Beirut - For the fourth day and nearly completely ignored by the cities yearly runners marathon, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese filled the central dowtown area. The majority represent what Lebanese refer to as the March 8th movement which is demanding the present government resign to make way for a national Unity government  to replace the current sectarian Taifa system.

As night falls many march back home or load onto buses taking them to home villages scattered  cross the small country only to return the following day. Demonstrators promise to return every day until the current Siniora government resigns and makes room for one based on more realistic demographic representation. Others, mostly young men and Hizbollah security officers spend the nights in scattered tent cities gathering around bonfires as winter moves into the seaport capital.  Though the mood is for the most part peaceful, chants and occasional half-hearted brawls break the relative quiet.

Before we headed back to the tent cities last nignt, Beiruti's were shaken by quick spreading rumors that fighting had broken out  between mostly Shiite marchers returning home throughout the Qas Qas district and local Sunnis of the central Beirut neighborhood. Information was sketchy and fueled already rising tensions in a city which sees military presence increasing by the day.

By the following morning the death of one pro-March 8 supporters from bullet wounds in the back and more than two dozen others injured during the brief street fighting were confirmed and once again news services renewed headlines prophesying how easily the tense government and protestors standoff could descend into fierce sectarian violence. In spite of emergency talks among government officials from across the political spectrum, the mood, on the street and specifically the predominately Sunni district remains tense.

Last week’s street battle in Christian East Beirut, mostly between the pro-Syrian Michel Aoun faction and the Quwat Lebaniya nationalist movement, followed by yesterday's events have many Lebanese in a state of quiet edginess, with no political or social resolution in sight.

It's obvious the temperature tonight in the Hizbollah camps downtown will be lower than last night but whether the mood and the political heat will drop at all remains highly unlikely.

Jibril Hambel
Dec 4 2006