Irish Times
March 7 2005
Syrian generals hold power in Lebanon’s real capital
Lara Marlowe in Anjar, Bekaa Valley
On the road to Damascus, the Syrian presence starts faintly in the
Lebanese capital Beirut; grows more visible as you cross the Mount
Lebanon range; becomes so prevalent by the time you reach the Bekaa
Valley that you’d think you were in Syria.
As Syria begins pulling back its forces from Lebanon today, these
ragamuffin soldiers, with their worn boots and faded uniforms,
delivering oranges and Arabic bread from the back of a lorry on
Mederij Ridge, are the subject of the Middle East’s big showdown.
A Soviet-made, tracked anti-aircraft gun is parked outside their
derelict outpost and the Syrians’ radar turns like a windmill
overhead.
An equestrian statute of Bassel al-Assad, the elder brother of the
Syrian president Bashar, killed in a car crash, welcomes you to
Chtaura, the entry to the Bekaa Valley.
Here is the first Syrian checkpoint, manned by agents in leather
jackets, moving traffic along with a desultory jerk of the head.
Other checkpoints are manned by Syrian soldiers in camouflage
uniforms. This road is usually packed on Sundays, with farmers from
Syria selling cut-price fruit, vegetables and milk, but when Arabs
sense danger they stay at home.
Anjar is the real capital of Lebanon, the place where the head of
Syrian intelligence, Gen Rustom Ghazale, summons Lebanese politicians
to give them orders.
Just five kilometres from the Syrian border, most of Anjar’s
population are descendants of Armenians brought here in 1939. Anjar
is famous for Roman and Phoenician ruins, fresh trout restaurants and
Syrian mokhabarat (secret police).
Gen Ghazale’s headquarters is a modern villa with a flowering cherry
tree in the garden. The Mercedes of Lebanese justice minister Adnan
Addoum is in the driveway.
My interpreter trembles as she asks the gunmen at the gate if we can
see Gen Ghazale. They send us to another house tucked away amid
orchards to look for Gen Ghazale’s assistant, Gen Elias.
A tall, thin plainclothes agent tells us Gen Elias doesn’t work on
Sunday. “Anyway, we are not in the habit of giving interviews,” he
says.
A framed poster of President Emile Lahoud of Lebanon, shoulder to
shoulder with the late president Hafez al-Assad of Syria, catches my
eye. A child posing between them reminds me of the threat of King
Solomon of the Old Testament to slice an infant in two; half of his
bonnet and scarf are a Lebanese flag, the other half Syrian.
The plainclothes agent nods towards the poster. “There is no
difference between the Lebanese and Syrian people,” he smiles.