'No one want civil war'

AFTER a week of negotiations in Qatar, following a spate of internal fighting which left at least 80 dead and more than 200 wounded, Lebanon's opposing leaders reached an agreement which hopes to lift the nation out of a state of limbo.

Once again it seemed Lebanon was on the brink of civil war. The battles saw Shia Hizbullah's vastly superior fighting machine seize large parts of Sunnidominated West Beirut. Further afield, fierce fighting took place in the northern city of Tripoli and the Druze stronghold of the Chouf Mountains.

Although triggered by what seemed like trivial domestic issues, the root causes are more to do with Hizbullah's possession of arms and ideological differences between the opposition, which is led by Iranian and Syrian-backed Hizbullah, and the Western-backed government.

In places, the capital looked reminiscent of its 1975- 90 civil war days: edgy militia gunmen stood wielding Kalashnikovs at makeshift roadblocks, plumes of smoke rose from smouldering tyres and the sound of gunfire rattled though the streets.

Hizbullah's seizure of West Beirut was a response to two government announcements on Tuesday, May 7. Firstly, that they would remove the head of security of Beirut's international airport, who is allegedly Hizbullah aligned, and secondly that they intended to investigate Hizbullah's establishment of a private land-line telecommunications network, which they deem illegal.

However, Hizbullah considers the private telephone network an integral part of its military apparatus, a point that is supported by the Winograd report, commissioned by Israel to examine its failings in the 2006 war against Hizbullah.

There is a long-standing tacit agreement that the government does not meddle with Hizbullah's right to bear arms as the self-proclaimed national resistance against Israel. Interference with the telephone network was therefore a provocation too far, one which Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, considered "a declaration of war".

While the military outcome was decisive, with Hizbullah amply demonstrating their superior training, equipment and discipline, the political outcome is a mixed bag. One of Hizbullah's central pledges has been it would never turn its arms on the Lebanese people. Historically, this has given it some credibility as a pan-Lebanese political movement rather than a Shia organisation fighting solely for the rights of its own community and ultimately, some claim, the establishment of an Islamic State.

Yet Hizbullah and their less disciplined allies, Amal - another Shia organisation - and the Syrian Socialist National Party took the fighting right to the heart of the overwhelmingly government-aligned Sunni areas. Government coalition political leaders such as Saad Hariri, son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and Walid Jumblant, a Druze leader, were besieged in their houses.

Almost immediately Sunni clerics were making embarrassing comparisons to Israel's occupation of Beirut in the early 1980s while the nation as a whole felt deceived by Hizbullah's vow never to turn its weapons on the Lebanese. But having so swiftly defeated their political enemies, Hizbullah seemed unsure as to what to do with their new occupation.

No sooner had their control been established than they packed up and left once the government started making conciliatory statements on their two provocative declarations. Shops and bars are open again and it looks pretty much like business as usual.

PERHAPS Hizbullah's intention was simply to make a point and push the government into a corner but the result belies the dilemma that Hizbullah find themselves in - even though they hold the upper hand militarily, they cannot put it to good use without alienating the Lebanese and taking the nation dangerously close to a civil war for which no one has the appetite.

Although Hizbullah's well-trained guerrillas carried out the bulk of the heavy fighting, their allies subsequently took over the streets, leaving a motley occupation of poorly disciplined youths. In some instances they proceeded to vandalise property, set cars alight and hang pictures of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad in their newly conquered territory.

In the short term, although Hizbullah may have strengthened their hand at the negotiating table - in this latest round of talks in Qatar they got the number of cabinet seats and the veto that they wanted - the long term could be very different. There is strong pressure from within Sunni communities, many of whom feel humiliated by their defeat and abandoned by their leaders, to bolster their military capacity in preparation for possible further fighting.

Although the combat was short-lived, both sides were guilty of atrocities, including executions and mutilating corpses, so in some circles there is an intense craving for revenge.

Worse still, elements of Sunni communities may be tempted to turn to militant Sunni Jihadist extremists to do their bidding for them - there is no love lost between Hizbullah and such organisations, they espouse different versions of Islam. It is already speculated that the emergence of the Sunni extremist group, Fatah Al Islam, in northern Lebanon in 2006 was not a coincidence. It may have been funded by influential Sunnis with the eventual aim of countering Hizbullah's strength.

The one saving grace of the recent clashes has been that both the Christians and the army stayed out of the fray. Hizbullah were careful to leave Christian areas almost entirely untouched, in part so as not to jeopardise their alliance with Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. This left Beirut bizarrely divided with the Christian areas carrying on almost with life as normal while West Beirut and mixed Sunni-Shia areas descended into chaos.

Even without Christian involvement, the battles took on a sectarian nature, fighting being largely Sunni-Shia or Druze-Shia with some infighting among the Druze. Nasrallah and his Christian ally, Michel Aoun, are insistent that the confrontations were a simple matter of politics - government on one side, opposition on the other. However, Lebanon's problem is that all politics is sectarian: each of the major parties are rooted in distinct religious groups.

DOUBTLESS Hizbullah took advantage of their true enemy's preoccupation with the celebrations of its 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. Many consider that the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah is still without conclusion and it is questionable that Hizbullah could have asserted itself so strongly with a threat of military action from Israel. There are still right-wing Christian factions in Lebanon who would rather ally with Israel than see Hizbullah assume any more power.

Lebanon's feuding pro and anti government camps have reached an agreement in Qatar over several of the main stumbling blocks, including the formation of a national unity government which should lead to the parliamentary election of a new president.

Although the Qatar talks have brought more agreement than was expected, no amount of talking will make Lebanon's convoluted mix of peoples, religions, politics and external influences any more intelligible or less volatile. Unfortunately, there is still much ground to bridge between the nation's two political blocks and a great deal of healing to be done after the outbreak of fighting.

* Adam Pletts is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Beirut. He grew up in Barnard Castle, County Durham, where he went to Teesdale School. www.adampletts.com