Avoid copying Lebanon's mistakes

Avoid copying Lebanon's mistakes

By Omar Halim

JAKARTA (JP): The end of the Israeli occupation of Lebanese
territory will trigger a series of developments and bring new
opportunities for Lebanon.

The withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will bring
an end their effective support for the South Lebanon Army (SLA),
a surrogate military force created, trained, sustained and
financed by Israel, which initially mostly comprised of Lebanese
Maronite Christians.

These days, one reads that SLA posts and equipment are being
abandoned and some of its personnel and their families are
fleeing southern Lebanon and seeking asylum from Israel.

The "vacuum" created by the sudden and rapid withdrawal of
forces loyal to Israel is apparently being filled by Hizbollah
forces, which are rapidly advancing towards the international
border or, more properly termed, the Armistice Demarcation Line
(ADL).

It is assumed that they are not overrunning the United Nations
Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) positions, which is located in
an area about 20 kilometers south of the Litany River (the
Western Sector).

The area south of the Western Sector, about 5 kilometers by
7.5 kilometers wide, down to the Armed Demarcation Line with
Israel, was once controlled by SLA/IDF forces.

This means that Hizbollah forces would take over control of
this area, together with the Eastern Sector of UNIFIL (up to the
Lebanese border with Syria), which UNIFIL has never solidly
controlled since this sector has never been implicitly recognized
by the UN as being formally occupied by Israel.

If this picture were to come true, then it would be very odd
indeed, since UN forces would become "encircled" by the Lebanese
Army to the north and Hizbollah forces to the east and south. In
this case, it would not be clear what would be the future
function of the UN forces.

After the first Israeli invasion on March 14, 1978, which was
undertaken as a response to a Palestinian Liberation Organization
(PLO) commando attack near Tel Aviv from its bases in Lebanon,
the UN Security Council, on March 19 1978, established UNIFIL to
(a) confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon; (b)
restore international peace and security; and (c) assist the
government of Lebanon in restoring its effective authority over
the area.

One of the first problems faced by the UNIFIL mission was that
its "area of operation" was not negotiated beforehand with the
conflicting parties, and defined clearly by the Security Council.

The mission was to define its own area of operation, based on
the reasoning that after it was able to confirm the withdrawal of
Israeli forces (the first part of the Mandate), it would define,
and maintain its own area of operation, based on consultations
with the parties concerned.

But there was no commitment made by the Israelis, either to
the Security Council or to the United States, that they were
going to withdraw from Lebanon.

There was therefore no Israeli withdrawal to be observed and
confirmed, something which has persisted until now. At that time,
President Jimmy Carter was anxious not to let the Lebanon issue
interfere with his mediation involving Egypt and Israel, which
afterwards led to the Camp David Agreement.

The Council did not properly work the mandate out with the
parties concerned, that is the Israelis, the divided Lebanese and
the Palestinians who were in control of most parts of southern
Lebanon at the time.

The result was the actual area as defined above, leaving a
gaping hole between the Western and Eastern sectors and the
continued Israeli occupation in southeast Lebanon, including
along the border of Lebanon with Syria.

The "area of operation" should have been a swath of territory
which could effectively have been used to prevent Israeli and SLA
soldiers on the one hand, and armed elements from the north on
the other, from entering the area, thus forming a buffer between
the contending forces.

Notwithstanding this handicap, UNIFIL has nevertheless been
able, by and large, to prevent large-scale confrontations between
the two sides, except during the second Israeli invasion that
took place on June 6, 1982.

The situation however has been getting more tenuous as the
Hizbollah forces have been using more and more long-range
rockets, which can reach Israel, particularly the "finger of
galilee" rocket, from locations north of the UN forces.

Why has Lebanon suffered all this? Since 1943, Lebanon has
been governed based on a formula for delicately balancing the
sectarian interests of its different ethnic and religious groups,
which was agreed upon in the National Pact of 1943.

This pact was based on the 1932 census, which showed that the
demographic composition of the country's population was 52
percent Christian and 42 percent Muslims, meaning a proportion of
6 to 5 for all government posts.

The pact further stipulated that the president should be a
Maronite Christian; the prime minister a Sunni Muslim; the
speaker of the Chamber of Deputies a Shi'ite Muslim and his
deputy a Greek Orthodox; and the army commander a Maronite
Christian.

By the 1970s, however, the demographic composition had shifted
in favor of the Muslims and, within the Muslim population, the
Sunnis had been outstripped by the Shi'ites.

In addition, the mass influx of Palestinians after the "Black
September" incident in Jordan in 1970, tipped the balance
further.

By 1975, the inflexibility of the Christians to accommodate
change, and the increased militancy of the Muslims supported by
the Palestinians, led to civil war.

In October 1976, the Riyadh peace plan was agreed upon and,
among other things, it established the predominantly Syrian Arab
Deterrent Force (ADF).

When Syrian ADF troops were being deployed toward the south,
the Israeli government threatened to take "stern measures" if
they were to advance further south beyond an imaginary "red line"
extending from the mouth of the Zahrani River straight to the
east.

As the Syrians stopped deploying beyond that line, the absence
of the official Lebanese authority between that line and the ADL
was replaced by the PLO, which was at that time the dominant
force in southern Lebanon.

The PLO supported a loose association of Muslim and leftist
Lebanese parties -- Sunni, Druze, Shi'a, and a Greek Orthodox
Christian party called the Lebanese National Movement.

Opposing these groups were the Lebanese predominantly Maronite
Christian militia forces supported by Israel.

The division among Lebanese, exacerbated by the involvement of
outsiders, made Lebanon cease being an effective and unified
state.

In 1991, at Taif, Saudi Arabia, the Lebanese leaders reached
an agreement to establish a national government, but one still
based on the 1943 National Pact formula.

By this time, the PLO had relocated its headquarters to
Tunisia (although there were still a significant amount of
Palestinian fighters remaining in southern Lebanon); the Amal
Lebanese Shi'ite militia force in the south had weakened; and the
rival Hizbollah Lebanese Shi'ite forces were soon to return to
the south from the Bekaa Valley which was controlled by the
Syrian forces.

Therefore, the Hizbollah effectively became the Lebanese force
that fought the continued Israeli occupation in the south,
something which is happening to this day.

The national government of Lebanon had, however, almost 10
years to consolidate its authority north of UNIFIL's area of
operation.

The Lebanese army was reorganized based on intersectarian
principles by Gen. Emile Lahoud, who is now the Lebanese
president.

It is hoped that the Lebanese have gone a long way toward
establishing a national and effective government by now. The
present complete withdrawal of the Israelis from southern Lebanon
should provide the present Lebanese government with the first
opportunity to assert its authority over the now vacated occupied
territory.

The UN could perhaps still play a role in fulfilling the third
part of its mandate, that is to assist the government of Lebanon
in restoring its effective authority in southern Lebanon.

But this is not going to be so simple, since, unlike the
Jordanians, the Lebanese have allowed themselves to become part
of the Middle East political chess match. As Indonesians, and for
the sake of our future, let us not make the same mistakes!

The writer, a former senior staff member at the UN, is based
in Jakarta.