GEORGIA: How the Hawks Won

(http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43525)
By Zoltán Dujisin

PRAGUE, Aug 12 (IPS) - Georgia's step towards military confrontation comes after an increase in authoritarian and militaristic tendencies in a country that dealt catastrophically with Russia's pressure.

On Aug. 8 Georgian troops tried to take control of the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, de facto independent since 1992, by engaging in heavy fighting in the regional capital Tskhinvali, 100 km north-west of the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

Russia, officially in South Ossetian territory on a peacekeeping mission, responded by launching an extensive military operation in South Ossetia and beyond.

Abkhazia, another breakaway region in Western Georgia that proclaimed independence in the same year, has taken Russia's side.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili accuses the northern neighbour of attempting to overthrow him in a premeditated action.

Pressured by Russian economic sanctions and Moscow's support for the separatist regions, Saakashvili has opted for a confrontational and nationalistic stance counting on Western support.

Georgia, a nation of 4.6 million, claims that Russia uses the regions to obstruct Tbilisi's path towards North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) membership, a move harshly contested in Moscow but that many Georgians see as affirming their commitment to 'democracy' and 'Western civilisation'.

In recent months hawks have gained the upper hand in Georgia, making the military option more realistic, in spite of Western warnings to abstain from aggressive rhetoric and military action.

Last May Archil Gegeshidze from the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies wrote in the Russian Analytical Digest that Georgia lacked "political discussion and open public debate on how to solve the problem by peaceful means."

This month Georgian Minister for Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili warned it would be "foolish to engage in a confrontation in the Tskhinvali region (i.e. South Ossetia) because it is bound to affect civilians immediately."

Yet fighting took place in Tskhinvali, and if the unconfirmed Russian reports of a humanitarian catastrophe are true, Georgia may have definitely lost any hopes of ever reintegrating the separatist regions.

Allowing the forcible reunification of Georgia could have brought a delicate price for Russia to pay in terms of an even greater flood of refugees, and accusations of failing to protect its own citizens.

Moscow has issued Russian passports to 80 percent of South Ossetia's citizens in recognition of the strong links the otherwise isolated and blocked population had with the Soviet Union and its successor state.

Over the years the two mutually suspicious sides have had few negotiating breakthroughs, and while Georgia says Moscow's involvement is the only impediment, it has done little to improve its image in the separatist areas.

Ossetians and Abkhazians are generally supportive of their leadership and overwhelmingly against reintegration in Georgia, a state they don't see as capable of guaranteeing their security, as was shown by recent referenda.

Although there are no official numbers, it is estimated that 70 percent of South Ossetia's 62,000 strong population is Ossetian, the remainder 30 percent being of Georgian ethnicity.

The leadership and populations of the secessionist regions also fear the return of hundreds of thousands of Georgian refugees that could re-inflame ethnic tension. Instead, they are increasing their dependence on Russia while rejecting European projects for economic rehabilitation and ethnic reconciliation.

Citizens in the separatist regions have been living off remittances, international and Russian aid, and smuggling to the extent that local leadership has come to profit from non-resolution of the conflict.

South Ossetia rejected an extensive autonomy offer by Georgia in 2005, but this offer came amid Georgian measures against the Ossetian economy and the set-up of competing power structures along with the presence of Georgian security services and paramilitaries.

Saakashvili's promises of a successful liberal economy and a western-type democracy did not make Georgia a more attractive state to Abkhazians and Ossetians either, as many Georgians themselves have become disillusioned with the President.

Saakashvili's recent claims that Russia's intervention is only aimed at overthrowing him bear resemblance to his justifications for violently repressing massive peaceful protests last November.

Charging opposition activists and leaders with conspiracy to overthrow him, and linking opponents to Russian espionage, Saakashvili began to curtail civil liberties, control the press and use state resources in his favour.

His victory in the January presidential elections led to accusations of vote rigging, but the results had the approval of the West.

More than ever, South Ossetians and Abkhazians suspect that Saakashvili's promises of ethnic harmony are pretty much in line with his rhetorical tools for a 'naive' Western audience.

South Ossetians are striving for annexation by Russia so that they could join the relatively wealthy North Ossetian republic in the Russian federation. But the region would be an economic burden for the northern ethnic kin, as well as for Russia, which moreover fears the international and regional consequences of such a move.

The Georgian military intervention sought to thwart Russia's peacekeeping role by internationalising the conflict and changing the nature of the peacekeeping mission.

The mission, established after the 1992 war, comprises representatives of Russia, North and South Ossetia, and Georgia, but Georgia now says the balance of forces is unfair.

A Menacing Presence

Bay of Jounieh, Lebanon. June 2008

A Collective Diatribe on Lebanon's Predicament

New book compiles raw expressions of love and dissatisfaction with problem-plagued country
By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, September 07, 2007

Review

BEIRUT: "The idea is to portray our frustration and feelings about the current situation in Lebanon," says the introduction to "The Book of Closure." "It's the arguments and the debates we have between ourselves, our friends and with God." Newly published with a spare white cover completely devoid of text or even a title, the book opens up as an anthology of poems, short stories, drawings and other cathartic expressions of dissatisfaction with Lebanon's current (and ostensibly perpetual) predicament.

The contributors are local authors from all over the demographic spectrum - one is a sixth-grader, the eldest is about 70 years old - along with visitors and immigrants with first-hand experience of the paradoxes and ailments that afflict Lebanese society. Some of the material is new; some is reprinted. Some selections have been written in English; others in Arabic and one brief entry is penned in French.

"The Book of Closure" was compiled by P.INC, or Prodigies Incorporated, better known as a graphic design house and advertising agency. P.INC's services are employed by a roster of clients including the Virgin Megastores, Fashion Television Arabia and the American University of Beirut.

The company was established in Beirut in 2002, and has branches in Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. The members of P.INC's team pride themselves on offering customers a range of services beyond just graphic design, such as events management, media research and 3D-animation.

The book opens with "Lebanon During 1870," authored by a Protestant minister over 130 years ago, a brief yet tremendously effective demonstration of how little the Lebanese polity has changed over the past century: "There is no common bond of union ... but an endless number of dislocated fragments, faults, and dikes, by which the masses are tilted up in hopeless confusion, and lie at every conceivable angle of antagonism to each other."

Nancy Jamaleddine, one of the contemporary writers published in "The Book," attributes Lebanon's problems to "our credo, talking about pride, patriotism, and bragging up high different insignias that veil reality," while adding that "each one of us attached to a manifesto is nothing better than a petty warmonger."

As Henry Saliba's contribution "Closure?" demonstrates, there seems to be consensus among the authors on the belief that uncompromising devotion to religious or political principles is counterproductive: "I pray for prosperity, but they pray to their hollow ideology," he writes, in reference to Lebanon's aging political class of familiar faces. "I am sorry, but I cannot give you closure."

Maria De Lourdes offers a similar verbalization of anguish: "I prefer war in Lebanon with Israel to this horrible present situation."

Others, like Ralf Cremona (the title of whose piece demands "For the Love of God Wake Up!"), grieve over what has now become a literal exodus of domestic young talent, who, in the face of an acute shortage of prospects for employment, are leaving the country en masse: "My dear Friends, Relatives, Citizens, and Leaders ... I left the country for you because you are so blind to see!" Such sentiments recur. Ronda Hassen's contribution is aptly titled "Why Did I Have to Leave?"

Older contributors with children voice concerns about the values that will filter down through the minds of the next generation. Soha Chehayeb discusses the importance of teaching "our children to accept others regardless of their origin or affiliation." Her resentment is unequivocal: "I hate it when they come to me asking about the meaning of Christian or Moslem. I want them to be Lebanese and only Lebanese."

On occasion, nevertheless, some writers explicitly convey their love for Lebanon, instead of expressing it through acrimony. As Joseph Hoyek romantically declares: "I love Lebanon, I love life, the life of dignity."

The name of each author is printed below a barcode, an allusion to the "feeling that we are all just numbers; just items in a supermarket," says Diana Jarmakani of P.INC, who wrote the book's introduction. She explains that the project was "done for the sake of doing it - it was to exercise ourselves in our free time, and was the result of my colleagues' constant complaints to me about the national situation."

The idea behind the spare white cover is to allow buyers of the book to personalize their purchase with stickers found inside the front flap.

In yet another attempt at ingenuity and interactive experience, the publisher leaves the closing four pages of the book blank, nudging readers to articulate their own grievances and exasperations.

"We wanted to make it look like it has nothing to do with graphic design," Jarmakani says of the book. The method by which the material was compiled was also simple: "I just sent out a group email, and the book is actually the collection of what I received as replies to that email in the next few days," she says.

"Everything in the book is completely unedited - we just copied and pasted what we received," she adds. "And I have to say, everyone who sent us something said that they ended up feeling much better because they were able to voice their frustrations."

That said, one wonders whether or not P.INC has overstepped the boundaries of entrepreneurial eclecticism. Granted, the many contributors to "The Book of Closure" unanimously highlight the themes of bitterness and dismay at what has become of the country they call (or used to call) home.

Because the material was left raw and unedited, some of the texts find the grammatical principles of the English language rather elusive. Words like "un-understanding" and "r" (as an abbreviated substitute for "are") find their way onto the page and agitate.

Nonetheless, through this outpouring of emotion, the authors seek to therapeutically rid themselves of the anxiety they feel, and focus instead

on the love and passion they have for Lebanon. Their collective diatribe may fall short of offering real solutions to the ills of Lebanese society, but as Jarmakani states: "The book offers an outlet and a channel for expressing the anger that we may feel, so that we can be able to look past it and try to think positively."

Scrambled Eggs on the back burner: Beirut's post-punk pioneers take five (months or so)

Members will use hiatus for studies in America, possible shows in Europe, new material
By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, August 31, 2007

BEIRUT: When the local post-punk outfit Scrambled Eggs took to the stage at Basement last week, it was to play their last show in Beirut for some time to come. The band, made up of vocalist and guitarist Charbel Haber, guitarist Marc Codsi, bassist Tony Aliyeh and drummer Malek Rizkallah, is putting itself on self-imposed hiatus for the next few months, pending Rizkallah's return from studying in the United States.

Scrambled Eggs has been a prominent member of Beirut's alternative rock scene for a solid decade now, and, despite the band members' taking a much-needed break, there seems to be no end in sight as far as their creative antics are concerned.

"The band will pick up again around January," Haber says, "but we may do some concerts in Europe in the meantime."

Haber and his bandmates are generally delighted to offer a long list of obscure, experimental ambient-electro artists as their influences, but they are also equally careful to mention that most of their writing is done through improvisation, evocative of the technique spearheaded by jazz legends such as John Coltrane.

The members of Scrambled Eggs are, however, renowned in Beirut as partisans of now-classic acts such as Sonic Youth, who, among other New York groups in the 1980s, pioneered the so-called "no wave" movement in art and music (a special brand of indie underground music permeated by a re-evaluation of punk rock credos).

The band's love affair with experimentation, improvisation and, more notably, with atmospheric resonance and feedback, seems interminable, at least for the moment. In addition to those shows in Europe, Haber has his record label Those Kids Must Choke to think about, and it is likely Scrambled Eggs will take advantage of some down time to start assembling material for the band's next album.

"I am too busy right now to even think about the label," Haber admits, "but I can do 500 records, and they'll all be the same twisted underground stuff," he says, laughing. "I don't want it to grow beyond that or diversify - that's the spirit of the label and that's what I'm sticking to."

In terms of the band's music, he explains: "We are currently heading in the same direction, but at the same time, we never know for sure where the next album will take us.

"It should feature the familiar punk vibe, with our own brand of ambient, but again, the way we compose in rehearsal is by improvisation, which obviously implies unpredictability, so you never know.

"I draw the inspiration for the lyrics from human relationships and the spirit of the times - the songs are about people you love, those you hate, and those you don't hate," Haber says.

When asked what he is currently listening to, Haber exclaims, with a mischievous smile: "Nothing, zero!"

Scrambled Eggs' concert last Thursday began more than an hour behind schedule, but the band's repertoire for the night certainly lived up to its reputation: Aliyeh drove his fingers across his bass for the improvised opener, generating a haunting, oriental-sounding melody, which was repeatedly drowned out by the howling feedback from Codsi's and Haber's guitars. If those in the audience who had never been to a Scrambled Eggs show before were at all thrown off by the plush sonic sounds that filled the room as the band sank deeper into the proverbial maze produced by their instruments, the entrance of Haber's vocals dispelled any doubts with respect to these musicians' punk credentials.

Haber's meaningful yet somehow sarcastic wails signaled a break from the singing style he employed on such Scrambled Eggs releases as "Human Friendly Noises" from 2002. But at the same time they positioned him clearly as an heir to the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten.

Haber's lack of inhibition in expressing his sensitivity as a songwriter comes out in lyrics such as "I don't want you to see me cry," displaying a covert vulnerability parallel to a show of strength, itself synonymous with the brave face most young Lebanese performers have had to put on during these taxing times the country is enduring.

Haber reinforced that point with a defiant allusion to Lebanon's current situation: "See you in Beirut, whatever happens," he said, before launching into a song bearing the same name, showcasing an industrial-sounding mid-section and a twisted, anthemic chorus.

During the instrumental sections of songs, Codsi shredded what appeared to be a Fender Stratocaster, a guitar typically played by puritan rock and punk musicians. The simple yet overwhelmingly potent single-note guitar solos, played at a pace reminiscent of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, supplemented each song with an appropriately authoritative closing statement.

"Murder" opened with an organ sample that sounded like a musical excerpt from a horror flick. Then Rizkallah took over the rhythm section. The drummer's startlingly simple set-up - consisting of just the basic toms, snare drum and one or two cymbals - reverberated throughout the club in a sequence that most accurately resembled the sound of war drums.

The band rolled through the night's musical menu, with songs such as "Bleeding Nun," "Salt and Sugar" and "Lightning Bolt" finding their way onto the set list. "Russian Roulette" featured a straightforward two-note progression in the verse played by Aliyeh, with Codsi occasionally harmonizing to Haber's vocal lines.

Offstage, Haber lamented the intractability of some members of the audience: "It's difficult to move them, and I would attribute this to the 'culture' of the audience and how in touch with rock music they are, as well as how many live shows they've been to.

"It wasn't always like this, but generally, the younger people in the crowd are the ones jumping around," he adds with a smile.

Turning the Rubble of War Into a Temporary Residence

Pair of architects suggests efficient way to build shelters
By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

BEIRUT: "A good solution is a simple solution," says Nachaat Ouayda, managing partner of IDEA sarl. Ouayda and his partner, Sami Markus, are both architects who met while teaching at the American University of Beirut in the late 1980's. The brainchild of their collaboration is IDEA sarl, an architectural and professional management practice and consultancy firm, which a year after the 2006 war with Israel is attempting to raise awareness of an innovation in temporary housing, engineered by Ouayda and Markus themselves.

The relevance of IDEA's conception is even more prominent in the minds of its creators because of the problem posed by the current conflict between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam militants, and the extensive destruction that the latter has caused in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.

"Project R" evolved as a solution to the problems that arose as a result of Israel's 34-day massive bombing campaign against Lebanon - most notably, the rubble that countless houses in the South of the country had been reduced to. The latter, coupled with an urgent need to find shelter for close to a million displaced people, compelled Ouayda and Markus to come up with an alternative to the conventional prefabricated concrete housing units and porta-cabins.

"Mind you, this is not a house," emphasizes Ouayda.

"This unit is transitional shelter," he continues, "and it's not meant to replace permanent houses in villages."

Citing the advantages of using "Project R" units, Ouayda adds that "you don't need any steel or concrete, and no specialized skilled manpower, while no foundations and a minimal amount of raw material are required."

The absence of a need for the latter was a fundamental feature of the product aimed at the disaster zone in Lebanon's South, because the widespread destruction that the region's bridges and roads had undergone would have made material transportation a cumbersome affair to say the least.

Markus and Ouayda hence decided that the raw material would be the rubble itself, conceptualizing "a 70 m2 house that can be built from the rubble obtained from a 150 m2 house."

The most prominent feature of the design is the 'Gabion system', which is a wire mesh module doubly coated with zinc and aluminum, and used for wall retention in architectural systems. If ground transportation facilities have been impaired, as they were in Lebanon following last summer's war, a large volume of the wire mesh can easily be folded and airlifted to the desired destination.

Pieces of rubble, 10 to 20 cm in size, are used to fill the Gabion module, which, because of its resulting labyrinth-like internal arrangement, maintains the heat and moisture-resistant property of the one meter-wide wall. At the same time, the Gabion mesh is easily obtainable on the market, already folded in boxes.

The roof of the structure, a sandwich panel insulated by light-weight steel sheets, is probably the most expensive piece of the puzzle, and would require a light-weight crane to lift and position it onto the 'rubble house'.

Most importantly, "Project R" is competitive in terms of cost, because "the total cost of this system is about 50 or 60 percent less than the same metric area that another conventional temporary housing system can provide."

But Ouayda is emphatic about the fact that his invention "is not supposed to compete with or replace porta-cabins and prefabricated concrete units."

On August 14 of last year, after the cease-fire, the "Project R" concept was published in various newspapers. However, Ouayda and Markus purposely did not register their novelty for copyright before telling the world about it, so that civil communities and the Lebanese people themselves could put the model to use without incurring any additional costs.IDEA's innovation, like any pioneering creation, was greeted with suspicion and skepticism by government officials and NGO's alike, to whom the concept was pitched. The classic "it sounds too good to be true" reaction was pervasive, and "Project R" would not see the light of day until friends of the managing partners and believers in the product invested their own money to construct a test model at a space provided by the Ghobeiry municipality.

"I had several concerns about the test model," Ouayda says, "one of which was the protection against elements, meaning rain, heat and all other types of weather.

"The model performed wonderfully though," he enthuses, "and tests indicated that it was stable because of its weight, height, and thickness, and it can perform seismically even though no concrete is used in the structure except for a thin layer on the floor."

Beside the mixed reaction to IDEA's innovation, the completion of the model itself would maintain the cycle of bad luck. "The model was finished on December 1 of last year, but that was also the day when the current political turmoil started," says Ouayda, in reference to the ten-month old power struggle between the government and opposition, "so we never had a chance to conduct a mass media campaign.

"This product can be put to use in Nahr al-Bared right now," he suggests, and adds that "what they want to do now is rent land to buy and place prefabricated houses while they clear the rubble and then reconstruct the camp.

"Instead, with "Project R," they can rent the land, sort and clear the rubble onto this rented land, and construct the temporary houses using the proposed Gabion system to provide immediate shelter for the refugees.

"That way, they would have sorted 90 percent of the rubble already, and it would be easy to clear off or recycle once the reconstruction of the camp is completed," Ouayda adds.

Base units are not designed exclusively as lodging formations. They can be combined and subdivided to make multi-purpose structures, such as medical, education and business centers.

Probably the most attractive feature of the unit, as Ouayda outlines and as far as environmentalists are concerned, is that they can be used again - the rubble used as filling for the walls can be transported back to gravel rehabilitation sites, quarries, as well as river banks, while the same material can be recycled in the construction of libraries, townhouses, and other communal buildings.

"The difficulties we have endured with this project so far have been out of our hands," Ouayda states.

"But I hope that the disadvantaged and displaced people of Lebanon can finally put this innovation to use and supplement what is already available on the temporary housing market, in order to find a more effective solution for the problems of the community."

Lebanon Proves To Be Rocky Ground For Rock'n'Roll

Beirut's performing artists talk about working in the Paris of the Middle East and the lure of the region's Vegas

By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, August 24, 2007

BEIRUT: Lebanon's social and political fabric were not the only victims of last summer's 34-day Israeli onslaught. Seemingly irreparable damage was done to the country's fledgling rock music and performance scene as well. There's some irony in this. Lebanese artists may have an ambiguous relationship to the country's perennial volatility, but it has been the bread and butter of local rock musicians. Their lamentations are imbued with such themes as lost faith, resentment, and disenchantment with the social milieu.

Before the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, Beirut nurtured a respectable roster of longstanding rock groups - with Blend, Negative, Soul Active, Scrambled Eggs, Soap Kills, and April Ash, to name a few.

Now many of those artists have permanently disbanded. Others, like Blend (one of the city's only homegrown acts that have been able to secure a record deal with a major label), still manage, albeit infrequently, to pack a local club.

Any chance that Beirut rockers might have that was not obliterated by last summer's war, is imperiled by the widespread unrest, bombings and political assassinations in the past year.

This precarious environment has also been the main factor exacerbating what Dimitri Saba, Blend's lead singer, calls "the dwindling number of bands and rock musicians in Lebanon."

Lebanon's rock artists don't ask for much. Most own their own instruments and equipment - amplifiers, effects pedals, cables, microphones, and stands. They usually travel significant distances across Beirut and its suburbs, sometimes by bus or taxi, to get to their rehearsal space or performance venue. Even so, average earnings for a two-hour performance can be as low as $40 per band member.

Bars and pubs are often averse to bearing the costs associated with hosting shows, while "their managers and owners generally treat small-time performers not as partners, but as workforce to deprecate, exploit, and view with suspicion," says Riad Mouawad, lead guitarist for Negative, the now-defunct local rock and nu-metal outfit.

Blend's experience, however, suggests that major-label signings enjoy a somewhat different treatment with regard to venues. "The ones we have come in contact with have tried their best to provide the band with every single requirement," says Saba. "There are still limitations, but their help is significant all the same."

Mouawad is the sole member of Negative who still lives and works in Lebanon. His three partners have all emigrated to Dubai, in search of professional and lucrative employment opportunities.

Having finally recorded and released a single - after a decade of club dates and increasing prominence on the scene - Negative met a fate common to many of Beirut's rock bands in the past two years. They were effectively forced into exile by eruptions of violence in the country.

"I hated spending three hours before and after performing to assemble and dissemble the equipment," says Mouawad, expressing his frustration with the limited local venues and how they hinder to the performance experience. "I wanted to just get up there and play, because those were moments of ecstasy for me."

Likewise, Saba is reminiscent of the time before the current turmoil when there "were a lot more bands, which meant there were many more venues to play ... at the moment," he adds, "there are less than a handful of venues where bands can feature regularly."

"In the past," he continues, "you could play almost anywhere you could fit three head bangers and a drummer."

Currently working on the follow-up to their 'Act One' (2003) studio album, Blend have been the embodiment of the Beirut rock scene's potential for commercial success. "When Blend was picked up by EMI Arabia," says Saba, "the market was so saturated that it was inevitable for one or two to make it through.

"When you look at the ages of the bands who are currently signed," he opines, "Blend, Scrambled Eggs, Kimaera, and so on - you can see that they were 'in their prime,' say in 2000 or 2001, the peak years of that specific era in Lebanese rock."

Over in Dubai, where most of Mouawad's band mates have moved, musicians say live music and performing arts in general are significantly more appreciated.

"It's really quite exciting when you put it into perspective," says Natalie Abulhosn, a Lebanese Indie rock singer/songwriter and performer who was compelled to leave Lebanon for Dubai during last year's war. "The audience [in Dubai] is always surprised and welcoming when they attend a live performance."

Having been extensively exposed to both the glitter of the "rose-colored" megalopolis that is Dubai, as well as the gloom and climate of unpredictability that plagues Beirut, Abulhosn believes that a resident in the Gulf city-state is far better equipped to be productive and creative.

"Dubai has the resources, money and boredom, all of which fuel every scene [the music industry] invests time and energy in."

She emphasizes that "Lebanon has a scarcity problem. You feel that in the music."

Saba, for his part, passionately opposes moving his band to Dubai and has a bone to pick with the transient experience that the city personifies. "If Blend is to relocate to a more stable environment to nurture its musical career, it would be to Europe, as essentially that is where the market and money are, which can enable the band to stand on its own feet."

In reference to those Lebanese rock and indie musicians who have been displaced by the ongoing situation at home, Abulhosn adds, "all of us are grasping aimlessly at some form of security as we are completely uprooted - psychologically and nationally."

She is, ironically perhaps, both concerned and thankful for the state of her native land.

"Lebanon, unfortunately, has far too much development ahead to reach the level of superficiality Dubai offers, and I hope it stays that way ... Lebanon is the chaotic break people need from Dubai, to remind themselves that they exist, and that Dubai is a fleeting dream to be used until further notice."

On this point, Saba concurs. "Beirut is and always will be the hotbed of talent," he says, "especially when it comes to art forms where east meets west ... but I fear that ultimately it may drive a talented artist away in his pursuit of success, rather than compel him to stay."

Carla del Ponte's Pound of Serbian Flesh

The original version of this article can be accessed at http://antiwar.com/orig/jatras.php?articleid=1503

by Stella L. Jatras

December 9, 2003

One by one, Serbs are confessing to their guilt regarding Srebrenica. Are we witnessing another Stalin show trial, where the defendants were told, "if you sign, we won't shoot you"? Well, Stalin's victims signed and many were shot anyway, or worked to death in the Gulag.
The Hague "Tribunal" seems to have taken Uncle Joe's lesson to heart. Serbs have been so demoralized, so dehumanized, and so brutalized that they are willing to confess to anything and everything that is put before them hoping to get a better deal for themselves and for their families. It is obvious to this writer that The Hague's Chief Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, must have her pound of Serbian flesh either by hook or crook, in order to justify her kangaroo court. "If you don't confess (regardless of the accusation), we will guarantee that you will receive no less than 20 years," is clearly the offer from del Ponte, who, like a jackal, has tasted blood and will not rest until she has devoured her prey. It should also be remembered that the majority of funding for The Hague's International kangaroo court is being provided by the American people.
In his speech during his trip to Britain, President Bush evoked the name of Milosevic, not once but several times. The President also eluded to the evils that had occurred in Europe without, to my recollection, evoking the names of either Hitler or Stalin, as though Milosevic was more evil than those two. The question is, why? Was it to further demonize and humiliate the Serbs?
President Bush also said that "we cannot turn Iraq over to the terrorists," yet that is exactly what was done in the Balkans by the two previous administrations. We turned the Balkans over to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda who have been operating there since the early 1990s. The President also said, "we must cut off funding for terrorists," yet we have been funding the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) or their alter ego the Kosovo Protection Corps. (KPC) in the Balkans for over a decade.

THE SERBS WILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER

Billions and billions of dollars have been earmarked to rebuild both Iraq and Afghanistan, yet the rebuilding of Serbia after its destruction by NATO's war planes can only come until every alleged Serbian war criminal is made to pay for alleged atrocities. President Bush even made it a point to ask each American school child to send $1.00 to help the children of Afghanistan. Oh, that such compassion would be shown for Serbian children.

In a recent e-mail (one of many) to Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia, I expressed my concerns regarding an October 30 briefing of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on "The Future of Albanians in Montenegro." The briefing was on the alleged plight of Albanians in Montenegro, yet I have seen nothing from this congressional caucus, co-chaired by Congressman Wolf and Tom Lantos (D-CA) regarding the Serbian population of Kosovo which is being decimated by murder and ethnic cleansing.

On Friday, 14 November I received a call from Congressman Wolf's office asking if I would like to meet with him, which I and my husband did on the 18th. We gathered from the meeting that the congressman wanted to impress upon us that he, in his opinion, has been dealing fairly with all parties concerned. We, in turn, welcomed the opportunity to impress upon him that while he was concerned about the plight of Albanians in Montenegro where we have no direct involvement, the American Congress is funding the criminals responsible for the atrocities that are still being perpetrated against the Serbian people in Kosovo. Congressman Wolf seemed to be taken aback when we showed him the photo of Sadik Chuflaj, an Albanian member of the KLA, and his son who is currently a lieutenant in the UN funded KPC, jubilantly holding the severed head of one Serb, while the severed head of another Serb was more obscure to the left of the photo. (Warning: Explicit photo of decapitations) The congressman had no answer as to why, with such graphic evidence these men have not been arrested. Only now, after ten years, are two ex-army commanders, the first senior Bosnian Muslims to appear before the tribunal for "ritual beheading" of Serbs, are on trial for atrocities that go as far back as 1993. We also questioned the congressman as to why there was no congressional condemnation of the recent axe killings of elderly Serbs and the machine gunning of Serbian youths while they were swimming.

Although he seemed to be impressed by the evidence of Albanian actrocities, the congressman stated that until Karadzic is captured and sent to The Hague, the sanctions on Serbia will likely remain. I responded by saying that it was not fair to punish innocent Serbs collectively. The congressman answered (to paraphrase), "No, it is not fair, but that's the way it is." By this reasoning, we should not spend billions and billions of dollars to help the Iraqis until they turn over Saddam Hussein. By this reasoning we should also withhold funds from Afghanistan until they turn over Osama bin Laden. As we pointed out to the congressman, even after Karadzic is captured, there are those who then will demand the capture of Bosnian Serb and former army chief General Ratko Mladic, and so on and so on, to which the congressman said "I don't think that will happen." Ironically, shortly after our meeting, a provision was presented in the U.S. Senate to make economic assistance to Serbia and the Bosnian Serb Republic dependent on Mladic's capture.

The most troubling aspect of our meeting with Congressman Wolf was the realization that if a man like Frank Wolf, who is correct on most issues, who is truly concerned about human rights, who has worked hard on behalf of persecuted Christians in Sudan and China, is not demanding the same human rights for the Serbian people, then there is little chance that we will see justice for the Serbian people.

All sides do terrible things in civil wars, but only Milosevic, dubbed by his accusers as The Butcher of the Balkans, has been singled out for particular reprimand and demonization. Scarce attention is given to Croatian war criminals (and only if the crime was perpetrated against Muslims) and virtually no attention is given to Bosnian Muslim or ethnic Albanian [KLA] terrorists. Is it not a war crime to willingly slaughter your own people ("Muslims slaughter their own people ," The [London] Independent, 22 Aug. 1992), in order to advance a Muslim Bosnia as did Alija Izetbegovic? Is it not a war crime to ethnically cleanse an entire people from their Serbian ancestral homes in Croatia as did Croatian forces during "Operation Storm," with U.S. military aid and technology? Only after the war criminals Bosnian President Izetbegovic and Croatian President Tudjman are dead do the Serb-bashers say, "Oh yes, if they hadn't died they would have been indicted." Needless to say, with the deaths of Tudjman and Izetbegovic, the war crimes committed by their accomplices will not be pursued.

Even if Carla del Ponte's court were fair and just, to continue to punish the Serbian people is uncivilized, immoral and above all, cruel. Americans want to be known as compassionate. Where is the compassion for the Serbian people? These are the people who demonstrated against Milosevic for four months in the cold of the 1996 winter with no help or support from the American government or media. These are the people who themselves or their parents or grandparents fought alongside us in two world wars. These are the people who saved over 500 American airmen during World War Two at great sacrifice to themselves. These are the people who lived for nearly 50 years under communist rule largely as a result of our support of the dictator Josip Broz Tito.

MANY DISCREPANCIES REMAIN

Many discrepancies remain regarding what actually happened at Srebrenica "'Srebrenica' – Code Word to Silence Critics of U.S. Policies in the Balkans." Strategic Studies reported on 19 Sep. 2003, "On the eve of the dedication of a monument to Muslims killed at Srebrenica, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1995, a group which includes a former UN official, intelligence experts, and journalists, released a statement challenging the alleged casualty number of 7,000 victims as vastly inflated and unsupported by evidence'."

In an exclusive analysis titled, "US Official Implicated With Bosnian High Representative Ashdown in Attempted to Force Fabricated Report on Srebrenica," Gregory R. Copley, Editor of Global Information System (GIS) and Director of Strategic Studies, with input from sources in Sarajevo and elsewhere, wrote "Very reliable sources within the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and other sources in Sarajevo have told GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily that a second US official, Amb. Donald S. Hays, the Deputy High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been actively engaged in attempts to force a fabricated report to be published on the controversial wartime fighting at the city of Srebrenica.

"Amb. Hays, presumably at the insistence of High Representative Paddy Ashdown, the former British politician, has demanded the publication of a so-called 'final report' on an alleged mass-killing of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, during the Bosnian civil war, by the Government of Republika Srpska, the predominantly Serbian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In essence, Amb. Hays and Lord Ashdown are attempting to force the Government of Republika Srpska (RS) to admit that Serbs were responsible for killing thousands of Muslims at Srebrenica."

It is evident that through intimidation and threats, the leadership of Bosnian Serb President Cavic has been told not to question; not to qualify anything, just admit, and then the powers-that-be will see whether the Serbs will be allowed to survive as the state of Republika Srpska.
Former Canadian Ambassador to Belgrade James Bissett expresses his sentiments thusly: "One of the reasons that I have championed the Serbian cause in Canada and why I spoke out against the bombing was because I was very much aware of the lies being told. Another reason was because I knew it was almost impossible for the Serbian community to defend itself. It needed an outside and objective spokesperson and I have tried to play that role and will continue to do so."

There have been so many false accusations, so many exaggerations, so many hoaxes against the Serbian people, even charges of cannibalism, that one wonders where reason stops and insanity begins. By confessing to crimes they haven't committed, Serbs will only meet the same fate as those who confessed at Stalin's show trials. Unfortunately, the lies have been told so often that even the Serbs have begun to believe them.

As former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic said, "This war is an example of what modern media and governments can do. They can arrange anything. Put on a show so that their people believe anything. While watching their television pictures or their radios sometimes I myself almost came to the conclusion: We Serbs, we are real swine. They could put their stories together that well."

The View From the Inner Edge of the Sideline... (written 7 August 2006)

by Bojan Preradovic

I’m lying in bed and flicking through my phone, which has been rendered useless just yesterday by the destruction of various repeaters and reception towers across Lebanon, courtesy of Israeli jets. The objects of my diligent examination are sound clips, recorded over the last three or four months. I listen to them with a colossal lump in my chest, pausing after each one to scrutinize the date they were recorded. One is a brief segment of me goofing around with a friend, while the commentary of the recent Italy vs. Germany World Cup football game echoes in the background. It’s dated 4 July 2006. Just eight days before that day. Another is one of my musical reminder clips – a song idea that I hastily put down on my phone so I don’t forget – dated 26 June 2006. It was a simpler time – I think to myself – a time when what Lebanon is presently enduring did not even occur to anyone here as vaguely imaginable. It simply did not occur to anyone at all.

And how could it have? Lebanon was in the throes of a summer season, hosting a record number of tourists in the first half of 2006, some 631,000 people – I read some days ago in the local English-language Daily Star – and finally recovering from the traumatic events of last year’s political assassinations and the ensuing turmoil. The previous year was also a time when the Lebanese took to the streets and shouted, at the top of their lungs: “Syria Out!”, while the Western demagogues voiced their unconditional support for what George W. Bush termed “Lebanon’s fledgling democracy”.

Fast forward to 24 July 2006. The State of Israel has been pounding Lebanon for the last thirteen days, virtually annihilating the country’s infrastructure, reducing roads, bridges, power plants, lighthouses, entire residential neighbourhoods - even milk and packaging factories - to rubble. Lebanon has also been under air and sea blockade since the beginning of this terrible campaign. The foreigners have been air and sea lifted out of the country, while the insinuators, here in Lebanon, and Western advocates of the fabulous “Cedar Revolution”, respectively, have either fled the country like the cowards that they are, along with what Robert Fisk accurately and sarcastically termed “our precious foreigners” in his Farewell to Beirut piece two days ago; or stand firmly with Israel, refusing to call for a ceasefire just yet. Those remaining are locals who have nowhere else to go, or foreigners such as myself, who likewise, have nowhere better to go, since the road to Syria owes its extremely perilous nature to the constant risk of Israeli missile fire.

Fast forward once again to 7 August. I had deserted the notion of writing this piece for a period of two weeks, I suppose simply because I was crippled by fear. I was also reluctant to continue writing this because my original intention to deride the Lebanese masses and their idiotic political elite had withered away. I was going to hold the latter responsible for the fact that they manipulated people’s emotions and pitched the bait, while the former bit like a hungry imbecile. Granted, the Lebanese had had enough of the 29-year corrupt and derelict Syrian presence in their country. But one thing was undeniably true: if one kept clear of politics and minded their own business, they could live in peace and security.

I remember a time when you could walk down Hamra in the central district of Ras Beirut in the middle of the night, without ever facing the prospect of either being mugged, or facing any physical danger to your person. But the Lebanese have not learnt their lesson – even after all the pain and suffering that they had endured during the 17-year civil war – that this place is too weak and fragmented, in every sense, and cannot exist without a foreign hand meddling in its affairs. Israel, unlike Syria, has no regard for subtleties. The Jewish state is ruthless and uncompromising in its obliteration of Lebanon and mass murder of its civilians, and makes no secret of its intention to provoke yet another civil war, so that Lebanese society can fight Israel’s archenemy Hezbollah instead of the Israelis themselves. At the same time, confessional groups such as Lebanon’s Christians, traditionally considered Israel’s aficionados, have been quick to fall into this trap: at best, they stand idly by claiming that this conflict is not theirs, as the Lebanese government in its entirety has done so until very recently; or worse yet, they cynically bark out lines like “This is good… Israel will finally get rid of Hezbollah.” Ultimately, the primary victims of this incongruous war have been Lebanon’s poor – the Shi’a Muslims – a group which has been at the bottom of the economic and social ladder for decades, of which the exploitation by the rest of Lebanese society and resulting poverty serve as central reasons for their support of Hezbollah.

A lot of things have happened since 24 July. Israel has devastated Lebanon and destroyed virtually its entire civilian infrastructure. The loss of life in Lebanon has been staggering: the recent massacre of about 37 children in Qana is evidence of the fact – while the total death toll is now bordering on 1000 people, most of them civilians. The closest that I have come to this war however was last Friday, 4 August. The Israelis had, in an early-morning air raid, bombed the Ghazir bridge, which is only a five-minute drive away from my house, apparently out of frustration rather than any tactical objective. They had also at the same time bombed another bridge further north, just before the town of Jbeil, and another one on the way to the northern city of Tripoli. The significance of this event is that it marked Israel’s first major attack on Lebanon’s Christian heartland in the Mount Lebanon region, whose inhabitants are considered Israel’s traditional allies, since its disastrous 1982 invasion of southern Lebanon and Beirut. This attack was rendered even more senseless by the fact that a sea route runs parallel to the highway and the bridges that were bombed, while the sea route itself was not bombed. The only thing that it managed to accomplish was to severely impair the ability of humanitarian convoys to supply the refugees of this war with sorely needed medical and other supplies. Needless to say, being awoken at 6:45 a.m. by the sounds of a diving jet and an explosion which shook buildings in a ten-kilometre radius and shattered glass, covered in sweat with your heart pounding so hard you can feel it in your throat, is a somewhat life-altering experience.

I had made my weekly trip to Hamra in central Beirut today. It is an area which lies only about three kilometres away from the devastated southern Beirut suburbs of Haret Hreik and Dahye, and houses the lovely campus of the American University of Beirut, where I am working on my Master’s degree in Political Studies. These trips are becoming increasingly few and far in between, because of the severe fuel shortages. In fact, if the crisis is not resolved by the end of this week, the smallest semblance of normal life retained by areas of Lebanon which have not yet been bombed into the Stone Age by Israel, will cease to exist, and as the Israelis have said, “Lebanon will have its lights turned out”, quite literally.

Instead of walking straight to university to pass by AUB’s Department of Political Studies and Public Administration, which I serve as research assistant to two professors, I decide to walk up from Bliss Street up the road into the heart of Hamra, and towards the palace of Lebanon’s assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. On the way up, I stop by a bookshop which was having a hasty and, according to the utter deficit of customers in the shop, unsuccessful clearout sale; and treat myself to a Calvin and Hobbes comic book. Satisfied with my purchase, I head up the road to Hamra Street. The most prominent features of the neighbourhood on this beautiful sunny morning are the massive lines in front of each one of Hamra’s petrol stations, most of the time occupying the entire street and creating an enormous gridlock. As I stroll up a narrow street, I come within reach of a crossroad where cars are almost glued to each other in the traffic jam. As I approach a small gap between two cars and head into it to cross the street, an older veiled woman decides to walk through the same gap and stops when she sees me heading for it. I smile and politely move back to make space for her to pass. As she moves past me, I see her smiling back – her face is bright and kind; her eyes are lively and full of grace.

And that’s when I realise that I indeed truly and deeply love these people and this country. I love their passionate nature and their almost literal genetically imbued intransigence, and their hedonistic adoration of life’s offerings. They are resilient, intelligent and well-educated. I resume my walk with a deeply romantic notion of the country and its people.

As I walk back to Bliss Street, I come across a young man sitting in a plastic chair on a curb, adjacent to the expensive and trendy apartment building which houses the residence of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora which is usually heavily guarded by the Internal Security Forces. He stares emptily at the tarmac, smoking a cigarette. Still fixated on my amorous conception of Lebanon, I disregard the disarray with which this young man surveys the street in front of him. I finally stop by AUB. There, I run into one of the professors that I work for as research assistant. He is an American, a brilliant, extremely funny and deeply cynical Harvard alumnus, who has decided not to evacuate because, like my family and I, he reckons that it is safer to sit in the relative safety of your home than travel a long and uncomfortable journey with, as he says, “panicking nutcases”. He tells me of a foreign national who attended a demonstration in Downtown Beirut, and wore a T-shirt with a caption in the front which read “Yes, I am still here,” and “No, I am not leaving!” on the back, a reference to the persistent, surprised and somewhat accusatory manner in which the Lebanese currently pose the question “You are still here?” to foreigners who have not fled. We joke and talk about the current situation, the potential hopelessness of it all, and the corruption and ineffectiveness of the Lebanese government and its local proxies. Half way into our discussion however, he informs me that whatever happens in the future, he will leave the country as soon as he can – the Lebanese never learn, he says, they don’t change their ways, and frankly, he does not see concrete hope for them. My dreamy idea of Lebanon and the Lebanese is not shattered at this point, but the face of the young man in front of Premier Siniora’s residence is flashing before my eyes. Perhaps he sees what I see – he knows just how exceptional his people are, but he also knows how naïve, reckless and ill-advised their actions and thoughts can be on occasion. Perhaps it is this reality which paralyses him, and produces the barren stare with which he hugs the concrete face of his homeland. These questions haunt me during the drive back to my Mount Lebanon hideout, or ‘Maronistan’, as we lovingly refer to the Maronite Christian stronghold that was absurdly pounded by Israel just days ago, like the rest of this tragic country.

All wars must come to an end, as this war surely will, sooner or later. Beside the fact that it will take Lebanon another 20 years or so to get back on its feet once again, I fearfully anticipate the aftershocks of this horrifying conflict. This is an extremely complex place, and after all my years in this country, I feel that I am in a better position than most to accurately interpret the inner, and to a significant extent, outer mechanisms that shape it. But watching Prime Minister Siniora break down and weep in front of the Arab League delegates today in Beirut, while later in the day the most positive news in weeks have emerged, informing of the Lebanese government’s offer to deploy 15,000 national army soldiers in southern Lebanon in concurrence with Hezbollah representatives within the cabinet, I can only offer vague guesses as to where this monumentally ill-fated state will go next.