What Next?
The Independant Leftist Groups
Direct Action/Communist Students
Beirut 16/3/2001: The Army Command, the Ministry of Interior and the Central Security Council all issue statements about the subject of the demonstrations as if taken by a fever to keep things "under control". The first one is only supposed to intervene in exceptional cases and by order of the political authority; the second one wishes to substitute the existing formula for demonstrations, which guarantees the freedom of the citizens to demonstrate, by imported formulas aimed to limit democracy; as for the last one, the Central Security Council (in other words the federation of the Lebanese and Syrian Security Services), it keeps on repeating the same tired phrases that the Lebanese authority has been repeating for ten years, like the "critical phase" or "provoking frictions" and as usual closing with "Israeli agents".
Although we realize the danger that Israel represents on Lebanon (which cannot like other Arab countries ignore the developments in the Arab-Israeli struggle-the same Arab countries that have almost stopped all resistance to Israel), although we realize this, we insist on the emptiness of the expression "Israeli agents", which is now solely used to repress all internal opponents of the regime, a habit carbon-copied from the Syrian regime, who is using it as we speak to close down on its internal opposition.As for the "critical phase", it isn't anything but the complete resignation of the state from the role assigned to it, towards becoming nothing more than an abstract authority, or rather a group of repressive confessional authorities. And maybe what is meant by "provoking frictions" are the national demonstrations and protests carried out by the workers and the
peasants, the university and college students and professors.
All this in a country fled by half of its youth in the last decade, where 25% of those who remained are without work, and 5000 of them took turns in "visiting" the authority's prisons for political reasons, where they get their share of physical and moral torture. [.]. The "critical phase" was expressed eloquently by Colin Powel when he renewed the Gulf War bargain (that is
after the liberation of Southern Lebanon, the disintegration of the sanctions on Iraq and the Palestinian Intifada), the deal according to which Lebanon is given to Syria pending the American take over of the whole region. And to quote Powel:
"President [Bashar] al Assad, who used to call for ending the sanctions on Iraq now sees the importance of the new orientation [the orientation of the American administration to tighten its grip on Iraq], because he too is worried from the mass destruction
weapons (!), and he said that if things move further in that direction he would be willing to put the Iraqi
pipeline going through Syria under UN supervision, which is now not quite the case". Apparently the road to the Golan Heights passes through New York
This is just a peaceful statement that aims to break through the confessional and regional barriers. It is in solidarity of all those who are trying to express their opinions in the Lebanese universities, and with the students of BirZeit university, who with their
bare hands moved the blockades imposed on them by the occupation forces. In solidarity with them because we feel how close their movement is to us, like we feel the closeness of the students of the Fine Arts Academy in Damascus who were forbidden to protest against the sacking of their dean who signed the statement of the 99 Syrian intellectuals. And maybe we care for them because the Syrian regime has taught us how to put our noses in somebody else's affairs like it keeps putting its nose in ours, and we grab this occasion to salute the few Syrians who publicly condemned the Syrian regime's dominance over Lebanon.|