Tripoli Sieges of '83 and '07

At a center distributing food to Palestinians who fled the fighting at the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli today, I came across an old guerrilla commander named Abu Wael. His parents fled Palestine as refugees in 1948 and he was born in Tripoli two years later. He became a member of a small faction called the Arab LIberation Front in the years that the PLO was a state-within-a-state in Lebanon. In a somewhat jaunty felt cap, sport jacket and loafers, he's now a kind of elder statesman in a camp teeming with young hotheads in t-shirts and tatoos.

We talked about the last time Nahr el Bared was under fire, for six weeks at the end of 1983. Then, the deadly fire was coming from positions controlled by the Syrian army and Syrian-backed rebels trying to oust Yasser Arafat as the leader of the PLO's dominant faction, Fatah. Abu Wael's group fought on Arafat's side. After Arafat's loyalists fled the Nahr al-Bared and neighboring Baddawi refugee camps and eventually sailed out of Tripoli, Abu Wael told me, the Syrian-backed factions kept him under effective house arrest for the next 10 years. As a reporter in Tripoli during the earlier siege, my main recollections are of Arafat deputy Abu Jihad's almost hysterical anger at Syria and of the horrendous, city-wide civilian casualties.

Mural on the side of a building in the Baddawi refugee camp, near Tripoli

Not to minimize the current tragic suffering and political crisis in any way, but it's useful to keep in mind where Lebanon has come in 24 years. Syria's victory over Arafat in 1983 amounted to a key step in the Assad regime's efforts to consolidate Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. A few months later, Syria succeeded in foiling a U.S.-led effort to force out Syria's troops and end Lebanon's civil war. Syria reached the peak of its control in 2004. That was when, four years after its ally Hizballah ended Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon, Damascus managed to extend the presidential term of ally Emile Lahoud over the strong objections even of factions, including that of then-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, that were friendly to Syria at the time.

Today, Syria's 40,000 troops are out of Lebanon, thanks to the "Cedar Revolution" that saw some 1 million people including most Lebanese factions take to the streets in favor of Lebanese independence. Despite some simmering Sunni-Shiite tensions, all major Lebanese groups remain committed to the Taif Accords that disbanded the sectarian militias which predominated during the civil war years. Meanwhile, an international tribunal established by the U.N. this week may prosecute Syrian officials for Hariri's 2005 assassination; a preliminary U.N. investigative report implicated Syrian officials in the crime.

In pushing for the tribunal as well as in sending the army after the Fatah al-Islam faction in Nahr al-Bared, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has stood up strongly for the rule of law in Lebanon. That has taken courage, especially considering what Siniora told me this week, that he believes Syria is still threatening and trying to intimidate Lebanon. Although Siniora's opponents have criticized his decision to send the army into Nahr al-Bared after Fatah al-Islam's Jordanian-born leader Shaker al-Absi and 200 fighters from around the Islamic world, it is noteworthy that all Lebanese factions have expressed strong support for the army as the defender of Lebanese internal security and symbol of Lebanese sovereignty. Lebanon still has a long way to go, but Siniora's actions are an important step away from militia rule in the direction of a free and democratic Lebanon.

Abu Wael, by the way, pointed out an important difference between the 1983 and 2007 attacks on Nahr al-Bared. Syria's bombardment represented an assault on Arafat's "legitimate Palestinian authority" that happened to take place on Lebanese soil. More than 700 people were killed in the massive bombardments, incidentally, compared to about 100, mainly militants and soldiers thus far, during the current two-week siege. This time, the Lebanese army is not attacking the Palestinian political authority, or even the Palestinian camps per se, even if some refugees are being caught in the crossfire. As Abu Wael said, although he is not happy about the situation, the Lebanese government and the army are determined to eliminate a fringe group that has nothing to do with Palestinians. Instead, Fatah al-Islam has loose Al Qaeda connections and what Siniora alleges is a clear link to Syrian intelligence. "The camp is being shelled, but it's not for the same reason," Abu Wael told me. "Shaker al-Absi doesn't represent anything."

--By Scott MacLeod/Tripoli