BEIRUT — It is too early to say whether the release Wednesday of the four Lebanese security services generals who had been held in jail for four years on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will have a positive or negative impact on the political scene in the country. In momentous times like this, I often find guidance in the wisdom of the great contemporary American songwriter Bob Dylan, who wrote in one song, “Something’s going on here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”
Indeed, something important is going on here, but we do not quite know what it is. The release of the generals will impact at least four distinct arenas: the Lebanese parliamentary elections on June 7 and the domestic balance of power; Lebanese-Syrian relations broadly; the quality and relevance of the rule of law in Lebanon; and, the likelihood that legitimate global intervention could stop the assassinations that have defined and marred modern Arab political life.
The four released generals — Jamil Sayyed, Ali Hajj, Raymond Azar and Mustafa Hamdan — were in charge of key Lebanese security services when Hariri and 20 other people were killed in a massive bomb in central Beirut in February 2005. They were detained soon afterwards on the recommendation of the international commission that the UN Security Council established to investigate the crime. That commission has now transferred its key personnel and findings to the special tribunal in the Hague – a mixed Lebanese-international body — that will prosecute the cases that will be made against people who are yet to be named in indictments likely to come this year.
The release of the four generals means only one thing for sure right now: The special tribunal did not have enough hard evidence to keep holding them in prison. This is deeply embarrassing for both the international investigation and the Lebanese judicial system that jointly moved to detain the four men who had been seen as suspects or accomplices in the crime. It is not clear how much of a blow this is to the credibility of the investigation itself, because we know very little about what kind of evidence has been gathered against any suspects.
One thing that is clear, though, is the following question: If this entire investigation is about holding accountable — through juridical legitimacy — those who act with impunity and harm the rights or lives of others, is there a case to be made for holding accountable those who detained the four generals for the past four years?
This is a political question that must be answered by the boisterous and often dysfunctional Lebanese political system. In my view, it touches the single most important aspect of the entire special tribunal issue: using the rule of law and international legitimacy to try to bring an end to the impunity that has defined those mysterious parties and quarters that routinely use political violence as a normal course of action in the modern Arab world.
Of all the dramatic and important things that happened in those tumultuous months after the Hariri assassination — mass public protests, Syria’s withdrawal, a government change, new elections, and the naming of the investigating commission — the most important for me was the investigating commission. It represented two critical elements that have long been absent from the Arab arena: a legitimate form of foreign intervention in Arab affairs to try to stop the criminality that has plagued much of our public life for decades, and an attempt to use the rule of law, rather than armies and unilateral sanctions, to achieve this end.
If the release of the four generals reflects a fraying of the credibility of the investigation and its associated special tribunal, that is bad news. It is also possible that the investigation has generated no credible evidence against anyone, or, expedient political deals are being made to downgrade the investigation and tribunal in favor of other more strategic goals. I hope and also believe that neither of these is the case. We will know more in due course.
The special investigation and tribunal mandated by a unanimous decision of the UN Security Council in 2005 was a potentially historic turning point in the modern Arab world. It offered the hope that collective courage to make law and accountability, rather than terrorism and intimidation, the defining forces of Arab public life, through a legitimate partnership between one Arab country and the rest of the world represented by the UN. This hope is still operative, but it has been hit with a sudden jolt of reality.
The big picture and the key question for me remain very clear: Can people, political movements or governments forever kill and coerce with impunity in the Arab world?
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 04 May 2009
Word Count: 802
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