The situation borders on surrealism… and a form of schizophrenia. On one side of the Mediterranean, the Paris III International Conference on support for Lebanon managed, thanks to President Chirac’s determination, to gather over 6 billion dollars in contributions. At Paris’ insistence, the substantial commitments from Riyadh and Washington in turn sparked the endorsement of an impressive number of European states, Gulf monarchies, and international financial institutions. On the other hand, images show the explosion of armed violence among young Shiites and Sunnis in the suburbs of Beirut. Students shooting at others with machine guns as in the worst times of the Lebanese civil war or mimicking the more recent clashes between rival Palestinian militias.
One would like to join the voices of the optimists who rejoice at such sustained involvement from all “friends of Lebanon.” However, caution must still be exercised.
Firstly, due to the actions of those for whom, within the Cedar country, a calming of the situation would not serve their immediate interests. Bekaa MP and Hezbollah member Hussein Hajj Hassan publicly rejected aid which he claimed was aimed at “the moderates” and was “accompanied by political conditions.” One might legitimately wonder if he has similar demands when receiving Iranian aid. Instead of calming things, one might equally fear that the high amount of donations or loans would stir up further greed. Just as it does not exclude significant work to accompany this allocation. The Association Agreement between the European Union and Lebanon, signed on April 22, 2002, resulted in similar disappointments. “Lebanon has not taken the measure of what is being offered to it,” had assessed Patrick Renauld, the European Union’s High Representative in Lebanon at the time. Brussels particularly insisted on the need not to reduce this agreement to a mere fiscal windfall allowing “oligarchic mechanisms to perpetuate.” This view was more diplomatically echoed by the French Ambassador at the traditional July 14 reception when he spoke of “a lack of interest, even a certain nonchalance” on the part of Lebanese authorities in realizing this agreement. All this is probably just history now. Let’s hope that Paris III will succeed where Paris I and Paris II failed. The financial mechanisms foreseen by previous arrangements clashed with Lebanese specificities. The two essential conditions, notably put forward by the IMF to support the first French initiatives, met fierce resistance: one can easily understand since it involves challenging two fundamental elements of the ongoing political and financial dynamics in the Cedar country. The first aims to “trim down the public sector.” This request directly touches the mechanisms of allegiance that allow the smooth functioning of cronyism through the allocation of positions or the placement of proteges by one clan or another of Lebanese. The second, the “devaluation of the Lebanese pound,” was at the time equally politically unacceptable. It would have undermined deposits in Lebanese pounds, the main savings of the less advantaged. It is likely that the implementation of these two measures remains extremely sensitive today. Will information and awareness campaigns to the public succeed in defusing eventual opposition to the reforms promised by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora during his appearance at Paris III?
All the participants at the conference agreed on the urgency of political stabilization of the country. The only way to achieve this would also be to take a lucid look at its modern history. In clear terms: to undertake a work of memory capable of once and for all cementing this national reconciliation that is so lacking. A major part of the political leaders fears confrontation with the perspective of their personal history. “A memory for the future” would provide answers to a question raised by children and adolescents but which in fact was posed by their parents: why a civil war and if there was a war, who won? The 100 million dollars that will soon be transferred by Israel to the President of the Palestinian Authority or the new budgets planned by the Bush plan to create local jobs directly recoverable by ordinary Iraqis speak volumes about the hopes placed by the Westerns in the capacities induced by their financial bounty. Young Iraqis, young Palestinians, or young Lebanese, is it reasonable to hope that their future still has a price?
