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09-20-2006, 12:21 PM
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Postmaster General
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Join Date: 08-20-03
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Lebanon Peacekeepers Met With Skepticism
Quote:
Lebanon Peacekeepers Met With Skepticism
True Role of U.N. Force Is Subject Of Debate Among Wary Residents
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 20, 2006; Page A12
BAZOURIYA, Lebanon -- There are two faces to the U.N. force today in Lebanon, ensuring a cease-fire that ended 33 days of war with Israel. One has a certain swagger: more than 4,800 soldiers, 14 French battle tanks, four 155mm artillery guns, 10 Italian amphibious assault vehicles and an array of armored personnel carriers. The other is a contingent of several bored-looking Italian soldiers in blue berets watching traffic pass, their roadside stop demarcated by red-and-white tape within eyeshot of Hezbollah's yellow banners.
"They're just standing there," said Muslim Srour, sipping coffee at his gas station down the road.
Across an uncertain landscape still strewn with the war's destruction, the U.N. force that has landed on Lebanon's coast by sea and air is perhaps the most dramatic change of recent weeks. As a symbol and show of force, it is the key to what U.S. officials say will be a departure from the status quo ante here. Its officials are confident: They have a mandate, the manpower and equipment to do their job.
But the precise nature of that job has become one of the crucial, unanswered questions in the war's aftermath. Hezbollah's militia, taking a low profile even by its own secretive standards, is wary of pressure on the U.N. force to exceed what Hezbollah foresees as a benign, unobtrusive presence in territory the group considers its own. The United Nations is wrestling with questions of sovereignty and how to defer to a Lebanese army it outstrips in training and equipment. And U.N. peacekeepers face a climate sometimes redolent of Baghdad in the weeks after Saddam Hussein's fall in April 2003, filled with suspicion and skepticism over true intentions.
"We'll take care of them like they're our own children," the 50-year-old Srour said, gesturing at the soldiers.
He smiled before speaking again. "As long as they treat us like they would a father," he added.
As envisioned in the U.N.-backed cease-fire that ended fighting Aug. 14, the 28-year-old peacekeeping contingent known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon would grow from about 2,000 troops to as many as 15,000. They would join a projected 15,000 Lebanese soldiers in the strip of land south of the Litani River that was effectively a state within a state controlled by Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim-led organization that wields authority here as a political party, social service organization and militia.
So far, 4,800 soldiers have arrived from France, Italy and Spain. They have joined more than 10,000 Lebanese troops already deployed in what has become a militarized, international trusteeship over the former war zone. By comparison, there are 16,000 U.N. troops in Congo, a country 225 times bigger than all of Lebanon with 15 times more people.
U.N. officials have said their task is not to disarm Hezbollah, but rather to monitor the cease-fire, assist humanitarian aid efforts and support the Lebanese army, which has deployed in the south for the first time in a generation. But ambiguity has shaded some statements -- the French defense minister told a Lebanese newspaper the south must be "entirely controlled" by the Lebanese army and U.N. forces -- and even within the United Nations, there is a measure of concern that the rules of engagement may be overly aggressive.
"Hezbollah still doesn't know the real intentions of these forces," said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general. "If this deployment on the ground, if the rules of engagement on the ground contradict what Hezbollah has in mind for its future role, for its future strategy, they will clash at some point down the road," he said.
Last week, Italian troops became the first of the new U.N. forces to patrol from their base at Jabal Maroun, where a makeshift market has sprung up outside their encampment, along a hilly pine- and olive-studded terrain that has reminded some of the soldiers of their native Italy.
"Welcome aboard," declared navy Capt. Rosario W. Guerrisi, smiling at a maritime reference. "We are Italian marines."
Guerrisi's San Marco Regiment is part of the same force that deployed to Lebanon after the Israeli invasion in 1982. It is joined by the Lagunari Company, and together they have the 10 amphibious vehicles, 24 armored personnel carriers and patrol vehicles already plying the roads. In the early 1980s, the Italians were alone among the international forces in Beirut in escaping the suicide truck bombings inflicted on the American and French contingents.
The air of the encampment is relaxed; one soldier wore an Armani watch, another sipped a beer. The United Nations' blue flag flies from virtually everything: tents, gates and vehicles. No one wears flak jackets, nor do they wear helmets on patrol.
"We are not here to occupy anybody," said Guerrisi, a stocky officer with a bearing at once formal and friendly, who served with Italian forces in the Iraqi city of Basra in 2004. "Absolutely not. We are here to help the Lebanese army forces."
"Mistakes," said Massimo Goio, who serves as a spokesman for the force. "We don't want to create any."
Since arriving at the end of August, the Italians have strived for sensitivity. Soldiers have been told not to show the soles of their shoes or to greet women as they patrol. On a recent day, Italian doctors provided free treatment for a 7-year-old Lebanese girl with a broken hand and a 40-year-old man with a cut foot. Some officers are learning phrases in Arabic.
"The civilian people are very friendly. We haven't found any problems," Goio said. "The people respect us."
But Goio, who was stationed near the Iraqi town of Nasiriyah, where Italian soldiers fought followers of a radical Shiite cleric in 2004, said he remains cautious. Ten to 20 people, he said, that was all that was needed to create problems.
The lesson he learned from Nasiriyah: "Every day it's good, it's quiet," he said. "Then one day it's not good."
While Italian officers say everything is coordinated with the Lebanese army, still burdened with antiquated equipment and supply shortages, the Italian patrols move alone. There is an occasional wave or a thumbs up; sometimes residents shout hello.
More often, the soldiers are met with stares -- with a hint of curiosity at times, but often expressionless. On a recent day, two Italian vehicles took up spots on different sides of the road, watching traffic pass unhindered for hours.
Hezbollah has insisted that the U.N. force restrict its mission to such patrols and has bridled at suggestions it would monitor the airport, Lebanon's border with Syria or routes into the country by sea. Most of Hezbollah's arms are believed shipped in almost exclusively by land from Syria, but analysts suggest the group is unwilling to compromise on the other issues for fear of losing say.
"Compromises are being given for free," Mohammed Raad, a Hezbollah member of parliament, said at a rally Monday.
Srour, the gas station owner, had the same feeling of unease.
"They came here and they said they were going to bring security, but security for whom?" he asked.
That sentiment is often pronounced in southern Lebanese towns such as Bazouriya. There is a sense among residents that the U.N. force was designed to protect Israel, a notion reinforced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's comments last week that her country's participation in the U.N. force was designed to bring peace to the region, and in view of Germany's responsibility for "Israel's right to exist." Her remark was repeated in conversation after conversation in the south as evidence of a hidden agenda for the U.N. force.
"The way I see it, the presence here is for the security of Israel," said Srour.
The second floor of Srour's gas station, which served as his home, was missing its roof, destroyed by a missile that he said struck 10 minutes before the cease-fire ended the fighting. Hezbollah has given him $10,000 to cover rent elsewhere; it has promised $80,000 more to repair the gas station, which he had opened only a year before. He expected to begin rebuilding in a week. A calendar featuring Hezbollah's leader, Hasan Nasrallah, hung on his wall, and he mentioned with pride that Bazouriya was Nasrallah's birthplace.
"Until now, they're not occupiers, but after a little while -- " He shrugged his shoulders. "If they become occupiers, they won't stay long."
The United Nations has recorded only two incidents so far against its peacekeepers. Both involved stone-throwing.
"I worked in the Balkans and this wouldn't even register on my radar screen," said Alexander Ivanko, the U.N. spokesman.
He credited war fatigue on the part of Israel and Hezbollah as a stabilizing factor. It was a sentiment that was echoed in southern Lebanon, where the infrastructure is still in tatters. Even by those wary of the intentions of the U.N. force.
"A fire needs fuel, a fuse and air," said Hassan Salameh, a 50-year-old resident of Bazouriya. "It doesn't start on its own."
Salameh stood in his electric appliance store, joined by a cousin and a customer, down the road from an Italian contingent.
The U.N. troops "put me at ease," he said. "When you see them, you know there won't be another war."
The customer, Abu Mohammed Qassem, 25, jumped in.
Why aren't there U.N. troops on the Israeli side of the border? he asked. What about Merkel's comments last week? "All the people are waiting to see the intentions of the United Nations and the countries that are coming to Lebanon," he said. "Are their intentions pure or are they coming to protect Israel? If they're coming to protect Israel, protect Israel on its land."
"And if they're here to protect Lebanon, we welcome them," Salameh interjected.
"You have your opinion and I have mine," Qassem answered.
Salameh's cousin, Abu Ali, 60, then volunteered his opinion, bleak even by the admission of the others.
"The Americans in '82 came to protect Israel, then the French came to protect Israel, not to protect Lebanon, and they left in coffins," he said. "Let's see what they're up to." The politics of it all, he added, were ghamda , ambiguous or inscrutable.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091901736.html
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A very interesting situation.
The Hezb are shifty and not very comfortable and the Moslems of Lebanon question as to whose security is the UN enforcing as also why are the UN troops not on the Isreali side?!
Interestingly curious questions.
It is like sitting on a barrel of petrol smoking a cigarette!
__________________
"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
HAKUNA MATATA
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