Unlike former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination in 2005, there was little talk about who was behind Gemayel’s killing. People assumed it was either a Hezbollah/Syria/Iran conspiracy or a U.S./Israeli conspiracy, depending upon which side of the ideological divide they fell on. The media said a pro-Syria group claimed responsibility for the killing. It seemed odd that no one became caught up in the “who” and “why” of this political assassination. Any inquiry into Hariri’s death was still a hotly contested issue and another stumbling block on the road to any form of governmental unity.

The anti-Syria, mostly Christian “March 14” coalition made it through the day, minus a scion of one of its most powerful families. Despite a bit of unrest, the funeral and protests were carried out peacefully, and there were no immediate plans publicized by March 8 to hold its intended rally. March 14 marked what Washington dubbed a “Cedar Revolution”—the day when hundreds of thousands of anti-Syria protesters took to the streets in the wake of Hariri’s February 2005 assassination and demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. Syria, after 29 years of deployment in Lebanon, withdrew that April. The March 14 rallies one month after Hariri’s slaying were also a response to growing resistance to
a Syrian military presence in Lebanon, which many blamed directly for Hariri’s assassination. It followed on the heels of a vast—and once again Hezbollah/Amal-led—protest showing support for Syria. The March 8 supporters saw Hariri’s death as part of a U.S./Israeli power play to gain influence in Lebanon.

Although most commentators like to call the current state of affairs a Shi‘a/Christian issue, the reality is that the divide is far more political than denominational. Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement was warring with other Christian factions and he placed his support with the Hezbollah (read Shi‘a) March 8 faction. Common sense indicates it is safer to say that the split in Lebanon fell along much more Marxist lines. Most of the poor and disenfranchised in Lebanon, namely the Shi‘a and the poorer Christian communities, fell under the March 8 banner, while the ruling Sunni and Christian classes comprised the March 14 coalition currently dominating the government. Numerous smaller parties and movements generally subscribe to one of the two umbrella movements whether they are communist, nationalist, religious or ethnic.

Andreas, Doyon and I thought it was time to hit the South and see exactly how badly the IDF’s destruction had been.

South Lebanon

It was in our second trip south, this time in a car rented for the day, that we finally made it to what used to be occupied terri-tory. Bint Jbeil, the border and, of course, Qana.

This would be my second visit to Qana, scene of the Israeli shelling of a U.N. compound for refugees in the 1996 “Grapes of Wrath” operation. More than 100 civilians and U.N. workers were killed in the first attack. Qana was hit again during the Summer war, and now there was a second memorial site.
We stopped at both memorial sites. It was Andreas who walked up nearly in tears at the second shelling site, livid with anger. “Look at the graves. Look at the birth and death dates.”

I did.

There were mostly children, many of them infants.

The rest of the South was in shambles, whole villages leveled. What wasn’t leveled looked ready to fall apart with the next breeze. Somewhere between Qana and the border, the taxi began experiencing problems. We had gotten a driver at the last minute and were regretting the decision. The driver tended to be impatient even though he was being paid for the day. His car was supposed to be in “top condition” and we were sitting outside a garage while it underwent repair. Someone in a gray uniform saw us snapping photos of the border wire and guard posts on either side of the Lebanon-Israeli border and waved us over.

Hassan was an officer with the Shi‘a Amal movement. He invited us in for tea, where we talked about our taxi from hell and the planned March 8 coalition rally. Hassan, unlike others, was certain about the march on the capital and told us the day and time. He was deferential and soft spoken; we talked about the current situation, the thousands displaced. I asked what he thought the march would accomplish.

“Change,” he said with a smile. “The government has to change. If it’s going to be a democracy, it will have to start acting like one.”

From camp to camp

The word camp seems to carry extra weight in Lebanon. Many of the country’s poor and dispossessed live in refugee camps. Many of the massacres that stain Lebanon’s history took place in Sabra and Shatila, Karantina, Tel al-Za‘tar.