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chronologiesallThe road to war 1968–1974 The Lebanese war 1975–1990 After the war 1991–2005 July 2006, as the books tell it 2006 Since 2005 2005–2025

1997, 2003, 2004, 2012, 2017

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45 entries on 42 dates · the books disagree on 11

August 1997

Monday, 4 August 1997

After the war · From the books

Patriarch Sfeir denounces the mass presence of Syrian workers.
With Hariri's boom slowing from 1996, newspapers led by Al-Nahar spoke of a million or more Syrians exploiting Lebanon; Patriarch Sfeir echoed this, reckoning foreign workers at a quarter of residents.

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1997

1997: day not established

After the war · From the books

Sheikh Subhi Tufayli leads the 'revolt of the hungry' in Baalbek.
Sheikh Sobhi Toufayli, a dissident from Hezbollah, led the 'revolt of the hungry' in Baalbek.

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February 2003

Friday, 28 February 2003

After the war · From the books

Israel bombs the south and reinforces its positions at Shebaa.

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April 2003

Sunday, 13 April 2003

After the war · From the books

'Remember, so as not to return': a campaign for a national day of memory.
In al-Safir leading politicians openly backed remembering the war for the first time. On 13 April hundreds gathered in Martyrs' Square, handing out flowers and collecting signatures for a national memory day and a memorial; earlier, the Association Mémoire pour l'Avenir and the families' Committee had screened war documentaries unseen in Lebanon at Masrah al-Medina.

Art and memory

place Architect Mona El-Hallak came upon the Barakat building, above the old demarcation line at Sodeco, in 1996, and from 1997 led APSAD's campaign to save it. In 2003 the municipality expropriated it for $3 million for Beit Beirut.
film Films Haugbolle cites on postwar amnesia include Ghassan Salhab's Beyrouth Fantôme (1999) and Terra Incognita (2002); the novel Ya Salam (1999) by Najwa Barakat follows former militiamen in peacetime.

Other date in the books: Tuesday, 8 April 2003

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April 2003: day not established

After the war · From the books

A replica of the 1975 bus becomes a memory installation in Beirut.
Hassan Saouli deliberately kept graphic images out: to mark 28 years since 13 April, he parked a bus of the 1975 model on a central Beirut street, with videos and texts on guilt and forgiveness inside.

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May 2003

Tuesday, 27 May 2003

After the war · From the books

Ghassan Tueni answers a Syrian general's threats against the Lebanese.
In al-Nahar Ghassan Tueni addressed Bashar al-Assad as an equal, protesting at threats against the Lebanese by General Bahjat Sleiman, Syria's intelligence chief.

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June 2003

June 2003: day not established

After the war · From the books

Nada Sahnaoui's installation 'Atadhakkar' (I remember) opens in Martyrs' Square.
Sahnaoui set readers' memories of prewar downtown on 360 newspaper stacks, leaving a few stacks bare for what had been erased.

Sources differ: Opening in June 2003 (p. 132); the photograph is dated July 2003.

Art and memory

artwork Nada Sahnaoui's earlier work 'Statistics' listed war casualty figures from the press; Haugbolle's note points to 111101's Artworks section.

After the war · From the books

A Kataeb memorial in Ashrafieh is pulled down for luxury flats.
A 1986 site for local fighters, it had lost its point once many of their families left in 1989-90, the mukhtar said.

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September 2003

September 2003: day not established

After the war · From the books

Soldiers fire on Hezbollah members in a poster fight at Jiba.
In Jiba, Hezbollah members objected to Amal's pictures of Imam Musa Sadr; in the ensuing brawl the army fired on Hezbollah, a first in over ten years: one dead, two wounded.

After the war · From the books

A by-election sets off a poster war in Gemmayzeh.
In Jummayza's September 2003 by-election, posters of Aoun's Hikmat Dib, the jailed Geagea and Bashir Gemayel were torn or mocked daily: Christian memory, divided.

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October 2003

Monday, 27 October 2003

After the war · From the books

Hezbollah attacks Israeli positions at Shebaa; Israel raids near villages.

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November 2003

November 2003: day not established

After the war · From the books

A public hearing on 'understanding the war' turns into a shouting match.
Two women broke into the Association Mémoire pour l'Avenir's hearing for students and war witnesses: one abused Samir Kassir for attacking Syria; a mother blamed a former Kataeb editor for her son's killing.

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December 2003

December 2003: day not established

After the war · From the books

The US Congress passes the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act.
It demanded a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and allowed for sanctions, partly applied from spring 2004.

Sources differ: Passed in November (Haugbolle) or December 2003 (Picard, 33 jours); sanctions from April (Picard) or May 2004 (33 jours).

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January 2004

Saturday, 31 January 2004

After the war · From the books

Lebanese prisoners freed from Israeli jails return in a Hezbollah exchange.
Hezbollah ran the welcome alone and barred leftist parties, though thirty of the fifty men who came home were leftists; the left replied by recalling its role in the resistance from 1982.

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February 2004

Friday, 6 February 2004

After the war · From the books

Reformist communists announce a 'Democratic Left' movement.
Its founding al-Nahar statement urged the left to reform and unite against the Syrian-backed order, calling it a duty to learn from past mistakes. Members included Elias Khoury, Samir Kassir, Ziad Majed, George Hawi and Elias Atallah.

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March 2004

Wednesday, 10 March 2004

After the war · From the books

Student demonstrations against the Syrian presence are suppressed.

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Monday, 22 March 2004

After the war · From the books

Hezbollah attacks six Israeli positions after the killing of Sheikh Yassin.

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April 2004

Friday, 16 April 2004

After the war · From the books

A press campaign reveals how little the young know of the war.
Al-Nahar marked the April 2004 anniversary with interviews of ex-militiamen and a feature on the young: most said they knew only bits of the war, and that parents blamed 'the others'.

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August 2004

Thursday, 26 August 2004

After the war · From the books

Hariri is called to Damascus, where Bashar al-Assad insists that Lahoud's term be extended.
Hariri had come to plead against prolonging Lahoud's term. Walid Jumblatt, interviewed by Nicholas Blanford in 2005, related that Assad told Hariri that Lahoud and Assad were one and the same.

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September 2004

Thursday, 2 September 2004

After the war · From the books

UN Security Council Resolution 1559 demands the withdrawal of foreign forces.
The Franco-American resolution, passed by nine votes with six abstentions, required every foreign force to leave, every militia to disarm and the presidential election to proceed free of outside interference. Walid Jumblatt sided with the opposition, most of it Christian.

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Friday, 3 September 2004

After the war · From the books

Parliament extends President Lahoud's term by three years.
Under Syrian pressure the constitutional amendment passed by 96 votes to 29; Jumblatt's deputies voted against.

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Saturday, 4 September 2004

After the war · From the books

Hassan Nasrallah rejects Resolution 1559.

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Tuesday, 7 September 2004

After the war · From the books

Four ministers, including Marwan Hamadeh, resign in protest.

Sources differ: Hamadeh is called economy minister (Abirached) or health minister (Khayat).

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Thursday, 9 September 2004

After the war · From the books

Hariri announces that his government will resign.

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September 2004: day not established

After the war · From the books

Riots shake Majdel Anjar after the arrest of an Islamist leader.
Rioting broke out in the Sunni Bekaa town the day after a presumed al-Qaeda-linked Islamist leader was detained in Beirut.

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October 2004

Friday, 1 October 2004

After the war · From the books

Marwan Hamadeh survives a car bomb.
The car bomb that wounded Marwan Hamadeh, a Jumblatt adviser who had resigned from the cabinet, opened a series of attacks on opponents of Syria (Picard); the Special Tribunal for Lebanon later took on his case as legally linked to Hariri's. Kofi Annan's report on Resolution 1559 came out that day.

Sources differ: Picard (2016) places the attack 'a few days' after 3 September; the others give 1 October.

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Sunday, 3 October 2004

After the war · From the books

Hariri hands his resignation to Lahoud.
Hariri took the 1 October attack that wounded Marwan Hamadeh as a breach of the assurances he had been given, and resigned two days later. Lahoud waited more than two weeks before accepting.

Sources differ: See 20 October: Abirached dates the resignation then.

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Tuesday, 5 October 2004

After the war · From the books

Lebanon rejects the UN report criticising the Syrian presence.

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Saturday, 9 October 2004

After the war · From the books

Bashar al-Assad derides the charge that Syria invaded Lebanon in 1976.
Assad asked Lebanon's Christians, and Resolution 1559's sponsors, the US and France, where they were when Lebanese were massacred. Haugbolle reads him as calling the war internal and Syria its rescuer.

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Sunday, 17 October 2004

After the war · From the books

The Democratic Left Movement is formally founded.
By December it had joined Christian and Druze parties in signing the Bristol Declaration.

Sources differ: Picard dates a 'Gauche démocratique' to 1997, possibly an earlier group or a slip.

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Wednesday, 20 October 2004

After the war · From the books

Rafiq Hariri's resignation takes effect.
He then moved openly towards the anti-Syrian opposition.

Sources differ: Presented 3 October (Khayat), effective 20 October (Abirached).

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Thursday, 21 October 2004

After the war · From the books

Omar Karami is asked to form a pro-Syrian government.
In protest at Lahoud's extended term, one deputy in four stayed away from the consultations.

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December 2004

Wednesday, 1 December 2004

After the war · From the books

Thousands demonstrate in Beirut for the Syrian presence and against 1559.

Sources differ: The book chronology extracted to JSON reads this as 'December' only; the PDF shows 1 December.

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Wednesday, 15 December 2004

After the war · From the books

The opposition unites in the Bristol Declaration.
The Bristol Hotel declaration of Christian and Druze parties, Hariri loyalists and leftists demanded independence and democracy, accepted a Lebanese share in the war, and blamed the postwar crisis on a corrupt state ruling by fear.

Sources differ: 15 December (Haugbolle's text) or 12 December (his own note): the declaration may have been published before the formal meeting, or one date is a slip.

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December 2004: day not established

After the war · From the books

Students, women's groups and lawyers take to the streets.
Civic protest against Syrian tutelage grew, and reprisals followed.

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2004

2004: day not established

After the war · From the books

The bullet-scarred Martyrs' statue returns to downtown Beirut.
Issam Khairallah, who restored the statue at Kaslik's Holy Spirit University, kept almost half its bullet and shrapnel marks and left the young man's arm missing. It was put back about a hundred metres north, nearer the sea.

After the war · From the books

UMAM Documentation and Research starts collecting the war's archives.
Founded by Lokman Slim and Monika Borgmann in Haret Hreik, it built an archive of war memories; their film 'Massaker', interviewing six men who took part in Sabra and Shatila, was shot between 2001 and 2004.

Sources differ: Founded 2004 (Ismail-Allouche) or active since 2002 (Haugbolle).

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February 2012

February 2012: day not established

Since 2005 · From the books

Fighting in Tripoli between Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen (February-December 2012).
From February to December, Tripoli's pro-regime Alawite quarter of Jabal Mohsen and its Sunni quarter of Bab al-Tebbaneh, which backed the Syrian opposition, clashed.

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June 2012

Monday, 11 June 2012

Since 2005 · From the books

The Baabda Declaration commits Lebanon to 'dissociation' from regional conflicts.
The declaration, agreed at President Sleiman's National Dialogue, pledged 'dissociation' from regional conflicts and border control, mainly towards Syria; Picard considers the promise empty from the outset.

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October 2012

Friday, 19 October 2012

Since 2005 · From the books

Intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan is assassinated.
Seven people died along with Wissam al-Hassan, head of ISF intelligence and an investigator of Hariri's assassination, in a Beirut car bombing.

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2012

2012: day not established

Since 2005 · From the books

Former minister Michel Samaha is arrested.
Picard treats the arrest as evidence that Syrian-paid agents took part in the unrest after the 2005 withdrawal.

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February 2017

February 2017: day not established

Since 2005 · From the books

President Aoun tells the UN refugee chief that Syrians cannot stay in Lebanon for good.
Aoun told UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi the refugees could not stay permanently and the world must help them home, but Lebanon would force no one back while Syria was unsafe.

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August 2017

Saturday, 19 August 2017

Since 2005 · From the books

The army launches operation 'Fajr al-Jurud' against the Islamic State on the eastern border.
On President Aoun's orders the army moved against Islamic State and al-Nusra fighters holding the arid hills of Ras Baalbek and al-Qaa, while Hezbollah attacked al-Nusra from the Syrian side, a rare tacit cooperation. The jihadists held out for several days before surrendering, and a truce let the survivors and their families go to eastern Syria.

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November 2017

Saturday, 4 November 2017

Since 2005 · From the books

Saad Hariri announces his resignation from Riyadh.
President Aoun refused the resignation Saad al-Hariri announced live from Riyadh; in the view of some Lebanese officials he was acting under Saudi duress and being held there against his will.

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Tuesday, 21 November 2017

Since 2005 · From the books

Hariri returns to Beirut and soon withdraws his resignation.
His return followed intense international mediation, especially by France.

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