant and Jean-David Levitte, were dispatched to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad. They returned empty-handed, embarrassing Sarkozy, but also humiliating Kouchner, who had opposed dealing with Damascus, who was made to look like he had betrayed his Lebanese March 14 interlocutors, and who, the foreign minister told Traub, had anyway predicted the effort would fail.
When Traub then asked Kouchner whether the fiasco had shown the limits of his brand of intimate diplomacy, the foreign minister replied: "Sorry, no, the problem is to not play the game my people have been playing in Damascus." The problem, he continued, was at the Elysee Palace, but not Levitte who was "in agreement with me." It was plain that Kouchner blamed Gueant, a former prefect who is Sarkozy's most powerful adviser. Kouchner continued: "It's always the same game with them. It's a problem of experience. Those who know, know." It remains unclear precisely why Gueant - whose experience is indeed largely limited to domestic issues - should have taken on a central role in discussions with Syria. But let's venture a one-word guess: Qatar. The Gulf emirate has new-found influence in Paris, not least because of its financial prowess, and the relationship is now clearly run out of Sarkozy's office. It was Gueant who more recently was contacted, at Syria's request, by the Qatari foreign minister to float an alternative to Michel Suleiman as president. The French were forced to backtrack, however, since such a scheme would have effectively undermined the ongoing Arab League plan to get Suleiman elected. But if Suleiman's candidacy is derailed, expect Gueant and the Qataris to jump back into the name game, which is precisely what the Syrians would like to see happen.
Kouchner's interview was more than just a shot across Gueant's bow to define turf. There was some conviction in the foreign minister's statement that "the core of the danger is there, in between Iraq and Iran, in between Lebanon and Syria. This is the common enemy, not only for Americans but for all democracies. The common enemy is extremism."
In a sense that's a fair statement directed at Gueant, a quintessential political technocrat and professional civil servant who has little patience for burdening the machinery of politics with idealism. Sarkozy, being Sarkozy, probably sees an advantage in watching two of his senior officials fighting it out, as it allows him to play the balance. But Kouchner is not destined to stay around for long, while Gueant is, and this will have a significant impact on how France pursues its connection with Syria.
Interestingly, Kouchner seemed in the dark on the details of Gueant's and Levitte's Damascus trip. Traub informed the foreign minister that Levitte had told him that "Sarkozy authorized the trip only after Saad Hariri Saad-Hariri-Profile Sep-07 ... agreed that he should do so." Kouchner's reaction was to call Levitte "a loyal guy" who, again, "knew that I was right" about avoiding the Syrians.
However, an alert observer sent me an Al-Hayat article, dated November 28, 2007, outlining the details of the French effort. According to the newspaper, Gueant traveled to Saudi Arabia before heading for Damascus, to seek the advice of King Abdullah. The king was skeptical about the likelihood of success with Assad. However, he did tell the French envoy that if a visit might help Lebanon then he should go ahead with it - adding that a personal meeting with Gueant had a better chance of success than a telephone call between Sarkozy and Assad. Once the French had the Saudis' blessing, Levitte informed Hariri of their decision. Far from seeking his approval, Levitte presented Hariri with a fait accompli. Kouchner evidently had little idea of what had taken place.
French diplomacy in Lebanon has been anarchic in recent months, although there is general agreement that the current chief of mission in Beirut, Andre Parant, is a true professional. If so, he is poorly served by a ministerial hierarchy that is said to be developing few new policies for Lebanon, even as it is periodically circumvented by Gueant, whose familiarity with Lebanese affairs, and foreign affairs in general, remains questionable. At a time when Paris is frantically trying to carve out a new strategic role for itself in the Gulf, it seems to have abandoned the relative advantages it once enjoyed in the Levant, where, we are invariably reminded, France traditionally has had "ties and friendships."
The best thing the French can do today is to return to the international consensus on Lebanon. That may not be particularly exciting; it may even force Sarkozy to tone down his showboating. However, the Gueant-Qatar-Syria axis, with its mixture of baroque deal-making, financial incentive, and abandonment of principle, is just the kind of situation that is likely to explode in Sarkozy's face, much in the same way that similar arrangements blew up in the face of former President Francois Mitterrand more than a decade ago. You don't run diplomacy out of a onetime prefect's office, with an eye cocked at foreign checkbooks.
Meanwhile, we might spare a sympathetic thought for Kouchner. His sorties to Lebanon were unmitigated disasters; his presumption that he knew all the actors personally was nonsense, as his political template was the long-gone Civil War years. But the minister, all clatter and mayhem, still had and has better intuitions than Gueant. Nicolas Sarkozy once claimed to share Kouchner's humanist instincts. How true is that today?
In a much cited passage, Kouchner criticized France's opening to Syria last November, the purpose of which was to bring about a Lebanese presidential election. At the time, the foreign minister had tried to push for an election by visiting Beirut. At the same time, two close advisers to President Nicolas Sarkozy, Claude Gueant and Jean-David Levitte, were dispatched to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad. They returned empty-handed, embarrassing Sarkozy, but also humiliating Kouchner, who had opposed dealing with Damascus, who was made to look like he had betrayed his Lebanese March 14 interlocutors, and who, the foreign minister told Traub, had anyway predicted the effort would fail.
When Traub then asked Kouchner whether the fiasco had shown the limits of his brand of intimate diplomacy, the foreign minister replied: "Sorry, no, the problem is to not play the game my people have been playing in Damascus." The problem, he continued, was at the Elysee Palace, but not Levitte who was "in agreement with me." It was plain that Kouchner blamed Gueant, a former prefect who is Sarkozy's most powerful adviser. Kouchner continued: "It's always the same game with them. It's a problem of experience. Those who know, know." It remains unclear precisely why Gueant - whose experience is indeed largely limited to domestic issues - should have taken on a central role in discussions with Syria. But let's venture a one-word guess: Qatar. The Gulf emirate has new-found influence in Paris, not least because of its financial prowess, and the relationship is now clearly run out of Sarkozy's office. It was Gueant who more recently was contacted, at Syria's request, by the Qatari foreign minister to float an alternative to Michel Suleiman as president. The French were forced to backtrack, however, since such a scheme would have effectively undermined the ongoing Arab League plan to get Suleiman elected. But if Suleiman's candidacy is derailed, expect Gueant and the Qataris to jump back into the name game, which is precisely what the Syrians would like to see happen.
Kouchner's interview was more than just a shot across Gueant's bow to define turf. There was some conviction in the foreign minister's statement that "the core of the danger is there, in between Iraq and Iran, in between Lebanon and Syria. This is the common enemy, not only for Americans but for all democracies. The common enemy is extremism."
In a sense that's a fair statement directed at Gueant, a quintessential political technocrat and professional civil servant who has little patience for burdening the machinery of politics with idealism. Sarkozy, being Sarkozy, probably sees an advantage in watching two of his senior officials fighting it out, as it allows him to play the balance. But Kouchner is not destined to stay around for long, while Gueant is, and this will have a significant impact on how France pursues its connection with Syria.
Interestingly, Kouchner seemed in the dark on the details of Gueant's and Levitte's Damascus trip. Traub informed the foreign minister that Levitte had told him that "Sarkozy authorized the trip only after Saad Hariri Saad-Hariri-Profile Sep-07 ... agreed that he should do so." Kouchner's reaction was to call Levitte "a loyal guy" who, again, "knew that I was right" about avoiding the Syrians.
However, an alert observer sent me an Al-Hayat article, dated November 28, 2007, outlining the details of the French effort. According to the newspaper, Gueant traveled to Saudi Arabia before heading for Damascus, to seek the advice of King Abdullah. The king was skeptical about the likelihood of success with Assad. However, he did tell the French envoy that if a visit might help Lebanon then he should go ahead with it - adding that a personal meeting with Gueant had a better chance of success than a telephone call between Sarkozy and Assad. Once the French had the Saudis' blessing, Levitte informed Hariri of their decision. Far from seeking his approval, Levitte presented Hariri with a fait accompli. Kouchner evidently had little idea of what had taken place.
French diplomacy in Lebanon has been anarchic in recent months, although there is general agreement that the current chief of mission in Beirut, Andre Parant, is a true professional. If so, he is poorly served by a ministerial hierarchy that is said to be developing few new policies for Lebanon, even as it is periodically circumvented by Gueant, whose familiarity with Lebanese affairs, and foreign affairs in general, remains questionable. At a time when Paris is frantically trying to carve out a new strategic role for itself in the Gulf, it seems to have abandoned the relative advantages it once enjoyed in the Levant, where, we are invariably reminded, France traditionally has had "ties and friendships."
The best thing the French can do today is to return to the international consensus on Lebanon. That may not be particularly exciting; it may even force Sarkozy to tone down his showboating. However, the Gueant-Qatar-Syria axis, with its mixture of baroque deal-making, financial incentive, and abandonment of principle, is just the kind of situation that is likely to explode in Sarkozy's face, much in the same way that similar arrangements blew up in the face of former President Francois Mitterrand more than a decade ago. You don't run diplomacy out of a onetime prefect's office, with an eye cocked at foreign checkbooks.
Meanwhile, we might spare a sympathetic thought for Kouchner. His sorties to Lebanon were unmitigated disasters; his presumption that he knew all the actors personally was nonsense, as his political template was the long-gone Civil War years. But the minister, all clatter and mayhem, still had and has better intuitions than Gueant. Nicolas Sarkozy once claimed to share Kouchner's humanist instincts. How true is that today?
Friday, February 1, 2008
Alas, it looks like Shiites vs. the rest
By Michael Young
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The tragic and senseless killing of demonstrators in Shiyyah last Sunday was, perhaps rightfully, seen as the opening shot in a new phase of the Lebanese crisis that may turn much more violent. Who was responsible for the crimes still remains unclear. But a cooler analysis of what took place shows an equally disturbing reality: Sunday was a political disaster for the Shiite opposition parties, Hizbullah and Amal, whose inability to achieve their political ends, but also to retreat from the brink, makes the likelihood of further hostilities much greater.
After the end of the summer 2006 war and the growing confrontation between the parliamentary majority and the opposition, Hizbullah was always careful to place non-Shiites in the forefront of the opposition's actions. While Sunni representatives were anemic, Michel Aoun was, for a time, someone who added credibility to the claim that the opposition was multiconfessional. That argument took a severe beating in the street protests of January 23, 2007, when the Aounists were unable to block roads for very long in Christian areas without assistance from the army. By nightfall, even that endeavor had collapsed as roads inside the Christian heartland and between Beirut and Tripoli were opened.
However, Aoun struck back in the Metn by-election last summer, when he managed to get an unknown, Camille Khoury, elected to Parliament. It was a pyrrhic victory to be sure. The vote tally confirmed that the general had lost a sizable share of the Maronite vote; it showed that he relied heavily on a unified Armenian electorate not particularly committed to the general personally, that might vote very differently in the future; but it also showed that Aoun was not out of the game, as some had predicted.
However, from the moment the March 14 coalition decided to support the army commander, Michel Suleiman, as its candidate for president, Aoun's situation changed dramatically. The general had calculated that a presidential vacuum would enhance his chances of being elected, on the grounds that the thwarted Christians would rally behind him. In fact the exact opposite has happened. Provided with the option of a potentially strong Christian president in Suleiman, displeased with Aoun's and his ally Suleiman Franjieh's wanton attacks against Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, never really convinced by the Free Patriotic Movement's alliance with Hizbullah, the Christians, many of whom voted for Aoun in 2005, have been steadily turning away from the general.
A sure sign of this is the behavior of that cunning weathervane of Christian opinion, Michel Murr. In recent weeks Murr has mounted a very damaging internal rebellion against Aoun. He has defended the Arab plan that seeks to bring Suleiman to power as "good for the Christians," when Aoun's greatest fear is that his community will embrace such a line and abandon his own candidacy. Murr has defended Sfeir against Franjieh's attacks, even as most Aounist parliamentarians who once made Bkirki their second home remained silent. And Murr declared that the Metn would not participate in opposition street demonstrations. This was an easy promise to make, because Aoun doesn't even have the capacity to organize protests in areas his bloc members represent in Parliament.
The thing is, Murr's attitude is popular among Christians. And last Sunday, Aoun found himself in the worst possible situation when his ally Hizbullah and the army - the one state institution in which the general still retains some sympathy - clashed. For most Christians the choice was an easy one to make: They sided with the army, particularly after demonstrators were reported to have broken cars in the Christian quarter of Ain al-Rummaneh, where someone later tossed a grenade that injured several people. In that context, Aoun's alliance with Hizbullah now looks to many of his coreligionists like a bad idea, one that might precipitate a civil conflict if the opposition pursues its protests, which almost nobody seriously accepts as a demand for more electricity and cheaper food.
But then put yourselves in Hizbullah's shoes, and those of the Amal movement. With your Christian partner neutralized, suddenly the opposition looks mainly like a Shiite phenomenon. Worse, it looks like a mainly Shiite phenomenon directed against the Lebanese Army, a presidential election, and, by extension, the Lebanese state itself. This is certainly not where Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, ever wanted to position himself; and it is, in a word, suicidal for Shiites.
However, that apparently has not induced Hizbullah to backtrack. The Sunday rioting was probably destined to discredit Suleiman. The opposition's follow-up criticism of the army commander as someone who is no longer a consensus presidential candidate lends credence to this theory. The Syrians have recently been trying to peddle alternative candidates, via Qatar, to the French - which Qatari and French denials in fact only confirmed. Suddenly, Hizbullah finds itself in the uncomfortable position of blocking the election of a man many Christians regard as a potentially strong leader, all because the party won't abandon Aoun, who is on the political decline. And why won't it do so? Because Hizbullah desperately needs the general as an ally in a future government.
Whether Hizbullah's calculations are mainly domestic, or are shaped to a large extent by Syria is irrelevant. The party is, perhaps unintentionally, pushing Shiites into a confrontation with the rest of Lebanese society to protect itself, and nothing could be worse for the community. Hizbullah's inability to achieve any of its political aims in the past 13 months has only increased its sense of frustration, and the prospect of violence. The party is flailing, but March 14 must at all costs help think of creative ways to prevent the Shiites from succumbing to a new "Kerbala complex," a sense that victimhood is the historical lot of their community.
In 1975, the Christians had their own Kerbala complex, one that dictated stubbornness in the defense of Christian prerogatives, which at the time were regarded as an existential red line. In the process they lost their control over the state. Hizbullah has made defense of its weapons an existential red line for the Shiite community. But Kerbala, as one astute analyst has put it, is hardly something the Shiites should want to remember, as it ended in a massacre and defeat. Nor is it something any Lebanese should want the Shiite community to remember, or repeat.
The Christians learned to their detriment during the 1975-1990 conflict that a war against the Sunnis was also in many ways a war against the Arab world. The Christian community never recovered from that disaster. That's a lesson the Shiite community should not have to learn.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
The tragic and senseless killing of demonstrators in Shiyyah last Sunday was, perhaps rightfully, seen as the opening shot in a new phase of the Lebanese crisis that may turn much more violent. Who was responsible for the crimes still remains unclear. But a cooler analysis of what took place shows an equally disturbing reality: Sunday was a political disaster for the Shiite opposition parties, Hizbullah and Amal, whose inability to achieve their political ends, but also to retreat from the brink, makes the likelihood of further hostilities much greater.
After the end of the summer 2006 war and the growing confrontation between the parliamentary majority and the opposition, Hizbullah was always careful to place non-Shiites in the forefront of the opposition's actions. While Sunni representatives were anemic, Michel Aoun was, for a time, someone who added credibility to the claim that the opposition was multiconfessional. That argument took a severe beating in the street protests of January 23, 2007, when the Aounists were unable to block roads for very long in Christian areas without assistance from the army. By nightfall, even that endeavor had collapsed as roads inside the Christian heartland and between Beirut and Tripoli were opened.
However, Aoun struck back in the Metn by-election last summer, when he managed to get an unknown, Camille Khoury, elected to Parliament. It was a pyrrhic victory to be sure. The vote tally confirmed that the general had lost a sizable share of the Maronite vote; it showed that he relied heavily on a unified Armenian electorate not particularly committed to the general personally, that might vote very differently in the future; but it also showed that Aoun was not out of the game, as some had predicted.
However, from the moment the March 14 coalition decided to support the army commander, Michel Suleiman, as its candidate for president, Aoun's situation changed dramatically. The general had calculated that a presidential vacuum would enhance his chances of being elected, on the grounds that the thwarted Christians would rally behind him. In fact the exact opposite has happened. Provided with the option of a potentially strong Christian president in Suleiman, displeased with Aoun's and his ally Suleiman Franjieh's wanton attacks against Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, never really convinced by the Free Patriotic Movement's alliance with Hizbullah, the Christians, many of whom voted for Aoun in 2005, have been steadily turning away from the general.
A sure sign of this is the behavior of that cunning weathervane of Christian opinion, Michel Murr. In recent weeks Murr has mounted a very damaging internal rebellion against Aoun. He has defended the Arab plan that seeks to bring Suleiman to power as "good for the Christians," when Aoun's greatest fear is that his community will embrace such a line and abandon his own candidacy. Murr has defended Sfeir against Franjieh's attacks, even as most Aounist parliamentarians who once made Bkirki their second home remained silent. And Murr declared that the Metn would not participate in opposition street demonstrations. This was an easy promise to make, because Aoun doesn't even have the capacity to organize protests in areas his bloc members represent in Parliament.
The thing is, Murr's attitude is popular among Christians. And last Sunday, Aoun found himself in the worst possible situation when his ally Hizbullah and the army - the one state institution in which the general still retains some sympathy - clashed. For most Christians the choice was an easy one to make: They sided with the army, particularly after demonstrators were reported to have broken cars in the Christian quarter of Ain al-Rummaneh, where someone later tossed a grenade that injured several people. In that context, Aoun's alliance with Hizbullah now looks to many of his coreligionists like a bad idea, one that might precipitate a civil conflict if the opposition pursues its protests, which almost nobody seriously accepts as a demand for more electricity and cheaper food.
But then put yourselves in Hizbullah's shoes, and those of the Amal movement. With your Christian partner neutralized, suddenly the opposition looks mainly like a Shiite phenomenon. Worse, it looks like a mainly Shiite phenomenon directed against the Lebanese Army, a presidential election, and, by extension, the Lebanese state itself. This is certainly not where Hizbullah's secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, ever wanted to position himself; and it is, in a word, suicidal for Shiites.
However, that apparently has not induced Hizbullah to backtrack. The Sunday rioting was probably destined to discredit Suleiman. The opposition's follow-up criticism of the army commander as someone who is no longer a consensus presidential candidate lends credence to this theory. The Syrians have recently been trying to peddle alternative candidates, via Qatar, to the French - which Qatari and French denials in fact only confirmed. Suddenly, Hizbullah finds itself in the uncomfortable position of blocking the election of a man many Christians regard as a potentially strong leader, all because the party won't abandon Aoun, who is on the political decline. And why won't it do so? Because Hizbullah desperately needs the general as an ally in a future government.
Whether Hizbullah's calculations are mainly domestic, or are shaped to a large extent by Syria is irrelevant. The party is, perhaps unintentionally, pushing Shiites into a confrontation with the rest of Lebanese society to protect itself, and nothing could be worse for the community. Hizbullah's inability to achieve any of its political aims in the past 13 months has only increased its sense of frustration, and the prospect of violence. The party is flailing, but March 14 must at all costs help think of creative ways to prevent the Shiites from succumbing to a new "Kerbala complex," a sense that victimhood is the historical lot of their community.
In 1975, the Christians had their own Kerbala complex, one that dictated stubbornness in the defense of Christian prerogatives, which at the time were regarded as an existential red line. In the process they lost their control over the state. Hizbullah has made defense of its weapons an existential red line for the Shiite community. But Kerbala, as one astute analyst has put it, is hardly something the Shiites should want to remember, as it ended in a massacre and defeat. Nor is it something any Lebanese should want the Shiite community to remember, or repeat.
The Christians learned to their detriment during the 1975-1990 conflict that a war against the Sunnis was also in many ways a war against the Arab world. The Christian community never recovered from that disaster. That's a lesson the Shiite community should not have to learn.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Justice for Lebanon
Justice for Lebanon
By MICHAEL YOUNG
January 26, 2008
The Wall Street Journal
Berlin. Detlev Mehlis speaks slowly. So when he says, "I haven't seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward," there is time for the meaning to sink in.
The person Mr. Mehlis is referring to is Serge Brammertz, a Belgian prosecutor who, until a few weeks ago, headed the United Nations investigation looking into the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. In December of that year, Mr. Brammertz succeeded Mr. Mehlis as commissioner of the investigating team, known as the International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC). Now, Mr. Mehlis is making the rather serious charge that Mr. Brammertz may not have done much while working on the Hariri case.
On Feb. 14 it will be exactly three years since Hariri was killed in a massive bomb explosion, with 21 others, in Beirut. The event sparked weeks of protests directed against Syria -- which most Lebanese blamed for the killing -- demanding an end to its 29-year military presence in Lebanon.
The so-called "Cedar Revolution" led to a transformation of the political system when Syria withdrew its army, and its adversaries won a majority of seats in Parliament in subsequent elections. Since then, Damascus has tried to reassert its power in Lebanon -- but the Hariri investigation, if it points an accusatory finger at Syria, is its Achilles heel.
The Security Council has established a Lebanese-international tribunal under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter to try the suspects. The tribunal, now being set up in The Hague, is an exceptional creation, much like UNIIIC was. This week a U.N. official revealed that judges had been selected. Never before has the Security Council overseen a political murder investigation.
With Mr. Brammertz having recently left Lebanon to take charge of a special tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Mr. Mehlis has decided to speak up. It is a rare occasion that he has agreed to do so on the record -- and one of the last, he insists. As a senior prosecutor at the Superior Prosecutor's Office in Berlin, he is keen to close his own personal file on the UNIIIC years, but also to warn that the vitality of the Hariri inquiry may be disappearing. "A new commissioner has been installed. So it's a good time for a very last summing up on my part," Mr. Mehlis says.
Whether UNIIIC was exceptional or not, Mr. Mehlis made it a point of appearing an unexceptional man while commissioner -- but one with pit-bull persistence. He'd shown that persistence before. It took him nine years to bring convictions for the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in Berlin. He accused Libyan officials of being behind the attack. That experience, he says, left him with the view "that justice prevails, but you have to have patience."
But Mr. Mehlis is plainly worried that justice might not prevail in the Hariri investigation. It "appears to have lost the momentum it had until January 2006," he says. "When I left we were ready to name suspects, but it seems not to have progressed from that stage."
Indeed, Mr. Brammertz never named new suspects in his investigation, though he did mention he'd identified "persons of interest." Mr. Mehlis is dismissive: "If you have suspects you don't allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence."
Particularly odd to Mr. Mehlis is that his successor reopened analysis of the crime scene upon arriving in Lebanon. That not only cast doubt on the German's methods, it wasted valuable time. Mr. Brammertz's conclusions ended up confirming those of Mr. Mehlis, namely that Hariri had been killed by an above-ground explosion.
But Mr. Mehlis sees such behavior as emblematic of a broader problem -- namely that UNIIIC has told us little we didn't already know before Mr. Brammertz became its commissioner: that Hariri was killed for political reasons and that there were several layers of participation in the conspiracy. "We needed two years of investigative endeavor to discover this?" he laughs.
When Mr. Mehlis first arrived in Beirut, he visited the families of three of the victims in the Hariri blast and frequently talked to the media. Mr. Brammertz, in contrast, gave no interviews and never once addressed the Lebanese on what the case personally meant to him.
But what if Mr. Brammertz did not reveal his cards for tactical reasons? After all, he asked to maintain the secrecy of his investigation. Mr. Mehlis responds that to him, as a German, the notion of a secret investigation sounds ominous. "The Lebanese public has to be informed, even if there are setbacks in the investigation. In a democracy people have the right to know, particularly when a prime minister was murdered and people don't trust the authorities. This was an opportunity to restore credibility to the justice system."
Mr. Mehlis also sees a practical rationale for more openness by an investigator: "To have the support of the public, to encourage witnesses to come forward with information, and for governments to send specialized investigators, you need to give them an idea of what you are doing."
The Hariri investigation was always seen by its defenders as a lever to render political assassination in the Middle East more difficult. In Lebanon particularly, where dozens of leading politicians and officials have been killed since the 1970s (the latest a police intelligence officer on Friday, among whose duties was reportedly following the Hariri affair), this was the one crime, people felt, that international attention would not allow to go unpunished.
Lebanese optimism aside, the point was a valid one: Respect for the rule of law, so lacking in Arab societies, could only benefit from a successful legal process to punish the guilty. That rationale remains persuasive today, as more and more people in the West doubt that Arab societies can be democratic. The Hariri investigation was there to say that democracy without law is a chimera.
His actions as UNIIIC commissioner left few doubts as to who Mr. Mehlis thought was behind the crime. He asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest four prominent pro-Syrian generals from Lebanon's security services and Presidential Guard. He took affidavits from Syrian officials, including intelligence officers. He even sought to question Syria's president, Bashar Assad.
Mr. Mehlis departed before this could go through, and he doesn't know what later happened. Media reports suggested that Mr. Brammertz held "a meeting" with the Syrian leader, but that is legally different, Mr. Mehlis explains, than a formal judicial interview, which even Lebanon's former president submitted to.
I remind him that two of his key Syrian witnesses did not seem particularly reliable. One told a press conference in Damascus that his testimony was fraudulent; another, a former intelligence officer, later became a suspect in Hariri's murder at Mr. Mehlis's request, and has made contradictory statements.
Mr. Mehlis responds that in such crimes you cannot be choosy about who to deal with. "What do you expect, white angels? Those two gave us a lot of information, which we could sometimes corroborate with information received elsewhere. In the end, the tribunal will determine their credibility, and ask why they agreed to sign their statements." Mr. Mehlis adds: "Maybe the witnesses were there to discredit the investigation, but that can help us determine who wants to discredit the investigation."
I put it to Mr. Mehlis that, whatever the UNIIIC discovers, there is palpable international reluctance to carry the Hariri case to its conclusion. Few at the U.N., for example, are eager to destabilize Syria's regime, assuming its involvement is proven.
His answer is ambiguous: "As a prosecutor you can't prosecute governments and countries; you prosecute individuals. When I headed UNIIIC, there was a will to get to the bottom of the crime -- shown in all the Security Council resolutions on the matter. Why not now? One of the most helpful [member nations] was Russia, which persuaded Syria to comply with the resolutions. Even with states having different interests, common understandings can be reached."
So what about today? "Traditionally, there is tension between politics and justice and I accepted that [former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi] Annan did not want more problems because of the Hariri case. Yet he was always very supportive of my work and well-being. The U.N. did not interfere in my efforts and had no leverage over me, as I was not after a position in the organization. Even had the U.N. tried, there were investigators from 17 countries who might have thought differently, making this impossible."
Mr. Mehlis doesn't so much fear a cover-up as that the Hariri case will stall. The tribunal, he predicts, will be set up this summer, but "people should not expect a trial within the next two to three years, unless the investigation regains momentum." Otherwise, what might happen? "I fear that suspects will end up in a judicial no-man's land, with Lebanon claiming they are under the U.N.'s jurisdiction, and the U.N. saying that they must remain under Lebanese jurisdiction."
What Mr. Mehlis is saying, in so many words, is that a tribunal does not a trial make. The tribunal will be formed and judges nominated, but unless the prosecutor has something solid to take to court, the process may lead nowhere. Still, he is mildly optimistic: "Definitely, no one can abolish this tribunal. I may not be happy about the time frame, but am deeply convinced the case can be solved and will be solved."
Mr. Mehlis also cautions that the U.N. would suffer from failure in the Hariri affair. "The U.N.'s image is at stake, particularly in Lebanon, where people put high hopes, perhaps too high, in the Hariri investigation."
So, what is his advice to Daniel Bellemare, Mr. Brammertz's Canadian successor? "Concentrate on the Hariri case itself; don't try to write a history book. Focus on the whos, hows and whys of the crime. Analysis can never replace solid investigative police work."
Most important, Mr. Mehlis says the Hariri case must remain in the public's consciousness. "For years the LaBelle case dragged on with small successes and failures, but it was always kept alive on the prosecution's side by my working to inform the media; and on the victims' side because their families created pressure groups. I feel that in the Lebanese case, the families of the deceased can certainly play a much more active role."
That may be true, but victims or their families rarely have a voice in the Arab world. The fate of the Hariri tribunal will help determine if that changes. Beyond the assassination of a high-profile politician, the question is whether the international community finally agrees that things need to be different in the Middle East, or just goes back to accepting the old ways.
By MICHAEL YOUNG
January 26, 2008
The Wall Street Journal
Berlin. Detlev Mehlis speaks slowly. So when he says, "I haven't seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward," there is time for the meaning to sink in.
The person Mr. Mehlis is referring to is Serge Brammertz, a Belgian prosecutor who, until a few weeks ago, headed the United Nations investigation looking into the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. In December of that year, Mr. Brammertz succeeded Mr. Mehlis as commissioner of the investigating team, known as the International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIIC). Now, Mr. Mehlis is making the rather serious charge that Mr. Brammertz may not have done much while working on the Hariri case.
On Feb. 14 it will be exactly three years since Hariri was killed in a massive bomb explosion, with 21 others, in Beirut. The event sparked weeks of protests directed against Syria -- which most Lebanese blamed for the killing -- demanding an end to its 29-year military presence in Lebanon.
The so-called "Cedar Revolution" led to a transformation of the political system when Syria withdrew its army, and its adversaries won a majority of seats in Parliament in subsequent elections. Since then, Damascus has tried to reassert its power in Lebanon -- but the Hariri investigation, if it points an accusatory finger at Syria, is its Achilles heel.
The Security Council has established a Lebanese-international tribunal under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter to try the suspects. The tribunal, now being set up in The Hague, is an exceptional creation, much like UNIIIC was. This week a U.N. official revealed that judges had been selected. Never before has the Security Council overseen a political murder investigation.
With Mr. Brammertz having recently left Lebanon to take charge of a special tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Mr. Mehlis has decided to speak up. It is a rare occasion that he has agreed to do so on the record -- and one of the last, he insists. As a senior prosecutor at the Superior Prosecutor's Office in Berlin, he is keen to close his own personal file on the UNIIIC years, but also to warn that the vitality of the Hariri inquiry may be disappearing. "A new commissioner has been installed. So it's a good time for a very last summing up on my part," Mr. Mehlis says.
Whether UNIIIC was exceptional or not, Mr. Mehlis made it a point of appearing an unexceptional man while commissioner -- but one with pit-bull persistence. He'd shown that persistence before. It took him nine years to bring convictions for the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in Berlin. He accused Libyan officials of being behind the attack. That experience, he says, left him with the view "that justice prevails, but you have to have patience."
But Mr. Mehlis is plainly worried that justice might not prevail in the Hariri investigation. It "appears to have lost the momentum it had until January 2006," he says. "When I left we were ready to name suspects, but it seems not to have progressed from that stage."
Indeed, Mr. Brammertz never named new suspects in his investigation, though he did mention he'd identified "persons of interest." Mr. Mehlis is dismissive: "If you have suspects you don't allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence."
Particularly odd to Mr. Mehlis is that his successor reopened analysis of the crime scene upon arriving in Lebanon. That not only cast doubt on the German's methods, it wasted valuable time. Mr. Brammertz's conclusions ended up confirming those of Mr. Mehlis, namely that Hariri had been killed by an above-ground explosion.
But Mr. Mehlis sees such behavior as emblematic of a broader problem -- namely that UNIIIC has told us little we didn't already know before Mr. Brammertz became its commissioner: that Hariri was killed for political reasons and that there were several layers of participation in the conspiracy. "We needed two years of investigative endeavor to discover this?" he laughs.
When Mr. Mehlis first arrived in Beirut, he visited the families of three of the victims in the Hariri blast and frequently talked to the media. Mr. Brammertz, in contrast, gave no interviews and never once addressed the Lebanese on what the case personally meant to him.
But what if Mr. Brammertz did not reveal his cards for tactical reasons? After all, he asked to maintain the secrecy of his investigation. Mr. Mehlis responds that to him, as a German, the notion of a secret investigation sounds ominous. "The Lebanese public has to be informed, even if there are setbacks in the investigation. In a democracy people have the right to know, particularly when a prime minister was murdered and people don't trust the authorities. This was an opportunity to restore credibility to the justice system."
Mr. Mehlis also sees a practical rationale for more openness by an investigator: "To have the support of the public, to encourage witnesses to come forward with information, and for governments to send specialized investigators, you need to give them an idea of what you are doing."
The Hariri investigation was always seen by its defenders as a lever to render political assassination in the Middle East more difficult. In Lebanon particularly, where dozens of leading politicians and officials have been killed since the 1970s (the latest a police intelligence officer on Friday, among whose duties was reportedly following the Hariri affair), this was the one crime, people felt, that international attention would not allow to go unpunished.
Lebanese optimism aside, the point was a valid one: Respect for the rule of law, so lacking in Arab societies, could only benefit from a successful legal process to punish the guilty. That rationale remains persuasive today, as more and more people in the West doubt that Arab societies can be democratic. The Hariri investigation was there to say that democracy without law is a chimera.
His actions as UNIIIC commissioner left few doubts as to who Mr. Mehlis thought was behind the crime. He asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest four prominent pro-Syrian generals from Lebanon's security services and Presidential Guard. He took affidavits from Syrian officials, including intelligence officers. He even sought to question Syria's president, Bashar Assad.
Mr. Mehlis departed before this could go through, and he doesn't know what later happened. Media reports suggested that Mr. Brammertz held "a meeting" with the Syrian leader, but that is legally different, Mr. Mehlis explains, than a formal judicial interview, which even Lebanon's former president submitted to.
I remind him that two of his key Syrian witnesses did not seem particularly reliable. One told a press conference in Damascus that his testimony was fraudulent; another, a former intelligence officer, later became a suspect in Hariri's murder at Mr. Mehlis's request, and has made contradictory statements.
Mr. Mehlis responds that in such crimes you cannot be choosy about who to deal with. "What do you expect, white angels? Those two gave us a lot of information, which we could sometimes corroborate with information received elsewhere. In the end, the tribunal will determine their credibility, and ask why they agreed to sign their statements." Mr. Mehlis adds: "Maybe the witnesses were there to discredit the investigation, but that can help us determine who wants to discredit the investigation."
I put it to Mr. Mehlis that, whatever the UNIIIC discovers, there is palpable international reluctance to carry the Hariri case to its conclusion. Few at the U.N., for example, are eager to destabilize Syria's regime, assuming its involvement is proven.
His answer is ambiguous: "As a prosecutor you can't prosecute governments and countries; you prosecute individuals. When I headed UNIIIC, there was a will to get to the bottom of the crime -- shown in all the Security Council resolutions on the matter. Why not now? One of the most helpful [member nations] was Russia, which persuaded Syria to comply with the resolutions. Even with states having different interests, common understandings can be reached."
So what about today? "Traditionally, there is tension between politics and justice and I accepted that [former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi] Annan did not want more problems because of the Hariri case. Yet he was always very supportive of my work and well-being. The U.N. did not interfere in my efforts and had no leverage over me, as I was not after a position in the organization. Even had the U.N. tried, there were investigators from 17 countries who might have thought differently, making this impossible."
Mr. Mehlis doesn't so much fear a cover-up as that the Hariri case will stall. The tribunal, he predicts, will be set up this summer, but "people should not expect a trial within the next two to three years, unless the investigation regains momentum." Otherwise, what might happen? "I fear that suspects will end up in a judicial no-man's land, with Lebanon claiming they are under the U.N.'s jurisdiction, and the U.N. saying that they must remain under Lebanese jurisdiction."
What Mr. Mehlis is saying, in so many words, is that a tribunal does not a trial make. The tribunal will be formed and judges nominated, but unless the prosecutor has something solid to take to court, the process may lead nowhere. Still, he is mildly optimistic: "Definitely, no one can abolish this tribunal. I may not be happy about the time frame, but am deeply convinced the case can be solved and will be solved."
Mr. Mehlis also cautions that the U.N. would suffer from failure in the Hariri affair. "The U.N.'s image is at stake, particularly in Lebanon, where people put high hopes, perhaps too high, in the Hariri investigation."
So, what is his advice to Daniel Bellemare, Mr. Brammertz's Canadian successor? "Concentrate on the Hariri case itself; don't try to write a history book. Focus on the whos, hows and whys of the crime. Analysis can never replace solid investigative police work."
Most important, Mr. Mehlis says the Hariri case must remain in the public's consciousness. "For years the LaBelle case dragged on with small successes and failures, but it was always kept alive on the prosecution's side by my working to inform the media; and on the victims' side because their families created pressure groups. I feel that in the Lebanese case, the families of the deceased can certainly play a much more active role."
That may be true, but victims or their families rarely have a voice in the Arab world. The fate of the Hariri tribunal will help determine if that changes. Beyond the assassination of a high-profile politician, the question is whether the international community finally agrees that things need to be different in the Middle East, or just goes back to accepting the old ways.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A conference to save Lebanon's future
For some years now, Arab diplomacy has been a chronicle of death foretold. In Iraq, Darfur, and the Palestinian territories, either Arab states have been too anemic to seize the initiative, or have worked at cross purposes. Now, with the collapse of Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa's mission to Lebanon, brace yourselves for more futility.
But don't pity Moussa. An exemplar of Arab political sterility, he arrived in Beirut last week with a plan that, his circle claimed, was "constructively vague." Through that vagueness, he probably thought he could secure for himself a margin of maneuver. Instead, the imprecision of the proposal allowed Syria and its Lebanese allies to impose conditions of their own on the distribution of power in a future government that were, plainly, not what the Arab states intended. So, by the end of his shuttle diplomacy, Moussa had to clarify what the Arabs meant, by which time it was too late.
You have to hand it to the Syrians. They gauged the utter mediocrity of their Arab peers early on, before the foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo that was supposed to pressure Syria into allowing a presidential election. Damascus defused Arab opprobrium by claiming they were on board with the Arab plan, before subsequently undermining it. Then, once Moussa left Beirut, Damascus upped the ante, asking its allies to accelerate the pace of their street demonstrations in Lebanon.
In a recent interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit recalled how, at the Paris donors meeting for the Palestinians late last year, Western states mocked the idea of a successful Arab diplomatic initiative in Lebanon. "You never do anything," is what Western officials told their Arab counterparts, Abu al-Gheit recalled. They were right.
So what is next? Typically, Moussa refused to admit that his mission had failed. The Arab plan had not reached a dead end, but only a "closed door that can be opened." That's a relief. Then again, the Arab-Israeli conflict is a door that might one day be opened, but that has remained closed for six decades. The Arabs need a plan B in Lebanon, but don't hold your breath.
The next confrontation point is January 27th, when the Arab League will have to consider whom to blame for the Moussa debacle. Here's a prediction: Little will happen, leaving a possible fracas for the Arab summit in March. The Syrians have made it clear that they will use instability in Lebanon as leverage to force Arab leaders to attend the Damascus gathering and avoid Syria's humiliation. Given the brutal way in which the Arab plan for Lebanon was discarded by Syria and its allies, however, the summit seems almost certain to be a bust, whatever happens in Lebanon. There are limits to what can be done in Beirut's streets, but there have also been worrying signs in recent days that Syria's allies are willing to push the envelope very far on that front. And with Lebanon chronically unstable, the Syrians feel, the Arab states, the United States, and the Europeans will lose interest in the country long before the Assad regime does.
In so many ways, Syria has managed to remain a Teflon state at the center of myriad regional crises. In April 2005, the Syrian mood was well captured in an exchange leaked to the French daily Le Monde between President Bashar Assad and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. After warning Ban that passage of the Hariri tribunal under Chapter VII of the UN Charter would lead to instability in Lebanon, Assad pointedly told the secretary general: "We're in the eye of the cyclone. You will, therefore, need to stay in contact with us."
Now that Arab diplomacy has failed in Lebanon, so soon after the French were humiliated in their efforts to make headway on the presidential election, it is time to conclude that almost none of the methods employed previously will change Damascus' behavior. The Syrians are well into their counterattack in Lebanon, to reverse the setbacks of 2005, while the international community and the Arab states seem paralyzed. New ideas are needed if there is sincere regional and international concern for Lebanon's future independence - which at this stage is not guaranteed.
For starters, the Arab states, the US, and Europe - failures each and every one of them in defining an effective policy toward Syria - should initiate contacts to determine if they have parallel objectives in Lebanon, and define what these are. That shouldn't be too difficult. The US continues to oppose a return to the pre-2005 situation in Beirut; the Europeans too, even as they have thousands of their troops deployed in South Lebanon; and the Arabs very much fear a war between Lebanese Sunnis and Shiites that would have regional repercussions, as well as threaten their own regimes. The groundwork for broad cooperation exists.
Those talks should then lead to a conference on Lebanon, preferably at the UN, whose resolutions passed since 2004 must provide an underpinning for any diplomatic action on the country. The conference would not only return Lebanon to near the front of international attention, it should decide on specific, tough measures to help implement Arab decisions and UN resolutions on Lebanon, and pave the way for a presidential election. The notion that internationalization of the Lebanese crisis is bad for the country is absurd. Without internationalization, buttressed by an Arab consensus, Lebanon will be lost within months.
Can this work? Nothing is less certain. There is great fatigue with Lebanon internationally; the Arabs, ever fearful of precedents, will water down any concerted effort to alter the behavior of a fellow Arab state like Syria; and some Europeans, most recently Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, adhere to the cult of "engaging" Damascus, whatever the disappointments. But Lebanon is not what it was in 1975, when its Civil War began. Events in the country have existential implications for many regimes in the Arab world, and by extension for equilibrium in the Middle East. Lebanon is a problem that has to be addressed whether the international community likes it or not, and in way that transcends the mostly fruitless policies adopted until now.
Otherwise, let us just prepare ourselves for the worst. Conflict is as near as it has ever been in Lebanon since 2005. Diplomats have wasted many months, even years, misreading the situation in the country. Their timorousness notwithstanding, there is still time to avoid Lebanon's fall into the abyss if the international community displays some nerve.
But don't pity Moussa. An exemplar of Arab political sterility, he arrived in Beirut last week with a plan that, his circle claimed, was "constructively vague." Through that vagueness, he probably thought he could secure for himself a margin of maneuver. Instead, the imprecision of the proposal allowed Syria and its Lebanese allies to impose conditions of their own on the distribution of power in a future government that were, plainly, not what the Arab states intended. So, by the end of his shuttle diplomacy, Moussa had to clarify what the Arabs meant, by which time it was too late.
You have to hand it to the Syrians. They gauged the utter mediocrity of their Arab peers early on, before the foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo that was supposed to pressure Syria into allowing a presidential election. Damascus defused Arab opprobrium by claiming they were on board with the Arab plan, before subsequently undermining it. Then, once Moussa left Beirut, Damascus upped the ante, asking its allies to accelerate the pace of their street demonstrations in Lebanon.
In a recent interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit recalled how, at the Paris donors meeting for the Palestinians late last year, Western states mocked the idea of a successful Arab diplomatic initiative in Lebanon. "You never do anything," is what Western officials told their Arab counterparts, Abu al-Gheit recalled. They were right.
So what is next? Typically, Moussa refused to admit that his mission had failed. The Arab plan had not reached a dead end, but only a "closed door that can be opened." That's a relief. Then again, the Arab-Israeli conflict is a door that might one day be opened, but that has remained closed for six decades. The Arabs need a plan B in Lebanon, but don't hold your breath.
The next confrontation point is January 27th, when the Arab League will have to consider whom to blame for the Moussa debacle. Here's a prediction: Little will happen, leaving a possible fracas for the Arab summit in March. The Syrians have made it clear that they will use instability in Lebanon as leverage to force Arab leaders to attend the Damascus gathering and avoid Syria's humiliation. Given the brutal way in which the Arab plan for Lebanon was discarded by Syria and its allies, however, the summit seems almost certain to be a bust, whatever happens in Lebanon. There are limits to what can be done in Beirut's streets, but there have also been worrying signs in recent days that Syria's allies are willing to push the envelope very far on that front. And with Lebanon chronically unstable, the Syrians feel, the Arab states, the United States, and the Europeans will lose interest in the country long before the Assad regime does.
In so many ways, Syria has managed to remain a Teflon state at the center of myriad regional crises. In April 2005, the Syrian mood was well captured in an exchange leaked to the French daily Le Monde between President Bashar Assad and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. After warning Ban that passage of the Hariri tribunal under Chapter VII of the UN Charter would lead to instability in Lebanon, Assad pointedly told the secretary general: "We're in the eye of the cyclone. You will, therefore, need to stay in contact with us."
Now that Arab diplomacy has failed in Lebanon, so soon after the French were humiliated in their efforts to make headway on the presidential election, it is time to conclude that almost none of the methods employed previously will change Damascus' behavior. The Syrians are well into their counterattack in Lebanon, to reverse the setbacks of 2005, while the international community and the Arab states seem paralyzed. New ideas are needed if there is sincere regional and international concern for Lebanon's future independence - which at this stage is not guaranteed.
For starters, the Arab states, the US, and Europe - failures each and every one of them in defining an effective policy toward Syria - should initiate contacts to determine if they have parallel objectives in Lebanon, and define what these are. That shouldn't be too difficult. The US continues to oppose a return to the pre-2005 situation in Beirut; the Europeans too, even as they have thousands of their troops deployed in South Lebanon; and the Arabs very much fear a war between Lebanese Sunnis and Shiites that would have regional repercussions, as well as threaten their own regimes. The groundwork for broad cooperation exists.
Those talks should then lead to a conference on Lebanon, preferably at the UN, whose resolutions passed since 2004 must provide an underpinning for any diplomatic action on the country. The conference would not only return Lebanon to near the front of international attention, it should decide on specific, tough measures to help implement Arab decisions and UN resolutions on Lebanon, and pave the way for a presidential election. The notion that internationalization of the Lebanese crisis is bad for the country is absurd. Without internationalization, buttressed by an Arab consensus, Lebanon will be lost within months.
Can this work? Nothing is less certain. There is great fatigue with Lebanon internationally; the Arabs, ever fearful of precedents, will water down any concerted effort to alter the behavior of a fellow Arab state like Syria; and some Europeans, most recently Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, adhere to the cult of "engaging" Damascus, whatever the disappointments. But Lebanon is not what it was in 1975, when its Civil War began. Events in the country have existential implications for many regimes in the Arab world, and by extension for equilibrium in the Middle East. Lebanon is a problem that has to be addressed whether the international community likes it or not, and in way that transcends the mostly fruitless policies adopted until now.
Otherwise, let us just prepare ourselves for the worst. Conflict is as near as it has ever been in Lebanon since 2005. Diplomats have wasted many months, even years, misreading the situation in the country. Their timorousness notwithstanding, there is still time to avoid Lebanon's fall into the abyss if the international community displays some nerve.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Why not the patriarch's moment?
You have to wonder what Michel Aoun thought when he heard the sound of the bomb that went off next to a US Embassy SUV on Tuesday. It is likely that one of the general's objective allies was behind the attack. Yet Aoun will continue to rail against American behavior in Lebanon, even as he keeps a worried eye on Washington where, we last heard, the debate is continuing over what the US should do to him or those close to him.
Marvel at Aoun's thoroughness. In 1990 he almost destroyed Lebanon's Christians. Today he seems to be carrying through on that ambition - indeed has expanded it to question the very idea of Lebanon as we know it - all the while claiming that he's saving the Christians from elimination.
In his hunger to be elected president, Aoun is blocking the election of Michel Suleiman and justifying the dismantling of the institutional protections allowing Christians to retain political power in Lebanon well beyond their demographic weight. The general's statement on Monday that the president must be chosen by direct popular vote was typically irresponsible. Why, if the logic of majoritarianism kicks in, should a majority of Lebanese who are Muslim elect a Christian president at all? And how many Christians really want the majority of Muslims to pick the head of state - an office that Christians have long insisted is their one guarantee against the majority of Muslims picking a head of state?
Recall how, last November, Aoun proposed a very different plan to bring a president to office, whereby he would have selected that president while Saad Hariri Saad-Hariri-Profile Sep-07 would have done the same to the prime minister. The scheme not only ignored the same voters whom Aoun today alleges he wants to enfranchise; it sought to completely bypass the popularly elected Parliament from which Aoun claims to derive his legitimacy. But with the general, inconsistency in the pursuit of power is no vice.
That the Lebanese political system needs a massive overhaul is apparent. Ultimately, gradual, consensual deconfessionalization of Parliament, with institutional safeguards for minorities, particularly Christians, is the only way forward for Lebanon - and the only way Christians can retain a stake and confidence in the system. But what Aoun is proposing is nothing of the sort; he wants the sudden, drastic, and nonconsensual abortion of the Constitution. The general's motive is to rule, and he somehow still believes he can win a vast majority of Shiite and Christian votes. So let the National Pact and the sectarian checks and balances that are the essence of the Lebanese confessional order be damned. Yet for the sake of national coexistence, it's time to tell Aoun "Enough!"
Actually, it's time for Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir to say it. Aoun is vulnerable today, because Christians see in Suleiman an acceptable alternative. Sfeir has recently chipped away at Aoun's strategy - focused on throwing up a wall of conditions to effectively prevent Suleiman's arrival. Aoun's angry ripostes directed against Bkirki have shown how seriously he takes the patriarch's criticism, even if the general has lost credibility in the process. But much more is needed from Sfeir. Pin pricks from the Church will only prolong Christian lassitude. The patriarch needs to galvanize the community, as he did just before the parliamentary elections in 2005, pointing out that Aoun's ideas threaten the Christians' future in Lebanon. He needs to put his weight behind an election now, and make clear that Suleiman, whatever one thinks of him, is the most likely to be a strong president, with even the predominantly Sunni Arab states agreeing to this. And Sfeir must affirm that Aoun is the main Christian obstacle to his election.
For several reasons Sfeir hesitates to do this. He's not a man who likes to name names. Yet unless the patriarch is blunt in mentioning Aoun, the general will just absorb his censure. Second, Sfeir knows it's the Syrians who are blocking the presidential election, and that Aoun is merely their plaything. Why go after a Christian leader and weaken the community in the process, the patriarch wonders, when Aoun is just a messenger? Third, Sfeir knows that his Church is divided, with some bishops siding with Aoun (and others with Suleiman Franjieh, who this week called Sfeir an employee of the American and French embassies), so that any undue criticism of Aoun might create more cracks within the clergy.
All these reasons are legitimate, but unconvincing. If the Christians are in dire straits, as Sfeir repeats in one way or another every day, then his reluctance to take a stronger position is indefensible. There is a higher interest that has to be considered. But the patriarch must also calculate that Aoun is the weakest link in the opposition; his marginalization would open the door to a presidential election in the Christians' interest, and it would deny Hizbullah a Christian partner allowing them to impede the vote. As for the divisions within the Church, the patriarch, with Rome's backing, can certainly wield more authority than he is doing now.
However, Sfeir shouldn't be pushed to the forefront alone. One of the great limitations of March 14 is that it has had no real dialogue with the mass of Christians since the 2005 elections. Aoun has been granted too much latitude to manipulate his coreligionists' sense of frustration. It's no secret that most of the parliamentary majority's Christians are not regarded particularly highly within their community. One reason is that very few are able to participate in politics on the ground, because they spend so much time escaping assassination. But nothing prevents them from being active through representatives. March 14 has the financial means and networks to make inroads into the Christian electorate, but it has been lethargic in responding to the community's needs.
Saad Hariri will argue that it's not up to a Sunni leader to play Christian politics, as it would discredit his Christian allies and provoke a negative backlash from within the community. That's too narrow a way of looking at things. He can easily do more to bolster the patronage activities of his Christian coalition partners and allies, if he hesitates to directly involve himself. But both he and Walid Jumblatt also need to hone the way they communicate with Christians - after all Jumblatt represents a large Christian electorate in the Chouf, Aley and Baabda. They need to talk to Christians directly, as often as they can in Christian areas to Christian audiences, explaining why they want a presidential election, without conditions, as soon as possible.
Most importantly, they need to publicly apologize for the 2005 electoral alliance that so many Christians, fairly or unfairly, still regard as an effort to diminish their representation. The step would not be an easy one, but modesty in the defense of independence is no vice. Simply put, Christians need finally to be talked to so that Aoun can no longer reach them.
Marvel at Aoun's thoroughness. In 1990 he almost destroyed Lebanon's Christians. Today he seems to be carrying through on that ambition - indeed has expanded it to question the very idea of Lebanon as we know it - all the while claiming that he's saving the Christians from elimination.
In his hunger to be elected president, Aoun is blocking the election of Michel Suleiman and justifying the dismantling of the institutional protections allowing Christians to retain political power in Lebanon well beyond their demographic weight. The general's statement on Monday that the president must be chosen by direct popular vote was typically irresponsible. Why, if the logic of majoritarianism kicks in, should a majority of Lebanese who are Muslim elect a Christian president at all? And how many Christians really want the majority of Muslims to pick the head of state - an office that Christians have long insisted is their one guarantee against the majority of Muslims picking a head of state?
Recall how, last November, Aoun proposed a very different plan to bring a president to office, whereby he would have selected that president while Saad Hariri Saad-Hariri-Profile Sep-07 would have done the same to the prime minister. The scheme not only ignored the same voters whom Aoun today alleges he wants to enfranchise; it sought to completely bypass the popularly elected Parliament from which Aoun claims to derive his legitimacy. But with the general, inconsistency in the pursuit of power is no vice.
That the Lebanese political system needs a massive overhaul is apparent. Ultimately, gradual, consensual deconfessionalization of Parliament, with institutional safeguards for minorities, particularly Christians, is the only way forward for Lebanon - and the only way Christians can retain a stake and confidence in the system. But what Aoun is proposing is nothing of the sort; he wants the sudden, drastic, and nonconsensual abortion of the Constitution. The general's motive is to rule, and he somehow still believes he can win a vast majority of Shiite and Christian votes. So let the National Pact and the sectarian checks and balances that are the essence of the Lebanese confessional order be damned. Yet for the sake of national coexistence, it's time to tell Aoun "Enough!"
Actually, it's time for Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir to say it. Aoun is vulnerable today, because Christians see in Suleiman an acceptable alternative. Sfeir has recently chipped away at Aoun's strategy - focused on throwing up a wall of conditions to effectively prevent Suleiman's arrival. Aoun's angry ripostes directed against Bkirki have shown how seriously he takes the patriarch's criticism, even if the general has lost credibility in the process. But much more is needed from Sfeir. Pin pricks from the Church will only prolong Christian lassitude. The patriarch needs to galvanize the community, as he did just before the parliamentary elections in 2005, pointing out that Aoun's ideas threaten the Christians' future in Lebanon. He needs to put his weight behind an election now, and make clear that Suleiman, whatever one thinks of him, is the most likely to be a strong president, with even the predominantly Sunni Arab states agreeing to this. And Sfeir must affirm that Aoun is the main Christian obstacle to his election.
For several reasons Sfeir hesitates to do this. He's not a man who likes to name names. Yet unless the patriarch is blunt in mentioning Aoun, the general will just absorb his censure. Second, Sfeir knows it's the Syrians who are blocking the presidential election, and that Aoun is merely their plaything. Why go after a Christian leader and weaken the community in the process, the patriarch wonders, when Aoun is just a messenger? Third, Sfeir knows that his Church is divided, with some bishops siding with Aoun (and others with Suleiman Franjieh, who this week called Sfeir an employee of the American and French embassies), so that any undue criticism of Aoun might create more cracks within the clergy.
All these reasons are legitimate, but unconvincing. If the Christians are in dire straits, as Sfeir repeats in one way or another every day, then his reluctance to take a stronger position is indefensible. There is a higher interest that has to be considered. But the patriarch must also calculate that Aoun is the weakest link in the opposition; his marginalization would open the door to a presidential election in the Christians' interest, and it would deny Hizbullah a Christian partner allowing them to impede the vote. As for the divisions within the Church, the patriarch, with Rome's backing, can certainly wield more authority than he is doing now.
However, Sfeir shouldn't be pushed to the forefront alone. One of the great limitations of March 14 is that it has had no real dialogue with the mass of Christians since the 2005 elections. Aoun has been granted too much latitude to manipulate his coreligionists' sense of frustration. It's no secret that most of the parliamentary majority's Christians are not regarded particularly highly within their community. One reason is that very few are able to participate in politics on the ground, because they spend so much time escaping assassination. But nothing prevents them from being active through representatives. March 14 has the financial means and networks to make inroads into the Christian electorate, but it has been lethargic in responding to the community's needs.
Saad Hariri will argue that it's not up to a Sunni leader to play Christian politics, as it would discredit his Christian allies and provoke a negative backlash from within the community. That's too narrow a way of looking at things. He can easily do more to bolster the patronage activities of his Christian coalition partners and allies, if he hesitates to directly involve himself. But both he and Walid Jumblatt also need to hone the way they communicate with Christians - after all Jumblatt represents a large Christian electorate in the Chouf, Aley and Baabda. They need to talk to Christians directly, as often as they can in Christian areas to Christian audiences, explaining why they want a presidential election, without conditions, as soon as possible.
Most importantly, they need to publicly apologize for the 2005 electoral alliance that so many Christians, fairly or unfairly, still regard as an effort to diminish their representation. The step would not be an easy one, but modesty in the defense of independence is no vice. Simply put, Christians need finally to be talked to so that Aoun can no longer reach them.
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