Agence France Presse — English
April 7, 2005 Thursday 11:51 AM GMT
As ‘brother’ Syrians depart, Bekaa looks to Beirut
MASNAA, Lebanon April 7
Lebanese in the Bekaa Valley where Syria’s army is winding up a
29-year deployment are looking ahead to a new life dependent on
Beirut and trade with Damascus rather than Syrian favours.
“If you want a job in the police force, you need a push in the back
from a ‘foreign power’, even to work as a garbage collector,”
complains Bassam, a supermarket owner in the border town of Masnaa,
east of Beirut.
Even as Syrian military trucks flow across the border and empty
vehicles pass in the opposite direction to pick up more troops and
equipment, Bassam declines to give his family name, not yet at least.
“In a month’s time, you can use my full name. We feel like we have a
rock on our chests here. When it is removed, we will be able to
breathe,” says the 40-year man.
But the Beirut government faces a challenge on the economic and
security fronts to avoid a vacuum after the last Syrian soldiers and
agents of the mukhabarat (intelligence services) pull out by the end
of April.
“Historically, the government is only interested in Beirut. They
don’t give a damn about the Bekaa. That must change,” Bassam says.
In the village of Anjar, where both the military and mukhabarat have
their Lebanon headquarters and which is at the back of the line of
the Syrian pullout, residents say they want a speedy Lebanese army
deployment.
“Until then, we have set up neighbourhood patrols at night to make
sure the trucks don’t take what doesn’t belong to them,” said a shop
owner.
On their way out, Syrian soldiers have been stripping down window
frames and electrical fittings as well as the furniture as they load
up their battered Soviet-era trucks.
Sebouh Sekayan, mayor of the village with its tidy palm and pine
tree- dotted streets, has said publicly the locals were sorry to see
the Syrians go and that “we’ve never had any problems with them”.
Others said they expect the withdrawal to be good for business, with
an anticipated inflow of customers from Beirut to its restaurants
which serve trout from a local fish farm and Armenian specialities.
But since the February 14 assassination of former premier Rafiq
Hariri, “our regular business from Damascus, especially on Friday
nights, is down 50 percent”, says restaraunt owner Hovig Zetlian.
In Chtaura, where intelligence agents in civilian clothes man a
checkpoint at the entrance to town, businessman Joseph is looking
forward to the return of his warehouse and a house occupied by the
Syrians.
“It’s not a normal thing the Syrian army being here. How would they
feel if the Lebanese army was in Aleppo?” asks Joseph, referring to a
city in northern Syria.
But he stresses that the trading post of Chtaura and the Bekaa Valley
as whole are historically and economically linked to Syria, as well
as by family ties.
“The people, we are brothers, we are family, literally. There is a
lot of inter-marriage. We have no problems at that level. In fact,
economically, we need each other,” says Joseph.
But a Chtaura shopkeeper wants a new form of cooperation. “At the
checkpoints, they want to go through all the goods, so we give them a
little bribe,” he says.
“And they want to know everything: ‘Why are you parked here? Why is
your shop open this late?'” he says, while stressing that things have
improved since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad came to power in
2000.
And in Masnaa, electrical store owner Bassam says he doesn’t mind
competing with his neighbouring shops which are Syrian-owned so long
as they all do business on a level playing field after the pullout.
“They don’t pay for water, electricity, taxes or VAT,” he protests as
the trucks with Bashar posters on the windscreen pass by, spewing
black exhaust fumes.
On a snow-capped peak of the Metn mountains overlooking the Bekaa,
meanwhile, three Syrian soldiers stand guard outside a radar post in
the process of being dismantled.
“I am going home soon … but we, Syrians and Lebanese, are brothers,
forever,” says a smiling soldier.