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Darkness falls on
the Middle East
By Robert Fisk:
11/24/07 "The
Independent" --
-- In Beirut, people are moving out of their homes, just as
they have in Baghdad
So where do we go from here? I am talking into blackness because
there is no electricity in Beirut. And everyone, of course, is
frightened. A president was supposed to be elected today. He was
not elected. The corniche outside my home is empty. No one wants
to walk beside the sea.
When I went to get my usual breakfast cheese manouche there were
no other guests in the café. We are all afraid. My driver, Abed,
who has loyally travelled with me across all the war zones of
Lebanon, is frightened to drive by night. I was supposed to go
to Rome yesterday. I spared him the journey to the airport.
It's difficult to describe what it's like to be in a country
that sits on plate glass. It is impossible to be certain if the
glass will break. When a constitution breaks – as it is
beginning to break in Lebanon – you never know when the glass
will give way.
People are moving out of their homes, just as they have moved
out of their homes in Baghdad. I may not be frightened, because
I'm a foreigner. But the Lebanese are frightened. I was not in
Lebanon in 1975 when the civil war began, but I was in Lebanon
in 1976 when it was under way. I see many young Lebanese who
want to invest their lives in this country, who are frightened,
and they are right to frightened. What can we do?
Last week, I had lunch at Giovanni's, one of the best
restaurants in Beirut, and took out as my companion Sherif
Samaha, who is the owner of the Mayflower Hotel. Many of the
guests I've had over the past 31 years I have sent to the
Mayflower. But Sherif was worried because I suggested that his
guests had included militia working for Saad Hariri, who is the
son of the former prime minister, murdered – if you believe most
Lebanese – by the Syrians on 14 February 2005.
Poor Sherif. He never had the militia men in his hotel. They
were in a neighbouring building. But so Lebanese is Sherif that
he even offered to pick me up in his car to have lunch. He is
right to be worried.
A woman friend of mine, married to a doctor at the American
University Hospital, called me two days before. "Robert, come
and see the building they are making next to us," she said. And
I took Abed and we went to see this awful building. It has
almost no windows. All its installations are plumbing. It is
virtually a militia prison. And I'm sure that's what it is meant
to be. This evening I sit on my balcony, in a power cut, as I
dictate this column. And there is no one in the street. Because
they are all frightened.
So what can a Middle East correspondent write on a Saturday
morning except that the world in the Middle East is growing
darker and darker by the hour. Pakistan. Afghanistan. Iraq.
"Palestine". Lebanon. From the borders of Hindu Kush to the
Mediterranean, we – we Westerners that is – are creating (as I
have said before) a hell disaster. Next week, we are supposed to
believe in peace in Annapolis, between the colourless American
apparatchik and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister who has
no more interest in a Palestinian state than his predecessor
Ariel Sharon.
And what hell disasters are we creating? Let me quote a letter
from a reader in Bristol. She asks me to quote a professor at
Baghdad University, a respected man in his community who tells a
story of real hell; you should read it. Here are his own words:
"'A'adhamiya Knights' is a new force that has started its task
with the Americans to lead them to al-Qa'ida and Tawheed and
Jihad militants. This 300-fighter force started their raids very
early at dawn wearing their black uniform and black masks to
hide their faces. Their tours started three days ago, arresting
about 150 citizens from A'adhamiya. The 'Knight' leads the
Americans to a citizen who might be one of his colleagues who
used to fight the Americans with him. These acts resulted in
violent reactions of al-Qa'ida. Its militants and the militants
of Tawheed and Jihad distributed banners on mosques' walls,
especially on Imam Abu Hanifa mosque, threatening the Islamic
Party, al-Ishreen revolution groups and Sunni endowment Diwan
with death because these three groups took part in establishing
'A'adhamiya Knights'. Some crimes happened accordingly,
targeting two from Sunni Diwan staff and one from the Islamic
Party.
"Al-Qa'ida militants are distributed through the streets,
stopping the people and asking about their IDs ... they carry
lists of names. Anyone whose name is on these lists is kidnapped
and taken to an unknown place. Eleven persons have been
kidnapped up to now from Omar Bin Abdul Aziz Street."
The writer describes how her professor friend was kidnapped and
taken to a prison. "They helped me sit on a chair (I was
blindfolded) and someone came and held my hand saying, 'We are
Muhajeen, we know you but we don't know where you are from.'
They did not take my wallet nor did they search me. They only
asked me if I have a gun. An hour or so later, one of them came
and asked me to come with them. They drove me towards where my
car was in the street and they said no more." So who are the
A'adhamiya Knights? Who is paying them? What are we doing in the
Middle East?
And how can we even conceive of a moral stand in the Middle East
when we still we refuse to accept the fact – reiterated by
Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, and all the details of US
diplomats in the First World War – that the Armenian genocide
occurred in 1915? Here is the official British government
position on the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915.
"Officially, the Government acknowledges the strength of feeling
[note, reader, the 'strength of feeling'] about what it
describes as a terrible episode of history and recognises the
massacres of 1915-16 as a tragedy. However, neither the current
Government nor previous British governments have judged that the
evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to be persuaded that these
events should be categorised as genocide as it is defined by the
1948 UN Convention on Genocide." When we can't get the First
World War right, how in God's name can we get World War III
right?
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