Lebanon unrest widens amid government, Hezbollah tensions

A strike originally called over high food prices and low wages spirals into confrontation and violence.

By Julien Spencer

from the May 9, 2008 edition

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has provoked a deepening crisis with the Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah by targeting its security apparatus and an alleged spy network through Lebanon. Mr. Siniora's assertive stand led to violent clashes Wednesday as a general strike ostensibly targeting poor economic conditions was overwhelmed by political divisions, plunging the country into further violence.

The Times of London reports:

Gun battles erupted on the streets of Beirut yesterday as a general strike turned into a violent confrontation between the Government and the opposition, led by the militant Shia group Hezbollah.

The rattle of automatic weapons and the crump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades echoed around the streets of the Lebanese capital as thick plumes of smoke rose from barricades of burning tyres.

In scenes grimly redolent of the 1975-1990 civil war, gunmen were seen inching down empty streets and firing rifles at windows to a backdrop of burning cars.

The political divide separates, on one side, Siniora's pro-Western government and a coalition of the mainly Sunni Muslim Future group, including the Druze Progressive Socialist Party; and the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah Party and alliance with the Shiite Amal Movement on the other, reports Reuters.

Initially, the general strike had been set to call for higher salaries as a result of rising food prices, and not as a continuation of the 17-month-long political conflict that has divided Lebanon between the pro-Western government and the opposition, says the blog Monsters and Critics:

The strike was called by the union to force the government to raise the monthly minimum wage which has been unchanged since 1996.

Although the cabinet on Tuesday agreed to a 130-dollar increase a month to 330 dollars, the General Confederation of Labour Unions said it was insufficient.

However, then came the telephone-network crisis, reports Time magazine:

Last weekend, Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon's Druze minority and an arch enemy of Hizballah, accused the militant Shi'ite party of maintaining its own private telephone network and of using security cameras to monitor Beirut airport with the possible aim of staging attacks or kidnappings. On Tuesday, the government followed up with an edict declaring Hizballah's telephone network "illegal and unconstitutional". It also launched an investigation into the alleged monitoring of the airport, and dismissed airport security chief General Wafiq Shuqeir, on suspicion of opposition sympathies.

Hezbollah responded angrily to these accusations, saying the attack represented the work of an "Israeli spy."

Clashes between government and opposition forces broke out and the trade unions canceled the strike as it became overwhelmed by political undertones, says the Los Angeles Times:

Tensions quickly took on a political character, with Sunni Muslim backers of the government and Shiite Muslim opposition supporters amassing in their respective neighborhoods and hurling stones at each other. Gunfire erupted in mixed Shiite-Sunni districts. Armed fighters with the Hezbollah-aligned Amal movement and the pro-government Future Movement stood on the corners of empty streets.

The Kuwait Times reports that political divisions also manifested themselves along sectarian lines, provoking a response from the head of the Sunni community in Lebanon:

Sunni Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rachid Kabbani denounced the actions of "outlawed armed gangs" in Beirut and said Hezbollah had now transformed itself from a resistance movement to an armed force to occupy Beirut. "The Sunni Muslims in Lebanon are fed up," he said in a televised address to the Lebanese.

According to analysts, the Siniora government's decision to move directly on Hezbollah assets marks a new tone in the ongoing crisis. "The Lebanese government has decided to throw down the gauntlet to the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, in a bid to crackdown on the group's mushrooming state-within-a-state activities," reports Voice of America.

In an opinion piece, Beirut's pan-Arab daily Dar Al-Hayat says the move against Hezbollah is unprecedented:

Consequently, amidst the deep-seated conviction that it has become impossible to elect a consensus president, the government has moved from running state affairs to standing up to fundamental issues confronting the state. Among these issues is Hezbollah's expanding infrastructure all over Lebanon, which virtually ends the phase of coexistence between the state and the party, as has been the case since the Taef Accord. When the government decides to refer to justice all individuals and entities involved in Hezbollah's telecommunications network, this does not imply the forcible execution of this decision, especially since force is not an option anyway. Rather, it consecrates and preserves the exclusive right of the Lebanese state to exercise sovereignty over Lebanese territories, a right that Hezbollah no longer recognizes, as the militant group openly links its expansion within Lebanese regions - whether inhabited by Shiite residents or supporters of its allies - to the security of the resistance against Israel.

Observers now worry that the situation might spiral out of control, says The Times of London:

"This is a turning point. There can be no more cohabitation between the Government and the opposition. All trust is gone," said Amal Saad Ghorayeb, a Lebanese political analyst and expert on Hezbollah.

Reports suggest Hezbollah fighters are planting themselves in Beirut for the long haul after the group announced that street action would continue unless the government stopped its investigation into its telecommunications network and reinstated General Shuqeir.