Threats Alienate Syrians From Lebanon
AP
Date: 03-19-05
By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer
DAMASCUS, Syria - Osama Muhammad, a Damascus businessman, says he no longer makes the 50-mile trip to Beirut to shop, dine and see movies. He's turned off by the anti-Syrian curses from Lebanese protesters, and the reports of Syrians being murdered.
"I'm boycotting everything Lebanese until my dignity is restored," said Muhammad.
He hasn't been there since a wave of anti-Syrian feeling erupted over the assassination of a popular politician. Hotel executive Imad Mansour did go back, but only to withdraw his life's savings from a Lebanese bank, because he has lost trust in Lebanon's economy.
And cabbie Ali Serhan, who has been shuttling passengers between Syria and Lebanon for 10 years, says times are bad. "I used to make up to three trips a day before," he says. "Now I barely make a couple a week."
Many Syrians suddenly feel embittered and insecure in a country where they saw themselves as privileged. During 29 years in control of their tiny neighbor, Syrians looked at Lebanon as an engine of wealth, a place to play and a source of jobs for Syria's many unemployed.
They were always told by their government and state-controlled media that Syrian troops were in Lebanon as peacekeepers preserving stability in an ethnically fractured nation. But Syria's control has started to erode with its pullback of troops and intelligence agents a few days ago from populous areas to the eastern Bekaa Valley along the Syrian border, and many Lebanese are clamoring for their complete departure.
Now Syrians are seeing the sneering banners, jibes and obscenities directed at them during street rallies, and they have heard the anti-Syrian jokes, often racist and cruel, spread by e-mail and phone text messages in Lebanon.
One Syrian has been confirmed killed and several injured in stabbings and scuffles following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, blamed by the Lebanese opposition on Syria and Lebanon's Damascus-backed government.
Damascus media reports say 35 Syrians have been killed, but there has been no official Syrian or Lebanese confirmation. Lebanese opposition leaders have urged their followers not to attack Syrians.
In a speech on March 5, President Bashar Assad became the first Syrian official to publicly admit that not "all our acts in Lebanon were correct."
"Yes, there were mistakes," said Muhammad, the businessman, over dinner of chicken with friends at a trendy Damascus cafe. "But what we're seeing from the Lebanese is spite and hatred. The Syrian soldiers sacrificed their lives for Lebanon's stability. We're getting ingratitude in return."
His friend, Shadi Thafer, a 31-year-old physiotherapist, told of a Syrian colleague whose car windows were smashed at the Lebanese ski resort of Faraya.
Noor Moussa, a 28-year-old radiologist at the table, saw an American plot to weaken Arab countries, grab their oil and boost Israel.
"America is an empire that ... doesn't want to have powerful nations in the region," he said. "Close ties between Lebanon and Syria make the two countries strong."
The alienation cuts both ways; shopkeepers in Damascus report a huge drop in Lebanese coming to shop for cheap clothes and food on weekends.
The tensions are likely to hurt the closely integrated economies of Lebanon and Syria.
Lebanon relies on hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers for manual labor, but their numbers have dwindled in recent weeks because many are scared to venture back into Lebanon. That adds to the 20 percent unemployment rate in Syria, while fewer migrant workers means less cash being sent here.
A Syrian run on Lebanese banks could also be a problem.
Lebanese banks still provide most foreign currency letters of credit that allow Syrians to import goods, both because such services do not exist in Damascus and because Syria is under U.S. sanctions imposed in 1979 and strengthened last year.
"Going through Lebanon is a good way to get around (the sanctions)," said Andrew Tabler, a Damascus-based fellow at the Institute of Current World Affairs and consulting editor for Syria Today.
Mansour, the hotel executive, said the Lebanese bank manager tried to dissuade him from withdrawing his money.
"I refused. I'm scared the Lebanese economy will deteriorate," he said. "Who wants to live with such worry?"
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