Beirut celebrates Assad's ouster despite future uncertainty
Lebanon reflects on the sudden collapse of the Damascus regime. Many Lebanese and displaced Syrians celebrate the day as a historic and decisive event for the future. The fear of a new tyranny to replace the one that has just been overthrown alternates with the hope for a democratic and coexisting Syria. Hezbollah has lost a powerful ally but this does not necessarily lead to a softening of its positions.
Beirut (AsiaNews) - ‘Justice is finally done!’. Those who believe in the power of prayer could not help but think on Sunday 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, that diligent prayers and the hand of God played a role in the sudden fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. The immense happiness caused by the collapse, after years of suffering, of the tyrant of Damascus - a fall that some have compared to that of the Soviet Union - was proportional to the state terrorism he practised in Lebanon since the mid-1970s and for almost 40 years.
Victims of the Assads
Indeed, the ousting of a dynasty of tyrants of unimaginable sadism and Machiavellianism prompted the Christian, Druze and Sunni political classes to go to the graves of their great victims from the very beginning. Prime Minister Nagib Mikati and the two former Sunni prime ministers Fouad Siniora and Tammam Salam visited, paying homage, the grave of Rafic Hariri, in the centre of Beirut, killed by the explosion of a ‘van’ loaded with 1,000 kg of explosives (2005). An occasion to recite the ‘fatiha’, the first sūra of the Koran and the essence of the book sacred to Muslims.
In the Druze mountains, a crowd paid homage to the grave of Kamal Joumblatt, who was shot dead in his car on the Chouf peaks in 1977; at the same time, Kataëb party leader Samy Gemayel and his father, former president Amine Gemayel, together with his widow Solange Gemayel laid flowers on the grave of President Bachir Gemayel. A figure still alive in the memory of the Lebanese, buried under the rubble of his party headquarters by an explosive charge a few days after his election (1982), along with his brother Pierre Gemayel, killed at point-blank range in an ambush in Beirut, and all the ‘martyrs’ of the Christian faction. In Zghorta, North Lebanon, MP Michel Mouawad and his mother Nayla paid homage at the grave of the newly elected President of the Republic René Mouawad, who was killed in a car bomb attack on 22 November 1989, Lebanese Independence Day.
In the media, the list of victims of the Syrian regime - political personalities and leaders, journalists and writers, religious and military figures, not to mention the ‘disappeared’ whose relatives are still looking for them - has grown longer and longer. The scenes of jubilation that began in the night continued throughout the day from Akkar to Saïda, and in Tripoli in particular, with cries of ‘Allahou Akbar’. Deafening gunfire, honking and revolutionary chants ensued, bringing together the population and many Syrian migrants fearful of returning to their country and falling into the clutches of the regime's henchmen.
In Halba, Akkar, some young men forced open the door of the local office of the Syrian Baath Party and vandalised furniture and documents. Near the Masnaa border crossing, two Syrians with opposite fates crossed paths: one was trying to return to his country after years of exile, the other was fleeing the inauspicious fate that could befall him after the fall of Assad.
Incalculable repercussions
In political terms, the fall of Bashar al-Assad had incalculable repercussions for Lebanon. The collapse of the regime triggered an extraordinary flow of Syrian families returning home, after having fled in the past for fear of revenge from the men in power, rampant poverty in Syria and compulsory conscription into the army. Moreover, it is widely believed that the fall of Assad, with the disappearance of purely political obstacles, has encouraged hundreds of thousands of refugees to return to their country of origin, thus reducing the burden their presence represented for Lebanon. Moreover, the fall of the Syrian regime, following the ceasefire and the agreement on the implementation of Resolution 1701, should further weaken Hezbollah. However, it is not certain that this weakening will be reflected in a softening of the ‘Party of God’, whose disarmament is provided for in Resolution 1701.
In any case, Hezbollah has lost a powerful ally and has been territorially cut off from its source of arms and money supply. Incidentally, the Lebanon-Israel-Unifil-France-United States Ceasefire Oversight Committee, chaired by a Centcom officer, General Jasper Jeffers, met for the first time yesterday; a date charged with significance, from which the Jewish State's army must begin to consider its withdrawal from Lebanon, which it has not yet begun.
On the domestic front, current interim Prime Minister Nagib Mikati announced that a commission will contact the new Syrian authorities to obtain a list of political prisoners released from the regime's various jails. The hope is to find some of them still alive or, at least, to ascertain their deaths. For their part, the parties that defend Lebanon's sovereignty, such as the Lebanese Forces and the Kataëb, have called for the abrogation of the Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination imposed by Damascus on Lebanon (22 May 1991) and the coordination commission attached to it.
An uncertain future
An episcopal source also spoke on the collapse of the Assad regime in Lebanon. ‘The Lebanese are happy to be rid of an oppressive regime that made us live under its yoke,’ a Maronite bishop told AsiaNews on condition of anonymity. The prelate also pointed out that he was speaking not on behalf of the Church, but rather as a Lebanese citizen. ‘However,’ he continued, ‘one must know what comes next. The rebel groups are heterogeneous. It is in their interest to present themselves as moderates and thus win public opinion. But they could be wolves disguised as lambs. We do not want one tyranny to replace another in Syria. Let us wait and see'.
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