About those four generals
Their release is not a setback, but an affirmation that international justice is alive and well
Let’s get one thing straight: the freeing of the four generals from their four year incarceration in Roumieh prison is, in the words of the German prosecutor and Former Commissioner of the UN International Independent Investigation Commission Detlev Mehlis, “not a verdict released by the tribunal saying they are innocent, neither is it the court’s decision.
It is only a judicial decision on the generals’ detention.” Until Special Tribunal Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare personally announces that they are no longer suspects, then they legally remain so. Therefore, yesterday’s ruling was not a setback but an affirmation that international justice is alive and well and a testament to the determination and sacrifice of those who wish to see it through to the end.
But the inevitable release of the four, all of whom are arch-symbols of the latter years of Syria’s 29-year occupation of Lebanon and suspected cabalists in the February 14, 2005 bomb attack in front of the St Georges hotel that killed former premier Rafik Hariri and 22 others, was always going to play into the hands of the pro-Syrian March 8 opposition bloc.
That they have been released on the eve of what are arguably the most important parliamentary elections in Lebanon’s short national history is just bad luck. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon has been central to the majority March 14 bloc’s demand for justice and the opposition will seek to use it as leverage to discredit the coalition by holding up the release of four former security chiefs as proof that March 14 had politicized and polluted the judicial process and that their detention had been illegal from the beginning.
Political mudslinging aside, the fact of the matter is that the decision actually lends credibility to the tribunal and is further proof that the process, which has been the subject of much cynical scrutiny – not to mention the cause of the 18-month downtown sit-in – is very much alive and kicking. Moreover, and this is crucial, judging by Wednesday’s ecstatic celebrations, supporters of the Roumieh Four, clearly respect the ruling. The tribunal is now a functioning entity and similar rulings should therefore be received with equal grace.
How will all this be reflected in the polls? There will likely be little change in the voting habits of Shia and Sunni electorate. On the Christian street however, the arena in which the outcome of these elections will most likely be decided, supporters of March 14, the diehard orange legions of Michel Aoun and those voters who are as yet undecided how they will cast their ballot have been given a jarring reminder of what’s at stake.
For many senior and grassroots supporters of Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, the four suspects – Generals Jamil Sayyed, Mustapha Hamdan, Raymond Azar and Ali Hajj – represent a system they fought against, and which brooked no protest at the overbearing influence of its Syrian overlords. Today, the FPM lines up alongside the pro-Syrian parties in a Machiavellian bid for power. And yet, a shiver of doubt must have passed down many a hardened Aounist spine as they watched those old partners in crime Adnan Addoum and Jamil Sayyed embrace each other. These were the men who allowed detentions, interrogations and who knows what else to those who did not toe the line. Whether the four are innocent or guilty, their ilk should never return to public office.
March 14 should reaffirm the vows it took on that spring day in 2005, when, in the midst of the Independence Intifada, it demonstrated to the world that the majority of Lebanese were prepared to take to the streets in the name of freedom, sovereignty and independence. The values of that day have since been tested – in many cases shaken to the core – but they remain firm, a tribute to the importance of what was fought for and subsequently achieved.