"Cedar revolution" hits Syrian sapling exports

MAYSALOUN, Syria (Reuters) - Last year's "cedar revolution" brought a new crisis for relations between Lebanon and Syria -- and a new headache for a small tree nursery on the border between the fractious Middle East neighbors.

Five thousand cedar saplings at the Maysaloun nursery on the Damascus-Beirut road have been waiting for months to be transported to Lebanon, unexpected victims of the renewed animosity that divides the two countries.

The saplings have been donated by Syria to help Lebanon recreate its famed cedar forests, which have shrunk as a result of uncontrolled logging throughout the ages.

Depicted on Lebanon's national flag, the cedar also became a symbol of anti-Syrian feeling during protests in Beirut after the assassination last year of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, in which Syria denies involvement.

"The Lebanese have not come, although they have the ok to take the saplings. Lebanon does not have enough nurseries and I want to see them regain their forests," Abu Khaled Mohra, the engineer in charge of the terraced nursery, told Reuters.

"They say Fouad Siniora might come to Syria. This will definitely help the cedars move. They're of the Lebanese variety and can almost survive anything," Mohra said, referring to the Lebanese prime minister, who has been considering a visit.

The nursery, which grows fir, cypress as well as cedar, is nestled among hills where France's Army of the Levant, composed mainly of Senegalese soldiers, crossed from Lebanon and defeated a hopelessly under-equipped Syrian force in the 1920 Battle of Maysaloun, starting a 26-year occupation of Syria.

Syrian-Lebanese ties have had their ups and downs. But Mohra said cedar exports had remained largely unaffected until Hariri's killing and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon under domestic and international pressure.

"It is a shame to make cedars a victim of politics," said Mohra, who manned anti-tank weapons during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

FORREST MINES

Adopting the cedar as their symbol, thousands of Lebanese demonstrated after Hariri's assassination demanding the withdrawal of Syrian forces.

The evergreen tree has for thousands of years been associated with what is now Lebanon, which exported cedar wood to the ancient world.

The Bible speaks of a righteous man who "as a palm-tree flourisheth, as a cedar in Lebanon he groweth."

After 15 years of civil war ended in 1990, Lebanon found it had only a small number of old trees left and launched a campaign to save the cedar.

Cedars are also found in Turkey and Syria, which is replanting forests in the mountains and hills west of Damascus that were destroyed during Ottoman times.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, an environmentalist and pioneer of the anti-Syrian movement, managed to preserve a cedar forest in the Chouf Mountains by mining it throughout the civil war.

Another forest near the town of Bcharre in the north, birthplace of Lebanese poet Gibran Khalil Gibran, has been less lucky and now looks more like gardens.

"The heart's affections are divided like the branches of the cedar tree," Gibran wrote. "If the tree loses one strong branch, it will suffer but it does not die. It will pour all its vitality into the next branch so that it will grow and fill the empty place."

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