The Present Situation in Lebanon....

[Flabbergasted]

http://funkyzarathustra.blogspot.com/2006/12/present-situation-in-lebanon.html

The Present Situation in Lebanon
By Rev. Dr. Habib Badr
National Evangelical Church of Beirut

1. Introduction

The situation in Lebanon is very tense and unclear. The whole fate of the country is at stake. The worst is yet to come. The country might disintegrate and be re-formed on a new basis. The prospects for a peaceful settlement of the present crisis are not promising. The people of Lebanon are perhaps tired after thirty years of conflict and violence. They may have run out of ideas and cannot clearly see the way forward any longer. Their resources for conflict resolution and peace-building have diminished. I believe they need the help of friends and governments of good will more than ever before in their history.

2. Brief analysis of the present situation

General situation

The war between 12 July and 14 August this past summer devastated Lebanon in so many ways. The first and obvious level of destruction is physical and economic. The Israelis had said at the beginning of the war that it was their intention to set Lebanon back twenty to thirty years. Well, at the end of thirty three days of intense bombardment of the transportation and communication infrastructure (about 80 bridges in total!), and the massive destruction of buildings and homes in parts of Beirut and of villages in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley, we can safely say that they certainly succeeded. Lebanon's economy for the most part depends on financial and touristic services. These two sectors have been very badly damaged and it will take several years and much effort before they can bounce back to their previous state.

Economic challenges

The cost of the rebuilding effort is anticipated to reach some 4 billion US dollars, and the economic losses to the country in general are estimated at 10 billion dollars. Furthermore, before the war, Lebanon's national debt was already in the area of 35 billion dollars. So matters can only get worse. Lebanon is facing at present a very serious and devastating economic crisis. Thanks to very generous aid from the Arab and Western worlds, including Germany of course, we may be beginning to pick up the pieces. But it is a long process and a tedious road ahead.


Political challenges

Nonetheless, had Lebanon's problems been only on the level of physical and economic losses, it would have been manageable, albeit with difficulty. The deeper and much more serious challenge that the Lebanese face today is the profound and sharp political and ideological division that exists between the various Lebanese communities; a division that the recent war only served to intensify. Already before the war the Lebanese were going through a heated but healthy national dialogue process in an attempt to solve the major political problems the country was and is facing. These issues had divided the Lebanese for years past and in some cases were causes of war and violence between the various communities and religious confessions forming present-day Lebanon.

One of the most difficult of these issues is the presence of some four hundred thousand Palestinian refugees on Lebanese territories, some of whom are well armed and not subject to the central authority. The Lebanon war between 1975 and 1990 was to a large extent caused by this issue and the inability of the Lebanese to agree on the role of Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon. This problem lingers on although not as sharply.......





http://funkyzarathustra.blogspot.com/2006/12/present-situation-in-lebanon.html