A sea of pro­test­ers wave Lebanese flags in Riadh el Solh square in Beirut on Fri­day in a bid to top­ple the gov­ern­ment. ©2006 Christo­pher Allbrit­ton
BEIRUT — In a mas­sive show of force, Lebanon’s pro­tes­tors loyal to Hezbol­lah and its polit­i­cal allies poured into the streets of down­town Beirut by the hun­dreds of thou­sands, dwarf­ing last weeks show of sup­port for the gov­ern­ment and deliv­er­ing a sweep­ing rebuke to Lebanon’s polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment.
The streets, squares and bridges of sev­eral neigh­bor­hoods were a sea of red and white Lebanese flags as sup­port­ers of the Shi’ite groups Hezbol­lah and Amal, as well as the Chris­t­ian groups Marida and the Free Patri­otic Move­ment, took to the streets in an attempt to top­ple the U.S.-backed gov­ern­ment.
“The real prob­lem with this gov­ern­ment is that they did not stand with us dur­ing the war,” said Muham­mad Obaid, 40, a Hezbol­lah sup­porter, echo­ing a com­mon com­plaint of the oppo­si­tion, which is also called the March 8 coali­tion.
Hezbol­lah, which is sup­ported and armed by both Syria and Iran, cap­tured two Israeli sol­diers on July 12, prompt­ing a mas­sive retal­i­a­tion by the Jew­ish state that turned into a 34-day war. More than 1,000 Lebanese died — mostly civil­ians — and the country’s infra­struc­ture and indus­tries were dev­as­tated. Hezbol­lah feels that the gov­ern­ment in Beirut, which is led by Sunni politi­cian Fuad Sin­iora, didn’t sup­port it enough and even qui­etly hoped for it to lose the war so that the Shi’ite group would no longer be a viable polit­i­cal oppo­nent.
Hezbol­lah emerged stronger than ever, how­ever, and demanded more power in the gov­ern­ment for itself and its allies in the March 8 coali­tion. After six cab­i­net min­is­ters from their polit­i­cal bloc resigned, and Chris­t­ian indus­try min­is­ter Pierre Gemayel was mur­dered, the March 8 forces hope to force the res­ig­na­tion of the Sin­iora gov­ern­ment so that new elec­tions can be held — which they feel they will win.
“The gov­ern­ment will fall today,” Obaid said con­fi­dently.
Obaid comes from a small town in the Bekaa Val­ley east of Beirut, a strong­hold for Hezbol­lah. He said that the group had paid him to drive his bus to ferry pro­tes­tors to Beirut. From his vil­lage alone, he said there were four large buses and 15 minibuses.
By any count, the crowd was mas­sive, eas­ily top­ping 1 mil­lion peo­ple. It was unclear how many peo­ple were in the streets because of the sheer num­bers, but today’s protest may have sur­passed the orig­i­nal 2005 protest that gave Siniora’s bloc its name — the March 14 move­ment. That protest, com­ing exactly a month after the assas­si­na­tion of for­mer pre­mier Rafik Hariri, led to the end of Syria’s 29-year occu­pa­tion of Lebanon, a defeat the regime in Dam­as­cus would like to undo with its allies in Lebanon, such as Hezbol­lah.
Packed and par­ty­ing crowds of mostly young peo­ple stretched from the Chris­t­ian neigh­bor­hood of Gemayze to the east, to the gov­ern­ment build­ings ringed by con­certina wire on the other side of down­town toward the west, and from the site of Hariri’s grave near the port up to Sodeco Square in the Chris­t­ian enclave of Achrafiye. They filled alley­ways and over­passes, and all seemed to carry a flag of some sort.
Most car­ried the Lebanese flag, its red and white stripes fram­ing a green cedar, but becom­ing a dra­matic sweep when thou­sands upon thou­sands of the ban­ners waved. But the Lebanese could not resist putting their own party’s stamp on their out­fits, with Hezbol­lah mem­bers drap­ing the milita’s flag about their shoul­ders and Michel Aoun’s Free Patriot Move­ment sup­port­ers wear­ing orange sweat­shirts or base­ball caps.
The crowd for the most part was friendly and respect­ful of the call by Hezbol­lah leader Has­san Nas­ral­lah not to dam­age prop­erty or resort to vio­lence, but a group of young toughs did cel­e­brate the mur­der of Pierre Gemayel, by say­ing, “Con­grat­u­la­tions to Pierre, when is Geagea next?” Samir Geagea is the leader of another Chris­t­ian polit­i­cal party called the Lebanese Forces and is par­tic­u­larly hated by the Shi’ites of Lebanon. “We want your wife, Hakim,” they chanted refer­ring to Geagea’s nick­name and his wife, con­sid­ered one of the more beau­ti­ful women in Lebanon. Their jibe was an ugly, sex­ist chant.
They called the inte­rior min­is­ter a Jew while Hezbol­lah secu­rity stood by, watch­ing impas­sively. It was only after I asked the youths why they were chant­ing such things — and their vio­lent reac­tion when I said “I’m a reporter” in my badly accented Ara­bic — that the Hezbol­lah secu­rity guard inter­vened.
“They are not polite,” the guard said as he pushed me away roughly. “I don’t want you talk­ing to peo­ple who aren’t polite.“
The March 8 move­ment has vowed to stay in the streets, stag­ing sit-ins until the gov­ern­ment resigns. As night fell, trucks car­ry­ing portable toi­lets and water tanks arrived while tents were being set up in Mar­tyrs’ Square.
“If they don’t step down, we will stay here,” said Hayan Ismael, 22, a physics stu­dent from the Bekaa vil­lage of Bed­nayel and a sup­porter of another Chris­t­ian group. He said protest orga­niz­ers had timed the protests for Fri­day after­noon before the week­end to min­i­mize the eco­nomic impact of shut­ting down the heart of Beirut, indi­cat­ing that March 8 may be expect­ing a res­o­lu­tion by Mon­day morn­ing. Down­town mer­chants have been com­plain­ing for months since the war about all the dis­rup­tions to busi­ness.
“Every day the gov­ern­ment stays and doesn’t step down, it makes the econ­omy suf­fer,” said Ismael.
Sin­iora, how­ever, vowed last night not to step down.
“We will not allow a demo­c­ra­tic gov­ern­ment to be top­pled or its insti­tu­tions,” Sin­iora said in a tele­vised address. “Nor will we allow a state within a state. We are the legit­i­mate gov­ern­ment and respon­si­ble for all Lebanese.”