Lebanon and the international freezer

 Translation of today’s opinion piece I published in Diário de Notícias (Lisbon). 15 Aug. 2020

From Lebanon to the conflict freezer

Victor Angelo

 

The district of Beja in Southern Portugal and Lebanon have the same territorial area. But the comparison ends there. If on one side we have around 153 thousand inhabitants, on the other there are seven million, who live in one of the most unstable regions of the globe. And they are an extremely fragmented social mosaic, full of rivalries, which subsists at the expense of precarious balances, always ready to be broken. Each segment of society pulls the embers to its sardine. The respective bosses corrupt the system and capture the institutions of governance. To the emergence of more honest leaders, the bosses respond with murder or intimidation, to shut up or push into exile anyone who questions them.

This explains why a country of entrepreneurial people with a high cultural level went through a long civil war, from 1975 to 1990, and has been experiencing a deep national crisis for years. The situation entered an acute phase in October 2019, with thousands of citizens protesting regularly in the streets. The economy and the financial system ceased to function. The central government has become a prisoner of the fierce rivalries that exist between the 18 political-confessional groups that make up the country and which serve as chess pieces in the game of tension between the regional powers, especially Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The situation became catastrophic after the explosion in the port of Beirut. Since then, the country has made the front page of the news and the priority list of the usual powers, thanks in particular to the efforts of Emmanuel Macron. Lebanon will remain on this list as long as international attention is focused on its crisis. Sooner or later a new tragedy will appear somewhere and the country, like others that are also experiencing recurrent national conflicts, will move to the shelf of the forgotten, in the world freezer where so many unsolvable crises are stored and kept frozen. 

In the meantime, emergency humanitarian aid has been announced. It is vital that this aid arrives quickly and is delivered to those who are in a very precarious situation. Here the role of the United Nations organisations is to ensure the credibility of the distribution of humanitarian goods, which must be channelled through Lebanese NGOs. We must avoid political exploitation of this aid, either by internal factions or by donors. That is why I do not think it is too much to remember that humanitarian action aims to save lives, with transparency, without corruption. It has nothing to do with possible changes in the political spider web.

It is true that Lebanon needs to change its political labyrinth. In recent days, a series of proposals have emerged that would place this burden on the shoulders of the international community. Some have suggested a new mandate regime. The country was under a French mandate until 1943 and there are many people in Lebanon, at the grassroots level, who would like this to happen again. That, even with adaptations to the realities of modern politics, would be a thing of the past. It does not correspond to the current vision, which puts the responsibility for change in the hands of national political agents.

Nor do I think it is possible to send a United Nations contingent with a political mission approved by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. This part of the Charter allows for the use of military and police force, which would theoretically make the mission more efficient. In reality, it only works if there is a strong enough national political will to change the way the country is run, which seems to be very difficult to achieve in Lebanon. One could use the functions of mediation and facilitation of political dialogue, a role that is increasingly central to the United Nations menu. I just do not believe that Lebanese politicians are ready for such an effort.

So, while some humanitarian aid is being provided and internal political cooling is expected, I fear that Lebanon will join the group of countries that the Security Council's inertia regularly puts in the freezer of conflicts.