The price of reconciliation
With reconciliation efforts in the works between a number of conflicting parties as Lebanon heads toward national dialogue sessions next week, it came as no surprise that the seven-month hiatus in assassinations suddenly ended on Wednesday night. The murder of Sheikh Saleh Aridi, a friend of Syrian officials and a high-ranking member of the opposition Lebanese Democratic Party, at first seemed perplexing.
Aridi, part of the LDP’s leadership, was responsible for coordination between the party and Hezbollah, and was presumably a friend to that organization. He was also the first opposition figure killed since the start of the campaign of intimidation and murder that began in October 2004 with the failed attempt on former minister Marwan Hamadeh’s life.
Had Aridi been killed before the May events, we would have had a real mystery on our hands. However, after May, and particularly after the fighting in Beirut and its surrounding areas, that mystery seems less opaque. Aridi was one of LDP leader Talal Arslan’s most trusted aides, and following the violence of May, he was a key figure in implementing a rapprochement between Arslan and the paramount Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. That Druze unity was a backdrop to the losses suffered by Hezbollah in its fighting against the Druze in Choueifat and Aley.
The Druze rapprochement, which brought calm to the mountain, was followed this week by a reconciliation effort designed to pacify Tripoli, as well as efforts to spread that stability to the Bekaa Valley. For many observers, the link between those efforts and the assassination of Aridi was no coincidence. Someone, and we have our suspicions as to who it is, did not want that train of reconciliations to go too far.
While Arslan has not turned his back on Syria, his moving closer to Jumblatt apparently could not be allowed to proceed without comment. A made-in-Damascus response to moves to promote stability and fellowship before the national dialogue sessions scheduled for September 16 is hardly out of the question. In the past, Damascus has proven itself a foe of reconciliation in Lebanon — or at least a reconciliation that in any way might lessen Syria’s hold over the Lebanese political system.
When Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir met with Jumblatt in August 2001 to build a bridge between the Christian and Druze communities in the mountains, the response of the Syrian-controlled Lebanese security forces was to beat and arrest dozens of youths demonstrating against the Syrian presence. And while the Syrian army may have been forced to leave Lebanon just under four years later, Damascus’ tentacles remain, and its tactics have changed little.
That shouldn’t dissuade the Lebanese from pursuing the path of reconciliation. If bombs are going off, then that means that someone, somewhere is alarmed with what is going on. We should garner some courage from that alarm, as it would mean that we Lebanese are doing something right. And if Saleh Aridi happened to be killed by Lebanese, than we must react by proving that they represent a minority, a murderous minority that must one day face justice.