Introduction[1]

The killing of the former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri in a massive bomb blast on 14 February 2005 brought Lebanon international attention again almost to the date 30 years since the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war on 13 April 1975. The political fall-out of Hariri’s murder was severe and caused a political upheaval and massive public demonstrations. It also increased the international pressure on Syria, forcing it to comply with the UN Security Council resolution 1559 demanding a Syrian withdrawal. Rafiq Hariri was the personification of Lebanon’s post-war economic miracle and his death exposed the country’s inherent contradictions which the post-war era either had left unsolved or unexamined. The symbolical implications of Hariri’s murder were likewise daunting; killed in the fashionable financial district in downtown Beirut he had been the driving force in reconstructing, the emotional impact was felt across the country’s divided sectarian communities. Would Hariri’s murder open the scars from the war and lead to new outbreaks of violence or could the political system this time contain the brimming political crisis? Buried at the Martyrs’ Square outside a mosque he himself had funded, the late Hariri’s new public image as billionaire-turned­martyr was as contradictory as the country itself. The political stalemate following Hariri’s assassination pitted the country’s pro-Syrian government against the increasingly vocal opposition and both parties demonstrated their “street power” by staging massive grassroots demonstrations of a scale not previously seen in Lebanon. The “Cedar Revolution” in a dramatic way underlined Lebanon’s underlying divisions between those favouring Syrian suzerainty and those opposed to it. But it also underlined the country’s unity and the demand for “the truth” (Ar. al-haqiqa) behind Hariri’s assassination.

Civil war devastation

Lebanon’s weakness has traditionally been cast as a virtue – “Lebanon’s weakness is its strength” the saying goes – but behind this truism are lingering doubts about the future of the perhaps most fractured country in the Middle East. Lebanon is multi-religious state and home to eighteen different denominations (as well as about 350,000 Palestinian refugees) and the country’s ethnic and religious diversity belies its small size. Lebanon has for much of its short history as an independent country been politically unstable and only recently emerged from a devastating civil war that left the country in ruins, the economy in shambles and the populace traumatised. The fifteen-year long civil war (1975–90) was extremely bloody with atrocities and massacres committed by all sides to the conflict (Khalaf 2002). The civil war inflicted physical damages estimated at US$ 25 billion, more than halved the GDP and caused massive human suffering such as more than 100,000 deaths, displaced some 800,000 people and sped up the already large emigration from the country. The war was also very complex, involving many state and non-state actors which during the course of the war shifted their allegiance many times. The reasons behind the outbreak of the war have been debated and blamed on economic-(Makdisi and Sadaka 2002), political-(el Khazen 2000) , social-(Johnson 2001) and regional factors (O'Ballance 1998). There has been less attention to the post-war period and the peace accord, the Taif Agreement, which against large odds ended fifteen years of intense fighting and factional in-fighting that brought the country to its knees and added “Lebanonisation” to the political science terminology. The Lebanese peace treaty and post-war period have a number of unique features that make them important lessons for post-war reconstruction and peacebuilding, especially in multi-religious countries.[2] Thirty years after the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, such an exercise is not only important but timely.

From war to peace

Civil wars rarely end with negotiated settlements but the Lebanese civil war did (Walter 1997). Three peacekeeping missions were launched during the war, but neither of them was able to halt the violence. In 1976 the Syrian Army invaded Lebanon, a move later construed as an Arab peacekeeping force, the Arab Deterrent Force (ADF), but in reality the beginning of a Syrian occupation. In 1978 the United National Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was deployed in Southern Lebanon. One of the longest peacekeeping operations in UN-history its mandate (recently extended into 2005) only involved preventing incursions along the Israeli border. The second peacekeeping mission, the Multinational Force (MNF), consisting of US, France and Italian troops was deployed in September 1982. The mission was aborted less than two years later following a string of devastating suicide attacks. From then on, the civil war was allowed to run its course without any direct superpower intervention, although regional powers made repeated attempts at bringing the parties to the negotiating table.

The peace treaty that ended the war neither involved Western countries as a guarantor of peace nor or as key players in the peace talks. Instead, the peace treaty was based on an initiative from the Arab League which, bypassing Syria, created the Tripartite Arab High Commission comprising heads-of-state from Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Morocco (Maila 1994). The peace treaty was signed in October 1989 in Taif, Saudi Arabia (“Taif Agreement”) by surviving members of Lebanon’s 1972–76 parliament. The Taif Agreement demanded the demobilisation of all militias, a timetable for Syrian redeployment and subsequent withdrawal from Lebanon and political reform. The full name of the Taif Agreement, “Charter of National Reconciliation”, underlines that that its main purpose was to facilitate post-war reconciliation, heal war-time divisions and solve the most sensitive and intractable problems afflicting the country. In particular, the Taif Agreement included general principles for political and administrative reforms, the need for restoring Lebanon’s sovereignty, disbanding militias, liberating Lebanon from Israeli occupation and reiterating the paramount importance of Syria-Lebanese relations.

During the war, many elements of the Taif Agreement had been discussed and agreed to and the final document was the result incremental process that included meetings in Geneva (1983) and Damascus (1985), punctuated be repeated fighting that stopped the political process (Krayem 1997).[3] By 1989, many of the controversial sections of the Taif Agreement had been resolved (such as Lebanon’s Arab character) and in many ways the Agreement reaffirmed the principles of the National Pact of 1943 and turned it into a binding written agreement. The Taif Agreement was firm on some principled sections (parliamentary democracy, free economy), but despite specifying 31 constitutional amendments later signed into law, did not fundamentally alter the system of political confessionalism nor set a timetable for its abolition.[4] Nor was the planned administrative reform carried through and instead a parallel system of government was created tied to the prime minister’s office (ibid.).
However, the Taif Agreement redressed many of the imbalances that were inherent in the constitution. Importantly, the agreement ended the Maronite political dominance by curtailing the power of the Maronite reserved presidency (shifting the executive power to the Council of Ministers) as well as enlarged the number of deputies in the parliament and introduced a parity in parliamentary representation between Christians (64 deputies) and Muslims (64 deputies). Likewise, the position of prime minister, reserved for the Sunnis, was strengthened, as was the role of the speaker of the parliament (reserved for the Shia) whose term was extended from two to four years. These amendments created a new power troika consisting of the President of the Republic, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

Poverty and social exclusion

Poor countries are more likely to experience civil and inter-state war and reducing social inequality will reduce the risk of a post-war relapse of violence (Collier et al. 2003). The backdrop of contemporary poverty in Lebanon is the civil war and currently one third of the population is living below the poverty line (MoSA and UNDP 1998). Beirut has the largest share of poor people, about 25 per cent, most of them rural Shia migrants settled in the city.[5] Most of the poor reside in the Muslim dominated, rural periphery (Akkar, Bekaa and the South) as well as in the “misery belt” of southern Beirut. This means that although the country’s economy has recovered during the past decade, this has not benefited the poor. Lebanon is characterized by extremely low levels of social mobility (el Khoury and Panizza 2001: p. 13) and this may help explain why poverty is entrenched in the Muslim dominated rural regions and urban slums. There is a close link between poverty and unemployment. The official unemployment rate is only around eight percent, while the unofficial rate is close to 30 per cent (Nasr 2003).

During the post-war years, social inequality and poverty has increased and the middle class has been halved: from 1973 to 1999 the middle class was reduced from about 68 per cent of the population to only 29.3 per cent. During the same period the lower income groups increased from 22 percent to 61.9 percent. The higher income group was largely unaffected by these changes and still accounted for about 9 to 10 percent of the population (ibid.: p. 155). This development has served to polarise society and at the same time as the economic elite has tightened its grip on power. In line with neo-liberal economic policies, poverty is regarded as inevitable and state policies target the economy rather than social issues. In lieu of poverty reduction policies, the government expects poverty to be reduced by the “trickle -down effect” of economic growth. Partly for the same reason, there is no national health policy and health care is provided only through the private sector. There is a rudimentary public system subsidizing health care which covers about 50 per cent of the population, but no publicly funded social safety nets targeting poor or vulnerable groups (Nehme 1996). This means that the poor have to turn to their network of family or friends or sectarian charities.

Because of the problems of obtaining public goods and services, many rely on informal patron-client networks providing goods and services, socalled wasta, a system that is entrenched throughout the Middle East and in Lebanon as well (Huxley 1978). Being excluded from wasta means being cut-off from benefit streams (e.g., economic support for medical care) and services (e.g., getting a job), which poor households cannot otherwise access or afford. In pre-war Lebanon, the most common way of accessing wasta was by joining clientelistic networks controlled by an urban-based merchant elite of political leaders (Ar. za‘im, pl. zu‘ama) (Johnson 1985). The Sunni zu‘ama of Beirut offered help and services to families or individuals. In return for their help, their clients voted for them during the elections. In order to ensure that clients voted for their respective za‘im, as well as closed ranks behind him, the leaders had at their disposal strong-arm retainers (Ar. qabaday, pl. qabadayat) whose main job was to recruit and control the za‘im’s clientele (Johnson 1996).

The civil war disrupted these networks and replaced zu‘ama clientelism with a new and more complex mix of clientelistic networks developed around militias, parties and Islamist groups (Hamzeh 2001). Hizbollah (Party of God), for example, was able to circumvent the traditional zu‘ama networks and build their own clientelistic networks enabling them to provide welfare services to followers and adherents (Harik 2004). Nonetheless, clientelism impedes modernisation and the development of a modern welfare state. Moreover, clientelism remains essential for accessing social and welfare services and is integral to the country’s parliamentary democracy. This causes the government to function as a system based on exchanging favours so that Lebanese politics come to be “associated with personal enrichment, social status, upward mobility and clientelist practices” (Haddad 2002: p. 207). This is the reason why a majority of the people are distrustful of the government and considers politicians a crooked, self-serving elite bent on personal enrichment.

The civil war ended the reign of the traditional Sunni zu‘ama of Beirut who were eclipsed by the new super rich business tycoon, Rafiq Hariri. Until his death, Hariri was the pre-eminent Sunni za‘im not only of Beirut but of Lebanon itself. He served as prime minister for most of the post-war period (1992–98, 2000–04) until his resignation in October 2004. A flamboyant, self-made billionaire his personal fortune was estimated at US$ 3.8 billion. In addition to major business ventures in foreign countries, his business empire in Lebanon included a bank (Banque de Méditerranée), major stakes in other banks, a TV-station (Future Television), a newspaper as well as “Solidere”, the company owning the most valuable parts of down-town Beirut destroyed during the war and under contract to renovate it.[6] This unusual mix of personal economic interests and public office made critics accuse Hariri of running Lebanon like his private fiefdom. Hariri invested some of his vast personal fortune in charities bearing his name (Hariri Foundation), but government policies and economic activities under his tenure as prime minister has been marked by widespread corruption as has the bloated Ministry of Finance.[7] In 2004, Lebanon’s corruption perceptions index (CPI) score was 2.7, earning the country place 97 in Transparency International’s country ranking list covering 146 countries. Most of Lebanon’s corruption problems stem from the booming construction sector, which fused private business interests and vast public spending through the country’s entrenched clientelist system.

Economic recovery and reconstruction

The importance of transforming a war-economy to a peace economy is a key to post-war transitions (Nitzschke and Studdard 2005). In 1990, at the end of the civil war, Lebanon’s economy was in shambles, the GDP a mere US$ 2.2 billion and the inflation sky-high (500 per cent in 1987). During the war, a large, lucrative and complex informal economy developed around militias that in some areas mimicked the workings of the state (Picard 2000). At the same time, the civilian population was tied to a subsistence economy and lacked basic amenities such as clean water and proper housing and most schools and hospitals were closed (Najem 1998: pp. 31-32). Despite its war-time devastation, Lebanon was unable to attract significant foreign aid to help rebuild the country.

In 1993, the first Hariri government launched “Horizon 2000”, a US$ 20 billion reconstruction program which was funded by a combination of grants, soft loans and bilateral loans from western countries, oil-rich Gulf States as well as international organisations, aid agencies and commercial banks (Najem 1998). This “borrow-to-build” strategy left the country heavily indebted and the country’s stagnant economy is now burdened with a debt of US$ 31 billion (180 per cent of GDP). Debt-servicing alone amounts to US$ 3 billion annually, forcing Hariri’s government to seek an economic bail-out to the tune of US$ 5 billion from European and Gulf countries. In 1996 the economic growth rate fell to 4 per cent, in 1998 it was 3 per cent and in 2000 it reached zero (Picard 2002: p. 174). In order to revive the faltering economy, Hariri’s second government (2000–04) introduced a number of austerity measures that together with new loans helped stabilise the economy. In November 2002, the Hariri government met with international donors at the Paris II conference seeking bilateral assistance restructuring its domestic debt at lower rates of interest. Following Hariri’s assassination, the economy has again weakened and there has been a slump in the tourism sector.

Lebanon is now a middle income country, but with huge income disparities. The macro-economic framework favours the tertiary service-sector, in particular banking, which is the cornerstone in the country’s rentier economy. The dual currency system (US dollars and Lebanese pounds) coupled with high interest rates, absence of property tax and a flat income tax (15 per cent) means that the taxation base remains low. Recently value added tax (VAT) was introduced to boost government income but still the macro-economic framework favours the service sector and is not conducive to the redistribution of wealth. It has also prevented investment in labour intensive sectors such as industry and agriculture which are rapidly declining. This has among other hurt Tripoli while favouring Beirut, the country’s economic power-house. Most of the economic investments are made in Beirut and the surrounding Mount Lebanon region to the neglect of more remote regions and cities.

Lebanon is like most countries in the Middle East predominantly urban: about 33 percent (1.3 million) of the population live in Beirut and its suburbs. In pre-war Lebanon the “primacy ratio” of Beirut (the size of the largest city against the three next largest cities) was very high (in 1975; 2.8), but by the end of the war the ratio was almost halved (in 1990; 1.5). The growth of regional cities, local administration and services at Beirut’s expense should have been supported by economic investments. Instead there was a re-concentration of public expenditures in and around Beirut (Nasr 2003: p. 152).[8] Thus, in post-war Lebanon the regional disparities have continued to grow and the lions’ share of the reconstruction expenditures for the first part of the of post war period have been spent in Beirut and Mount Lebanon (27 per cent). The much poorer north-, east-and southern regions received much smaller portions of the funds. This imbalance also reflects the political marginalisation of the northern Sunni political elite, now eclipsed by the late Rafiq Hariri and his Beirut and Sidon constituencies.

Democratic deficit

Post-war democratisation in deeply divided societies has traditionally involved establishing a democratic political system, reviving political parties and holding elections (Manning 2004). Formally a parliamentary democracy, the Lebanese political system is an oligarchy where party politics does not exist, political leaders are marginalised and most parties without partisans. In Lebanon political parties have traditionally catered for sectarian groups with the sole aim of securing parliamentary representation for the party leader and his hand-picked deputies, thus reducing “most politics to crass clientelism and confessionalism” (Salem 1998: p. 23). Hence, political parties in Lebanon have lacked traits common to parties in most Western democracies; they have often had no ideology, have devised no programs and have made little effort at transcending sectarian support, thus most of them have seen their support wane (el Khazen 2003a).

With the exception of a handful of left-wing movements, most parties have been the organizational personification of a few powerful politicians. This has also been the reason for the growing irrelevance of many of the traditional political parties. On a positive note the absence of a ruling party in Lebanon and the lack of a state ideology, a number of political parties have flourished catering for sectarian and communal interest groups (ibid. p. 605). During the civil war, most of the parties were militarised and turned into militias. During the post-war period, the key to the parties’ political fortunes have been their relations vis-ˆ-vis Syria: the loyalists have prospered, those mere tolerated have persevered and those banned or persecuted have struggled to survive.

In post-war Lebanon, the Christian nationalist parties the Phalange (“Kataib”), the National Liberal Party (NLP) and the National Bloc have been weakened from internal power struggles, internecine vendetta and the Christian boycott of the post-war elections. The infighting typical of Christian parties can be traced to the vendetta between the leading Christian families – Franjieh, Gemayel and Chamoun – that led to the killing of the heirs-apparent during and shortly after the civil war (Johnson 2001). The Phalange party especially, has been divided over the Syrian presence in Lebanon fuelling an internal power struggle meant to prevent Amin Gemayel (returning from 12 years in exile) from regaining control of the party. The party leadership has now passed into the hands of the pro-Syrian faction (Gambill 2001a). In the post-war elections (1992, -96, -00), neither of the parties have been represented in parliament, pointing to their sharp decline in power and loss of client base.[9]

Because of the failings of the traditional Christian parties and the fragmentation of political leadership, the main Christian opposition figure is the leader of the Maronite church, patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir (Gambill 2003a). Sfeir was a key in the decision to call for a Christian boycott of the 1992 elections, but first in 1998 did Sfeir openly criticize the Syrians and called for ending “the Syrian tutelage over Lebanon” (ibid.). In April 2001, the increasingly vocal Christian opposition to Syrian occupation led to the formation of the Qornet Shewan Gathering (QSG), a coalition seeking a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, named after a Maronite monastery were the group’s founding members held their first meeting (Gambill 2003a). In 2003, Boutros Sfeir and the QSG demanded a timetable for the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.

In post-war Lebanon, the (Christian) ultra-nationalist parties; the Lebanese Forces (LF), the Guardians of the Cedars (GoC) and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) (a.k.a. Free National Current, FNC) have been subject to official persecution due to their principled opposition to the Syrian occupation. They have been further weakened by the fact their leaders have been exiled (Michel Aoun), imprisoned (Samir Geagea) or sentenced to death in absentia (Etienne Sacre) and the movements either dissolved (FC), banned (GoC) or suffering periodic crackdowns (FPM). In the post-war period these parties in general and the LF especially, have had their members detained, imprisoned or killed.[10] Nonetheless, the LF is the fastest growing political grassroots movement in Lebanon attracting the support of Christian students and professionals and has campaigned for the unconditional release of Samir Geagea (Abdelnour 2004). The Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2005, has redrawn the political map in Lebanon and enabled Michel Aoun’s return from exile, prepared Samir Geagea’s release from prison and secured an electoral victory for the FPM in the Christian-dominated Mount Lebanon.

Thee main sectarian Muslim parties Hizbollah, Amal and the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) have thrived under Syrian tutelage and been represented in all post-war parliaments. Hizbollah was the only war time militia that after the war didn’t surrender their weapons and still hasn’t disarmed (Hamzeh 2004). Hizbollah rejected the Taif Agreement, but still took part in the parliamentary elections in 1992. Hizbollah’s transition from militant movement to politic al party has not been easy and in the 1990s the “Lebanonisation” process led to clerical factionalism (Ranstorp 1998) and subsequent change of leadership (Ranstorp 1994). Under its present leader, secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah has successfully contested parliamentary (Hamzeh 1993) and municipal elections (Hamzeh 2000) and emerged as the country’s only modern party. Despite Hizbollah’s parliamentary accommodation and military victory leading to an Israeli pull-out in 2000, the party is now under pressure to disarm following UN Security Council Resolution 1559.[11]

The Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) is a sectarian party catering for the Druze, a heterodox Muslim sect located mainly in the Shouf mountains. Following Hariri’s assassination, the PSP-leader Walid Jumblatt has emerged as the leader of the anti-Syrian opposition after years of maintaining cordial relations with the Syrians who in previous elections have helped orchestrate Jumblatt’s electoral success by twisting the electoral law (Gambill and Aoun 2000). Due the manoeuvrings of Jumblatt and the feudal-cum-clientelist nature of the party, the PSP has been represented in all post-war parliaments and Jumblatt has served in various minister posts enabling the Druze community, which only represents 6 per cent of the country’s population, to prosper far beyond their limited numbers.

Amal is a Shia sectarian party that emerged from the ranks of the “Movement of the Deprived”, a social movement which led to the political awaking of the quiescent Shia community (Ajami 1987). Amal’s program is secular (Norton 1987), and despite losing influence among its Shia constituency to its rival Hizbollah, the party remains politically significant due to the party leader Nabih Berri’s long tenure as speaker of the parliament, a position reserved for the Shia. Despite differences between Amal and Hizbollah, the two have joined forces in post-war elections following Syrian and Iranian intervention to prevent splitting the Shia vote.

[1] Acknowledgements: This paper was prepared under CMI’s Peacebuilding programme examining selected post-war countries. Field research and interviews in Lebanon were conducted under a visiting research fellowship at the American University of Beirut (AUB) during April-May 2005. The usual disclaimer applies.

[2] The term “peacebuilding” came into widespread use after 1992 and has since then become a broadly used (but often ill-defined) term connoting activities that go beyond crisis intervention such as longer-term development and building of governance structures and institutions, see (Cousens et al. 2001: p. 5 ).

[3] The Taif incorporates previous texts and formulas such as “the Constitutional Document (1976), the Principles of Entente (1980), the Lausanne Paper (1984), the Policy Statement of the National Unity Government (1984) and the Tripartite Agreement (1985)”, see (Salam 2003).

 

[4] Since the National Pact in 1943, the country’s political system is based on a confessional system where the political representation in the parliament reflects proportional strength of the religious denominations stipulated in the 1932 census.

[5] During the start of the civil war in 1975–76, there was massive displacement of Shias living in quarters and shanty-towns in East Beirut by Maronite militias. In 1982, a new stream of Shias left the war-zone along the Lebanese-Israeli border and settled in south-eastern Beirut. This migration was so large that by 1980, one-third of the Shia population was living in Beirut (Cobban 1986: p. 141-42).

[6] Solidere is the French acronym for the Lebanese Company for Development and Reconstruction.

[7] Senior UNDP official, interview, Beirut, 27 April 2005.

[8] In 1975 Beirut had “more than fifty percent of the population, over-two-thirds of economic activities, two-thirds of overall employment, the entire state administration, all the country’s higher education, and ninety-five percent of the banking activity (Nasr 2003: p. 153).

[9] The Phalange (Kataib) party managed to elect two deputies to the parliament in the 2000 elections (el Khazen 2003b: p. 70).

[10] In May 2002, Ramzi Irani, a member of the LF student committee was abducted, tortured and his mutilated body found in the trunk of his car. In 2004, another LF -activist, Pierre Boulos, suffered a similar fate. In both cases the criminal investigation was inconclusive (Abdelnour 2004).

 

[11] In 2003 Hizbollah was put on the US list of “Designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations” (FTOs), [www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/2003/17067.htm ]