Lebanon: brimming with hope and anguished by its past

A mere two-day visit to Lebanon is far from enough to turn me into a specialist Lebanon- watcher. Even though I have done a fair amount of background reading on the subject by going through such contemporary classics of modern-day investigative journalism as Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon and Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem, which have hardly dated despite the passage of time since they were first published.

Beirut is no longer the kind of place where you risk being sniped at any minute or kidnapped without knowing why or who the abductors are, but there is still a sense of insecurity, particularly since there have been sporadic but regular killings and bombings at the rate of almost one a month since Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was brutally murdered in 2004.

Some of the ministers and political figures I met hardly leave their residences, preferring to operate from their lavish villas, which are surrounded by their own heavily armed private militias.

Security in the capital is conspicuous without being over the top.

While I was in Beirut, the Brammertz interim report on Hariri's killing was presented to the UN Security Council. It pleased Beirut and Damascus too, while the Americans argued that it did not give the Syrians such a clean sheet as originally implied.

On their part the Lebanese government praised Brammertz's work for its 'impartiality' - according to a statement released by PM Fouad Siniora.

Although Syria claimed to be satisfied with the report 'in principle', a newspaper close to the Baath Party quoted Syrian officials as stating that they were looking over it carefully before making final remarks.

The confessional system in which Lebanon's various religious and ethnic groups and sects operate together requires deep probing before one can really understand its mechanics.

Imagine a government which has Hizbollah in the Cabinet and which at the same time operates and speaks almost as if it is an Opposition party.

I must confess that all the parties I met seemed eager to convey their point of view on the internal situation in their country as well as on the deteriorating developments in the Middle East.

It was through one of these meetings that I came to learn - something which eventually turned up in the international press - that Israel was providing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with arms because in Israeli PM Olmert's opinion time was running out and Abbas needed to be shored up.

Acting Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat, with whom I had lunch, had just held an important press conference where he cleared the air about allegations that the government was disregarding the February 5 and June 1 riots which primarily targeted Christians in Lebanon. He flatly denied that his ministry had attempted to 'bury' these incidents almost as if they had not happened.

The general feeling I had about Lebanon's economy is that there is not sufficient willpower to apply the bitter medicine that the IMF and the World Bank are recommending for fear of turning public opinion against them and consequently destabilising a government that many consider to be still experiencing a period of transition.

If there is one sector that is looking up it is the tourism sector, which although attracting a number of European visitors thrives particularly on Arab tourism as can be gauged from the patrons who flock to most of the higher bracket tourist properties that dot the capital's La Corniche.

While I was in Beirut much song and dance was made of the fact that the Tourism Ministry had just unveiled a new official Website as part of its campaign to attract more visitors to the country and boost one of the economy's most promising growth sectors.

Although transparency was never Lebanon's forte, the spirit of corporate governance is gradually taking over in the business and administrative sectors. It remains an uphill struggle but things are moving in the right direction.

At least they now have a first code of corporate governance which was released by an institution called the Lebanese Transparency Association to encourage companies to adopt a set of standards and practices that could improve their performance, competitiveness, access to foreign markets and diverse forms of capital.

What struck me most about this code is that it also caters for family-owned enterprises which makes most sense in Lebanon since the majority of businesses in the country are actually family-owned.

The Lebanese have a very good stock of politicians who have a sound educational background while a number of them have been carrying on where their fathers and forefathers left off. Family ties in politics count a lot as could be seen from the Phalange Party activists I met where young Pierre Gemayel operates alongside his mother in what was always a family-owned movement.

It is difficult to judge the ongoing national dialogue between the country's major forces. While some argue that it is a way forward, others consider it to be an entire wish-list which hardly stands much chance of being implemented in view of the consensual approach they try to achieve when reaching certain pivotal decisions. Meanwhile, the spectre of Syria continues to hover over the country.

While some argue that every effort should be made to strengthen links with Lebanon's neighbour now that it has pulled its troops out, others are still wary of its true intentions.

The news that the Israelis had hatched a terror network to destabilise the country shocked most people, although I cannot confirm or deny the accuracy of such a finding.

What is sure is that many politicians fear that plots are afoot to stir sectarian strife in Lebanon. It is for this reason that officials continue to call for adherence to the national dialogue's code of honour.

One of the latest rumours - apparently unfounded - was that secret plans were afoot to replace high-ranking Christian public servants with Muslims.

Practically every party is in the Cabinet except General Auon's.

And yet, although Hizbollah have called for a national unity government which should include all parties that operate within the political system, they made it clear that they did not intend to destabilise the government.

Others might argue differently since there are those who claim that there are plans to overthrow the Siniora cabinet, in most cases blaming in the most thinly-veiled manner the Hizbollah and the Phalange Party.

It would be unfair on Lebanon to try to compare it to a Western-style democracy particularly when they have some 19 religious sects and ethnic groupings, but on the other hand when bearing in mind the authoritarian manner in which certain other Arab states are run one simply has to admire the Lebanese way of doing business - including political business - working alongside each other while constantly engaging in public squabbles and often shifting loyalties so swiftly that you will hardly notice.

These are obviously superficial first impressions which might not withstand the test of time but it is a subject I intend to probe much more deeply as rapporteur of the Council of Europe.

Bearing in mind the desperate travails Lebanon experienced during the civil war one cannot but feel a high degree of sympathy, understanding and even affection for these people and their country - quirks, or should I say warts, and all!

leo.brincat@gov.mt

Leo Brincat, the Opposition foreign affairs and IT spokesman, is the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly's Rapporteur for Lebanon.