LEBANESE SHED FEW TEARS FOR SYRIA’S FEARED ENFORCER
By Lin Noueihed
Reuters AlertNet, UK
Oct 12 2005
BEIRUT, Oct 12 (Reuters) – Abu Hussein could barely conceal his smirk
when he heard that Syria’s dreaded former security chief in Lebanon
was dead.
“This is a blessing because he harmed and betrayed Lebanon and
God punishes the wicked,” chuckled the porter, seated on his stool
outside a residential block in Beirut. “It’s the best news I’ve heard
all year.”
For two decades, Ghazi Kanaan was the chief enforcer of Syrian policy
in neighbouring Lebanon, where he was feared by friend and foe alike.
Many Lebanese learned the hard way not to cross Kanaan’s troops and
“moukhabarat” agents, who never hesitated to use force against those
who got in their way.
Few Lebanese shed a tear over news of the Syrian major-general’s
apparent suicide.
For Bilal Mattar it revives painful memories of his two-day detention
by the Syrians as a teenager during the 1980s.
Mattar, now 28, and his friend had started a fight with a Syrian man
who banned them from playing football near his house.
“They took us and shaved our heads. They tied us up and beat us and
beat us and put cigarettes out on our tongues,” he recalled in the
Beirut electrical goods store he runs.
“You can’t imagine what they did. We virtually crawled out.”
Families of some Lebanese who went missing during the country’s
1975-1990 civil war, say their loved ones remain locked up in Syrian
jails to this day, though Syrian troops and security agents withdrew
from the country amid uproar in April.
Three weeks before he was found dead in his office, U.N.
investigators had questioned Kanaan over the assassination of Lebanese
former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Many Lebanese blame Syria for the Feb. 14 bomb blast that killed
Hariri. Damascus denies any role, but was forced to end its military
and political domination of Lebanon following local protests and
intense global pressure following Hariri’s death.
BEHIND BARS
Four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals are already behind bars, awaiting
trial on murder charges. The U.N. probe is expected to present its
findings this month.
“If he wasn’t guilty, why would he have done that. He must have been
expecting bad news from the report,” said Leila Ahmadieh, a housewife
who broke into a grin at the news.
“This is a happy ending after he oppressed so many Lebanese. Everyone
eventually gets what he deserves; Saddam Hussein was the most brutal
criminal of all and look how he ended up.”
Kanaan left Lebanon after a 20-year sojourn in 2002 to head the Syrian
Political Security Directorate, before becoming interior minister
in 2004.
He handed over his headquarters at the Armenian town of Anjar in the
Bekaa Valley and his office in a west Beirut hotel, to his successor
Rustom Ghazali.
By then, Syria’s grip was unchallenged, only to be swept away
dramatically three years later by a Lebanese and international outcry
over Hariri’s death.
“All I can say is: you reap what you sow. Now he is facing God’s
justice,” said Munir Ibrahim, a retired man chatting to friends on
a street in Beirut.
“One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but suffice to say, I hope he
drags the rest of them behind him, one by one.”