the Times/UK
April 26, 2005

Lebanon heads down road to democracy as Syrians go home

>From Nicholas Blanford in Anjar, Bekaa Valley

SYRIAN troops complete their withdrawal from Lebanon today, ending
almost 30 years of occupation and paving the way for the country’s
first free and fair elections in a generation. Positions were
bulldozed and checkpoints dismantled as the last tanks and artillery
guns were removed for the short trip home. Lorries filled with troops
and equipment belched black diesel smoke as they ground up the hills
of the eastern Bekaa. Green military buses festooned with Syrian flags
and portraits of President Assad ferried soldiers across the border.

A monument dedicated to Syrian soldiers who died in Lebanon’s wars
will be unveiled at a ceremony this morning in the Bekaa Valley town
of Rayak formally marking an end to Syria’s military presence.

With almost all Syrian troops gone from Lebanon, Rustom Ghazale, the
head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, the mukhabarat, has
vowed to be the last soldier to leave. Once his vehicle crosses the
border at Masnaa today, the military road connecting the two countries
will be closed.

Jamil Sayyed, Lebanon’s feared security chief and a close ally of
Damascus, announced his resignation yesterday. Raymond Azar, chief of
Lebanese military intelligence, was reported to have fled to
France. The security chiefs stand accused of involvement in the murder
of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese Prime Minister, whose death heaped
pressure on Syria to withdraw.

A Syrian army officer, a camera on his shoulder, stood by the main
road at Masnaa filming each vehicle as it passed, capturing for
posterity what many Syrians regard as a humiliating retreat. `I am
sorry to leave like this because the Syrian and Lebanese people are
brothers,’ the officer said. `We would have liked to stay.’

But in the nearby ethnic Armenian town of Anjar, headquarters since
1976 of Syria’s military intelligence, there was barely disguised
delight. `We are very happy to see them go,’ Rafi Tamorian, 25,
said. `They might be our brothers, but they have been treading on our
hearts for too long.’

The intelligence headquarters lies beside the ruins of an 8th-century
town built by the Islamic Umayyad dynasty. The Syrians had used the
ancient stone dwellings as billets.

Around one corner of the site lay empty cans and plastic water
bottles, and laundry had been hung up to dry in the warm spring
sunshine. Two intelligence officers, unshaven and dressed in black
leather jackets, light cotton trousers and sandals ‘ the attire of the
Syrian mukhabarat ‘ crouched at a fire brewing tea, their rifles
leaning against a wall. The sight made a bizarre contrast to the
graceful columns and arches of the nearby palace of the Umayyad caliph
Al-Walid Ibn Abdel Malik, an earlier Damascus-based ruler of the
Levant.

Nicolas Hergilian, who runs a stall by the ruins, said: `Since 1976,
Anjar ceased being a centre of civilisation and became a centre for
the mukhabarat.

In Majdal Anjar, a Sunni town in the eastern Bekaa well known for
supplying volunteers to the Iraqi insurgency, pictures of the murdered
Hariri cover walls, shop windows and car windscreens, mute testimony
to anti-Syrian passions. `We used to be quiet because we are close to
the border but when the Opposition held the (anti-Syrian)
demonstrations in Beirut, the village exploded and we all travelled to
Beirut to join in,’ Khaled Yassin, a shopkeeper, said. `We want our
independence.’

A UN team arrives in Damascus today on a mission to ensure that Syrian
forces and intelligence personnel have fully departed, in compliance
with UN Resolution 1559.

During the 1990s, 30,000 Syrian soldiers were in Lebanon. By the start
of this year, redeployments since 2000 had whittled the number down to
14,000. Although Resolution 1559 was adopted last September, the
Syrians continued to stall on a total withdrawal. It was Hariri’s
murder that precipitated the final pullout.

The end of Syrian domination heralds uncertainty. With a new
Government formed last week and parliamentary elections scheduled for
May, the pro-Syrian establishment in Beirut is unravelling.