Hezbollah looks to Hariri for
payback By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Tension are rising between
Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and the
Hezbollah-led opposition over reports that the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is laying the
grounds to indict some of the group's for the 2005
murder of Lebanon's ex-premier, Rafik al-Hariri,
who was Saad's father.
Hariri remains
committed to the STL while Hezbollah is calling
for its immediate abolition. It was Hariri, in his
capacity as son of the slain prime minister, who
called for the STL and only Hariri, in his
capacity as the prime minister of Lebanon, can
call for its cancelation.
The tribunal
officially opened in March last year. While an
initial three-year budgetary mandate had been
planned, there is no
timeline and its
judicial work and the tribunal could be
operational through 2014 and beyond, depending on
the scope of the investigation.
Hezbollah
and its allies have launched a massive media
campaign against the STL this summer, with
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah calling it an
Israeli project. In August, Nasrallah came out
with recorded tapes and testimony from Israeli
agents, which he presented to the Lebanese
government after broadcasting to the general
public. The evidence purportedly proves that
Israel had been monitoring Hariri since the 1990s
with plans to kill him and blame it on Hezbollah.
Last week, Hezbollah's ministers in the
Hariri cabinet, the group commands 11 of the 30
seats, proposed blocking funds that had been
allocated to the STL by the Lebanese government.
The cabinet has already transferred 12 billion
Lebanese pounds (US$8 million) to the STL in
February 2009 and more recently, last February
2010, sent a total of 40 billion Lebanese pounds.
Hezbollah claims that channeling funds to
the STL from the Lebanese budget reserve is
"unconstitutional" because the 2010 budget has not
yet passed through parliament. If members of the
Maronite Phalange Party or the Lebanese Forces
within the government obstruct Hezbollah's wish,
the group - with its three ministers and nine
minister allies - could veto the resolution,
thanks to the veto power they obtained from Hariri
when the cabinet was originally formed. If the
government remains adamant about bankrolling the
STL (a pledge from the Fouad al-Siniora
administration) then Hezbollah and its allies
could effectively bring down the Hariri cabinet.
During a recent parliamentary debate over
funding of the tribunal, nine deputies from
Hariri's March 14 Coalition withdrew from the
session, amid loud Hezbollah insistence that they
would do all in their power to bring down the STL
through legal proceedings.
Deputies of
speaker Nabih Berri from the all-Shi'ite Amal
movement, a staunch Hezbollah ally, also claim
that funding of the STL by the Lebanese state is
unconstitutional, since it did not go through
parliament.
During the parliamentary
debate, Hezbollah member of parliament Hasan
Fadlallah repeated Nasrallah's claims, that the
STL was an Israeli and American project that
needed to be stopped. A Hezbollah official noted,
"We gave [the ruling March 14 Coalition] a grace
period until September [to bring down the STL] and
now it is over. We will now deal with the STL in a
different manner; no facilitation, no acceptance,
and no funding."
One of the first
heavyweights to take the cue from Hezbollah was
Walid Jumblatt, who is walking a fine line between
the Hezbollah-led opposition and Hariri, trying to
mediate a solution to the snowballing crisis.
Jumblatt publicly said, "If the STL is
creating a fitna [religious or political
crisis] then let us all agree on canceling it."
This is a strong indicator, coming from a
political animal like Jumblatt, that the STL is
about to be written off completely by the Lebanese
government, perhaps by an unwilling Hariri, in
order to save his government from certain
collapse.
Hezbollah is waiting to see how
Hariri will react to all of these developments. In
early September, he spoke to the Saudi daily
al-Sharq al-Awsat, admitting that his team had
wrongly accused Syria of his father's murder in
2005. He apologized in public to the Syrians and
Hezbollah expected a similar statement from the
prime minister, explicitly saying that Hezbollah
had nothing to do with the Hariri affair.
Hariri has to also take quick action, as
promised to the Syrians during his visit to
Damascus, to deal with the multitude of false
witnesses that appeared in the United Nations
probe over his father's assassination. These false
witnesses, Hezbollah notes, are still at bay and
many of them are from within Hariri's immediate
entourage.
Analysts say the prime minister
cannot have it both ways, continuing to enjoy
Hezbollah's political backing while surrounding
himself with figures who lied to the UN
investigation in order to blame Syria and
Hezbollah. There are figures within the Future
Movement and the broader March 14 Coalition that
is headed by Hariri who walked a very anti-Syrian
line in 2005-2008 and continue to preach
anti-Hezbollah rhetoric.
Among them are
ex-prime minister Siniora, ex-president Amin
Gemayel and head of the Lebanese Forces,
ex-warlord Samir Gagea. Hariri needs takes the
reins in his coalition, Hezbollah insists, or else
he will not be taken seriously as a prime
minister. How can he remain allied to the
anti-Israeli warriors of Hezbollah and
simultaneously maintain an alliance, for example,
with the Gemayel cousins, Nadim and Sami, who
boast of their family's history ties to Israel?
Hariri now has two roads ahead of him. One
is to continue walking the tight rope between
Hezbollah and March 14 and risk being brought down
by the Hezbollah-led opposition. The other for him
is to come out strongly against the STL and ensure
its elimination.
If he wishes to cooperate
with Hezbollah, then the group may continue to
extend a hand of friendship to him. If, however,
he decides to continue supporting the STL,
regardless of all indicators that is about to
target Hezbollah members, then clashes between
Hezbollah and Saad seem inevitable. The group
feels that its support of the premier's rise and
his newfound friendship with Syria deserves some
payback.
Sami Moubayed is
editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.
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