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Fear in the real capital of
Lebanon
By Lucy Ashton
ANJAR, Lebanon - Outside a villa in Anjar,
a small Lebanese town near the Syrian border 58
kilometers east of Beirut, seven armed guards
hover by a portrait of Syrian leader Bashar
al-Assad. A burly man with a slug of a moustache
and a leather jacket stands hard beside me, he is
Mukhabarat - a member of Syrian intelligence.
"Mamnour, Mamnour" (forbidden) was all he
said and pointed me away. His chief, Major General
Rostum Ghazali, obviously did not want to talk.
The villa's doors, great metal slabs that look
like meat safes, remained firmly locked.
Anjar is the control center of Lebanon,
the base of General Ghazali, head of Syrian
intelligence, the man who allegedly threatened
former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri just before
his death in a bomb explosion in Beirut last
month.
This town is not ethnically
Lebanese at all, but populated by Armenians, 2,600
of them, and about 1,000 Syrians - mostly soldiers
and intelligence men. The Armenians settled
beneath these snow-striped gullies in 1939, all
the signs are written in both Arabic and Armenian
script.
Stopping at a grocer's to buy a
cool drink, no one wants to speak. At the mention
of the Syrian troops the owner drops his eyes and
concentrates hard on wiping the already clean
counter top with a rag.
On Araks Street,
Joseph Palasian and his family are gathering to
celebrate Easter, they will exchange eggs and go
to Serb Boros Church. His wife is hesitant, but
Joseph and his sons want to speak. "We are no
friends of the Syrians," he says, smiling beneath
a picture of Jesus Christ. "They are not like the
Hezbollah, who have a purpose and keep out the
Israelis for us. The Syrians do no good for us
Lebanese."
Joseph has ceased to respect
the Syrian intelligence agents. Every day he goes
to their houses and bangs on the doors. "Time to
leave!" he shouts. Joseph is not afraid of
retribution, because the Tashna - Armenian -
militia will protect him.
Or the Lebanese
army, he hopes. On Easter Sunday, the town
requested the Lebanese soldiers to come and secure
the churches for celebrations. What are they
afraid will happen? It's hard for Joseph to say.
The town is suspicious that the Syrians will cause
trouble, that they will plant bombs at the
churches. The two explosions in Christian areas of
Beirut last week were warnings from Damascus,
Joseph thinks. Why? Because they want to prove
that Lebanon cannot remain safe without the
brotherly guns of Assad to enforce the peace.
So far no Syrian troops have withdrawn
from Anjar and the checkpoints in the hills remain
in place. A week ago some Syrian soldiers arrived
from the direction of Beirut, rested two days, and
climbed over the mountain. Joseph suspects they
are not far away, waiting out of sight, just in
case.
Bartan, Joseph's 18-year-old son,
wants to drive with us, a couple of minutes away,
to a Syrian camp. His mother is freaking out,
pleading with him from the balcony as he jumps
down the stairs. We stop five kilometers west of
the Syrian border, but Lebanese do not pass east
of here much. Neither Bartan nor our driver wants
to leave the car. They are too scared.
A
young Syrian soldier, gun slung from his shoulder,
wanders from the pink blossom trees to meet us.
For an occupiers' camp it is terribly relaxed,
there are no gun emplacements or sand bags and not
even a gate. The trucks are parked in a jumble, as
though some families have stopped for a weekend
picnic. There is a notable absence of armory. A
senior officer appears. He leads us back to the
road, to his general.
Ten minutes have
passed since Joseph told us he wanted the Syrians
out. "We are very good friends with the
Christians," promises General Mohammed Aziz. He is
a cheerful man in fatigues and white basketball
boots. He walks with a slight limp, as if there is
a thorn in his foot. "They need us here to keep
the peace. But if the Christians want us to leave,
we are ready to go, but when that will happen I
don't know." General Aziz has lived in Anjar two
years, his family is in Damascus, he would quite
like to go home, he says.
Back at the car
Bartan would like to move. He has decided he is
afraid now. The Syrians do have a habit of
arresting Armenians and accusing them of being
fighters in the Tashna militia. Then what happens
to them, Bartan does not know, or more likely will
not say.
As we leave, I ask our Muslim
driver if the residents of Anjar are just being
cautious. Zouheir replies, "No we are all really
very worried."
This fear - Christian or
Muslim - does not mean that war is imminent.
Rather it is the apprehension of a nation that has
seen the bloody chaos of civil war from 1975-1991
and lived in wary co-existence ever since. The
fear comes from the knowledge it could all easily
happen again.
Lucy Ashton is a
freelance journalist based in Amman, Jordan.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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