Conciliation begins with fair elections

Friday, May 8 2009

The trial of the four generals returned a verdict of not guilty. So, what will the accusers say and what will the people who sought to divide the Lebanese people do in the wake of this result? What will be the justifications made by these people to explain the wasted four years in the lives of the Lebanese people in divisions which brought skirmishes to the streets and threatened to lead to a full-blown civil war?

The signs of renewed civil war will be devastating and will not advance us towards the “truth” in any way. It is a paradox that the international case undermines a political power which built up its positions and policies so as to assign the blame of the murder on those four generals. Justice in the parliamentary elections is a necessary prelude to beginning the process of conciliation, as well as being the certain guarantee for the stability of Lebanese society which so lacks justice and equality for all its citizens.

We at the National Dialogue Party were among the first to warn against bypassing the Lebanese judiciary and externalizing our national affairs. The manner of dealing with the International Tribunal for Lebanon, particularly within the national unity government, has been crude and cynical. Even if the intentions of the international groups involved in this tribunal are better, the interests of nations do not take into account the sovereignty of nations; the proof of this lies in the dealings between the Lebanese government, represented by the Minister of Justice, and the office of the Prosecutor General for the Lebanon Tribunal, an embarrassment which has brought to light the manner of dealing with cases relating to the sovereignty of Lebanon, its freedom and that of its people over the past four years.

It is crucial that the truth of this crime is discovered, as well as of other crimes, whoever the victims. It is also certain that the four generals have been the victims of gross injustice, having been imprisoned for almost 4 years as the result of a forged testimony, by a few Lebanese judges, whose honesty is in question. We need to consider the credibility of these judges and distance the charge of politicization. Unfortunately, the hopes of the Lebanese people regarding the role of the judiciary have been dented with the realization that truth and justice have suffered in relation to the International Justice Court.

This raises the question: does the sorry state of the Lebanese judiciary not call for, in addition to its internationalization, a consideration of the weakness of Lebanese sovereignty and its fragility - for it is an international tribunal and as the Prosecutor General, Daniel Belmar, stated, was created following a political decision. This means that the politics and interests of nations are fundamental in the creation of this tribunal and hence, the final chapter of it must be influenced by international political considerations, their effects and their surprises. We are confident that if the political power left the judiciary in its current state and kept its hands off it, we would not have waited for the international judiciary nor would the different authorities have employed a regional justice brought about by Lebanese judges who would only be concerned with maintaining the law and implementing its articles.

We thus propose the following conciliatory steps:
A] The passing of a clear law to fight corruption and promote transparency.
B] The bringing back of security and intelligence which will limit the opening of new private branches whenever a particular group finds that its interests lie in that direction. Also, the machinery has to be found which will guarantee for the government the right surveillance while maintaining the integrity of the security system and protecting it from politicization. Also, the army has to be supported, developed and trained. C] The working on the separation of powers, to transform the Lebanese judiciary to independent constitutional authority, leading to the full independence of the judiciary from the executive branch under the supervision of the Supreme Judicial Council.

The abuse which we have witnessed over the past four years has come not from the crime itself, but rather from the political profiteering and blood-letting. We are now facing the prospect of undemocratic parliamentary elections based on an electoral law going back to Ghazi Kanaan. It is well known that the politicians of his time and their effects are still being felt; this led to the establishment of the Quadruple Alliance and the 2005 parliamentary elections which produced ministers from all sides of the Alliance. The bitter fighting continued, the worst of which spilled out on to the streets, and the Lebanese people were pushed into an agreement in Doha for power sharing which was in the interests of the two sides while the policy of abusing the Lebanese people continued. And so, what will the upcoming parliamentary elections, taking place under an electoral law which will return the same political layer and with the same confessional, sectarian and factional methods achieve? And what are we waiting for if the results of these elections have been known since the Doha agreement last May?

This raises numerous questions. Will the recent events have an effect on the upcoming elections? What is the goal of the new tense situation? These are questions which will undoubtedly affect the coming phase in our country which is riddled with tension and has fallen victim to all types of conflicts.

We regret what has taken place with relation to the results of the parliamentary elections, and any cool objective mind realizes all too well that the two main groups in this fight will not be affected much in the coming days, as electoral speeches get louder and idle talk gets more intense for purely tactical reasons. What is required is the mobilization of the people to go to the ballot boxes, even if the results are already known. Otherwise, how will those people convince those around them that they are the masters of the sects, factions and groups to which they belong, particularly knowing that the day after the elections will see the inflammation of the fights and the re-opening of all sorts of issues! Indeed, this is what happened after the elections of 2005 and the detestable Quadruple Alliance. Also, the issue of the four generals holds much new potential for conflict, as do the regional issues relating to the Israeli threats to Iran or Syria, or even Lebanon.

Thus, the strength of the civil community and all those who are working to disengage the country from this detestable sectarianism and bring about a unified nation, are called upon to boycott the elections and to resist attempts to give legitimacy to a political layer which has long been a colossal failure, bringing only hardship to the Lebanese people as seen in the exhausted economic situation, low standard of living and increased migration of the Lebanese youth to other countries. This has in turn also been affected by the global economic crisis whose extent is not yet known.

There needs to be an awakening of the Lebanese people to cherish the state and revitalize its institutions, to work for the balanced development across all areas and to encourage the birth of non-sectarian political parties thus spreading the concept of the “civil state”. This will all be the saving grace helping to disengage the country from its sectarian crisis, the source of which lies in the structure of power. This has been noxious to the existence of Lebanon since the nineteenth century as it was and remains a bridge for external involvement in our internal affairs and even in the formulation of our foreign policies. The construction of a Lebanese nationhood is what is required as therein lies salvation. This is the goal of the National Dialogue Party.

In conclusion, the conciliation of the judiciary and other necessary institutions for the functioning of the state lies in fair elections which will give birth to a parliament whose focus is working for the nation and its people. None of this will happen unless the civil community works together, whether parties, groups or independent figures, to fix this mess and its negative effects which threaten to destroy national unity and the future of the youth.