A weekend in Beirut

Last weekend saw a trip the National Museum of Beirut, which is something I have wanted to see for a while, partly because of its incredible collection of items mapping the history of Lebanon from pre-phoenician to only a few centuries ago, But mostly due to its position in the modern history of Beirut, where during the civil war it sat on the front line between two halves of a divided city. Located on the division between east and west Beirut it experienced some of the heaviest fighting of conflict and was at risk of looting. The Museum has an excellent short documentary telling the story of how the Museum's staff in order to try and protect the history of Lebanon moved thousands of artifacts into the underground storerooms as well encasing sarcophagi and statues in boxes of concrete to protect them. The documentary has some incredible footage of workmen breaking open these cube's of concrete after the ceasefire to reveal pieces of history not seen for a decade and a half.

This clever thinking by those in charge of the Museum at the outbreak of civil war arguably prevented looting like that of Baghdad's Museums in 2003. The Museum has been painstakingly restored during the 1990's and is once again a beautiful building where you can see clues to the different civilisations that have influenced the development of the people living in modern Lebanon, from Greek and Egyptian to the first Islamic peoples coming from the East.

After a trip to the museum, we went shopping at a market close to the Museum, which was an interesting experience, You could buy pretty much anything you can imagine there, from food and drink, to shoes, or parts of taps. As well as on one side of the market a section dedicated entirely to animals.

Friday, could it be a turning point?

Another friday and another wave of protests in the Middle East with numerous issues yet to be answered, Is the Syrian regime wobbling? Can the opposition continue to get huge numbers of people onto the Streets and will protests in Bahrain continue to be largely ignored? We have been hearing rumours that Bashar will make a speech in the near future, but what he will say is a mystery, I can't see anything more than small reforms and a continuing hardening of the regime's line which is currently completely focused on survival.

We have seen troops storm Jisr Al Shughour and then spread around the north village by village attempting to 'restore calm' and has called on refugees to return home from Turkey, although security forces have reportedly arrested all men when Syrians have returned to their homes. We have been thinking for weeks that each friday could be a turning point where the security forces and the Shabeeha will be unable to control protests and perhaps army units will defect on mass. Yet this has not happened and it seems to be down to which side can keep it up longer.  The fate of the regime is dependent upon whether the protestors can out last the security forces and the regime falls, perhaps due to the stalling economy and splits in the security forces.

We can see the hand of Syria in pushing Lebanon into forming a government, as they really need at least one friendly local government as Turkey's rhetoric has become increasingly hostile to the actions of the regime. We have seen Walid Joumblatt and other Lebanese politicians arguing that the world should leave Syria to fix its own problems and allow Bashar to implement reforms. If the Syrian regime does fall it will be interesting to see how the new government in Lebanon continues while chaos reigns in its neighbour. Some commentators have argued that Bashar will try to incite violence in Lebanon to distract from Syria's problems and reinforce his argument that only he can hold Syria's sectarian balance in place.

This does not seem to be happening yet, Beirut at least does not feel tense at the moment but it will crucial how the government handles the results of expected indictments after the investigation into the death of former prime minister Hariri and how the government will manage to please all of those international actors like Saudi Arabia and the USA who have backed factions and have an interest in the country.

Beirut has continued to be beautiful in summer sunshine if blighted by awful traffic. The food is great, and i seem to have gained a few kilo's after a few weeks here, the cakes from the north especially are great ( see picture below) and eating out is affordable enough to do regularly! Today is another day in the office trying to examine the youtube video's and other statements coming out of Syria to try and establish whether the opposition or the regime will gain the upper hand today.

Lebanon has a government!

After much bargaining and negotiations it seems that just maybe Lebanon might have a government again, with a cabinet of 30 being announced today. Although one member of the new cabinet (Talal Arslan leader of the LDP) has already refused to participate as he isn't happy with his position with his supporters reportedly blocking roads in protest. He would prefer a more senior position with control over a bigger Ministry and perhaps more opportunities to dole out patronage and to privilege his support base and in a press conference as I type is saying that he was not willing to take such a low position.

This could bring to an end months of uncertainty since the previous Hariri government was forced into collapse and we now see a situation with roughly twenty in the Hezbollah bloc and ten in the so called 'middle' bloc which is designed to prevent any radical decisions being made. Due to the particular oddities of Lebanese politics the positions are spread in a specific way to balance the different religious and political groupings with the Maronite christians retaining key ministries and Hezbollah keeping a low profile and only officially holding 2 relatively minor Ministries while continuing to wield a large amount of influence.

The consequences are difficult to see in the short term, as its hard to see any big changes being made by this new Government and it will be interesting to see if the Hezbollah position changes with the continuing situation in Syria.

Things are still relatively quiet in Beirut after the madness of friday, although things are still proceeding apace in Syria where the army seems to be in control of pretty much the whole area around Jisr Al-Shughour and has according to Syrian State TV been unearthing mass graves of security forces. Rumours coming out of the north of the country on Saturday indicated that the army was pursuing a scorched earth policy and burning crops and houses in villages around Jisr Al-Shughour. Still with the few independent journalists in the country embedded with the army and not allowed to report freely it is pretty impossible to know exactly what is going on.

With not much news to report on yesterday we went out to a friends place in the afternoon to help cook a large Lebanese meal for a big crowd at a place called Zico House (http://www.zicohouse.org/) for an evening of drums and good food! Pictures will follow when I get home from work! It was a lot of fun if pretty tiring cooking for around 70 people! The coming week will probably contain uncertainty if the government will hold after the first person refused to participate and whether more will follow or a replacement can be quickly found. It will also be a week of continued focus on Syria as it remains to be seen if the army can continue to move around the country putting down protests after the huge protests and bloody crackdown on friday.

Friday protests

Today has been a weird day in the office, we were expecting heavy protests as well as the culmination in the army movement towards Jisr Al-Shughour, so there would be a lot to report on and we would end up doing a lot of lives back to London. Syria saw some of the biggest protests of the uprising so far with by some counts 14 separate protests in Damascus alone, with many more spread across the country from east to west and north to south. Many of these protests, which by and large seem to be peaceful were broken up by force. First with tear gas and rocks and then in the cases of Latakkia and Qaboun a Damascus Suburb more violently with youtube video's popping up late afternoon to show us the results, some in particularly gruesome ways. It has been a difficult day of trawling through hours of youtube footage to try to work out where protests where occurring, roughly how many at each and how the security forces where reacting. The result is that we are pretty sure that at least 22 protestors are dead, and we have seen video's of 5 or 6 of them, and many more wounded all suffering from gunshot wounds.

There have been continuing protests in Deraa which saw some of the first protests against the regime and the town has been continuously surrounded by tanks and security forces, some of which pushed into the town to try and halt protests today. Interestingly there have been further reports of defections in the city, and infighting between different elements of the security forces, this is unfortunately impossible to confirm and no video has emerged to prove anything.

The big event of the day, and the focus of protestors chants has been the town of Jisr Al-Shughour in the north east of Syria and only a few miles from the Turkish border, we have seen videos purporting to be tanks, armoured vehicles and vans of soldiers slowly surrounding the town today, and as I type Syrian State TV is reporting that they have broken into the city. During the day they have been moving town by town to 'clear terrorists and rebels who massacred security forces and to bring order back to the towns for the people'. Whether or not we believe the motives of the regime it seems to be the case that around 15,000 soldiers backed by tanks are in the area and gun battles have been fought in surrounding towns. Two narratives are again emerging, the regime one where the security forces are ambushed by insurgents and the opposition narrative that some elements of the security forces have become tired of being ordered to fire on protestors and fighting against other elements of the security forces.

The third angle is that being pushed by the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/jun/10/syria-libya-middle-east-unrest-live) is that refugees fleeing across the Turkish Border have reported that the security forces were joined last saturday by 'bearded men who did not speak arabic' and it was this that caused the defections. Most sources seem to be skeptical of this as there is no firm evidence yet and stories like this often emerge from conflict zones.

This clearly then has to be a critical phase in the uprising, how long will the army be able to move up and down the country suppressing protests before mass defections occur and there simply are not enough security forces to control the large numbers of protests. This will be a crucial weekend, with heavy fighting in the north, possibly again protestors who have taken up arms and it is possible that tomorrow the death toll will dramatically rise. The regime may still survive this, but Bashar's grip on power is not as strong as it was and tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Syrians continue to brave his crackdowns and come out to protest. The question, is then who can last the longest? The protestors or the security forces?

It has been a difficult day to cover and watch the video's coming out of Syria and I can't help but be amazed at how the protestors have continued to protest peacefully after months of brutal crackdowns and it has been hard to watch some of the video's emerging late this afternoon and this evening. The video I have embedded below shows the 'Shabiha' which are the regime's thugs which are not the army, but have been crucial in putting down protests around the country, the video shows them moving down the street in Damascus and I hope it gives you an idea of what the protestors face.

Syria and other things

I've been here in Lebanon for almost a week now, and its starting to get busy here. Syria is back into the news with reports of clashes in the town of Jisr Al-Shughour near the Turkish border. Syrian State TV is claiming that 'terrorists' murdered 120 members of the security forces. Youtube footage emerged yesterday of piles of bodies lying on the road in a mix of security uniforms while those filming gloated, this was soon picked up and played multiple times by state TV as proof of their version of events.

In contrast the opposition groups have said that any violence that occurred was not them and was instead mutineers in the army who refused to shoot protestors and fought against other elements of the security forces.  Other versions of events have emerged but it seems impossible to be sure of what actually happened other than the fact that protests have been violently suppressed with many civilian casualties and it seems to be the case that some in the opposition have taken up arms to defend their town. The footage of the casualties does not fit the mutiny theory and it does seem to be the case that someone ambushed the security forces who died, although we only saw 10-15 bodies.

As a result we are hearing reports that the army is massing in nearby towns to retake the town. Refugees are fleeing Jisr Al-Shughour over the Turkish border, we've seen many videos appear on youtube of those fleeing and it seems to be the case that the men are settling their families over the border and then returning to defend the town. If this is the case when the army chooses its moment to strike then we could see some of the fiercest confrontation of the Syrian uprising so far. Quite how far the army will go in enforcing its orders is as yet unclear as rumours of mutinies are still coming out of the country.

Today has been more quiet than yesterday in the office, perhaps the calm before the storm, and the last two days have been spent trawling through youtube footage and facebook pages to try and get an accurate idea of the situation as it unfolds.

Arab revolutions roll on

So Saleh has left Yemen to have medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, presumably in a condo with Ben Ali and is having the shrapnel removed from his chest, the question is then, will he be able to return, or indeed want to return to Yemen.

There are confused reports coming out the country, but it seems that the vice president has taken control and a fragile cease fire seems to be holding. It is definitely still too early to call it a revolution, i think there are three possible outcomes. Firstly that Saleh has the medical treatment and then returns to yemen and retakes control (probably brutally) and either the country slips back towards a 1990's civil war rerun or the opposition forces him out. The second possible option is that he stays in Saudi but that someone close to him, an advisor, son or someone from the military takes over, similar to how Mubarak was trying to position a successor in Egypt, this similarly could end badly as the opposition and powerful figures in the country seem determined to see the end of this regime and those associated with it. The third option is some kind of negotiated transfer of power, mediated by the west or other Gulf countries.

Aside from the irony of trying to set up a democratic transition with the the help of the GCC countries, it seems difficult to envisage that those around Saleh who have benefitted under his rule, becoming rich and influential will allow any kind of democratic transition which could risk them losing their privileged position. I think it is perhaps similar to the situation in Syria where perhaps 100,000-500,000 crucial people believe that they are better off while the regime continues, while these people side with the regime it is difficult to see change. This factor is more crucial in Syria where the state is built around the regime but still i think it is difficult to envisage the regime handing over power easily.

All anyone outside of Yemen can do is to pressure the regime wherever possible, and offer support to incentivise change and to mediate wherever required and hope. However much we see the 'Arab Spring' faltering in Libya, Syria and Yemen it is important to recognise how far things have come, and how things are being debated in Egypt which were barely imagined 10 years ago.

Lebanon

I've been in Lebanon since late Thursday evening, first impressions of Beirut, its an incredibly busy city, with a lot of ostentatious displays of wealth, there are many people with a lot of money and they want you to know it, the streets are lined with imported Range Rovers and BMWs with their windows tinted. Downtown you can purchase Chanel and any other fashion brand, in some aspects the city is like Paris or London, yet it is different, armoured personnel carriers guard potential flash-points and the atmosphere can change dramatically when you cross a main road, on this side there are no adverts for La Senza and there is less of a sense that everyone has plenty of cash and is willing to spend it.

Part of my reason for being in lebanon is to get some anecdotes and background research for my thesis, I want to counter the traditional view (at least in academia) that the Lebanese state is somewhat of a myth, a set of territorial boundaries and a seat at the UN. I'm hoping to show that by locating state power through networks and the use of particular Ministries or reconstruction projects that illustrate why particular parties or groups want to control them, just the small matter of tracking down some data.

on a more casual note, we went to Tyr (Sur) for the weekend and sat on the beach and relaxed and enjoyed the warm weather and lovely sea and sunset and indulged in plenty of photo taking