A decision more embarrassing than it appears. On Wednesday, April 29, by ordering the release of four Lebanese generals detained in Roumieh prison, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) paradoxically raised more questions in the Land of the Cedar than it provided answers. Imprisoned since September 2005 as part of the international investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, and considered pro-Syrian, the generals Jamil el-Sayed, Raymond Azar, Salah El-Hajj, and Mustapha Hamdane were at the helm of various Lebanese security services at the time of the attack perpetrated on February 14, 2005, in Beirut.
This release occurs amid the election campaign for the legislative elections whose results, next June 7th, are expected to be close. Despite the lack of polling institutes with reliable methods, many assessments currently give a slight advantage to the March 8 Forces, a pro-Syrian alliance consisting of the Amal movement, General Aoun’s Christians, and Hezbollah supporters. For both groups, the decision by prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, who had to admit to insufficient evidence to charge the four men, thus has symbolic value. It’s a double-edged sword.
Irreducible opponents to Syria, the leaders of March 14 initially tried to erase their obvious embarrassment by welcoming a decision that showed the “political impartiality” of the STL. An attitude meant to force the hand of Hezbollah officials who display recurring mistrust against a structure whose creation, inspired by France and the United States, aims, in their view, to implicate their Syrian ally. But the conditions under which this release took place also benefited the coalition led by Saad Hariri: the multiple vindictive declarations, just out of prison, by General Jamil El-Sayed painfully revived among many Lebanese the memories of the dark hours experienced during the 30 years of Syrian occupation. A period a majority of the population, including many Shiites, no longer want to discuss. It even provoked a knee-jerk reaction from Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, effectively tightening a March 14 coalition threatened by an inexorable process of dilution: “they will not pass.”
Conversely, Hezbollah leaders quickly moved from delirious enthusiasm to the most cautious of prudence: several deputies of the Party of God had valiantly supported the senior officers, even occasionally playing their “bodyguards” in an eager crowd. This newfound enthusiasm about the “credibility of the STL” was abruptly dampened a few hours later by an intervention from Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, refusing to give the Tribunal any “carte blanche.” Within Hezbollah, there is fear of a potential “political deal” regarding the STL between Syria and the Western powers, led by the United States, and whose price would likely be very high in terms of leeway for Shiite militants.
In both camps, no one forgets, moreover, the tragic fate of senior Syrian officers, reputed close to power and who were likely to be cited in this case. “The release of the Generals is not necessarily the best gift we could give them,” one could hear these days in the corridors of power in Beirut. “They will probably be the subject of all attentions, both good and bad,” it was added. As for this former member of the Lebanese security services, he wonders: “What was the point of giving the Mehlis Commission kilometers of telephone tapping tapes?”
Despite its willingness to operate transparently and purely by law, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is not done, as we see, being the object of all speculation.
