It is said that Mahmoud Darwish, writing in the aftermath of the PLO's exit from Beirut in August 1982 wrote:
"The world is closing on us, pushing us through the last passage and we tear off our limbs to pass through.
Where shall we go after the last frontiers, where should the birds fly after the last sky?"
In his poetic piece the Bard understood only too well the plight of his people and the pitiful pathetic pilgrimage that they were to undertake out of Lebanon and into yet another wilderness. However, what thought was left for the Lebanese? What concern has been expressed or globally voiced of their equally sad and tragic demise? What was once in biblical terms the land of milk and honey has now become the rancid and ravaged terrain of a city that once rejoiced in being the Paris of the East to now being the pariah of the Middle East. In all of this, Syria's ominous presence stands in the forefront. The occupational forces are everywhere, blatantly, visibly and even invisibly acting in their covert conspiratorial cadres through agencies infiltrating and suppressing society generally.
No-one, irrespective of age, health or in any condition, or for that matter any occupation has mobility without spending time at barricades, manned by rude and deliberately humiliating Syrian soldiers. If they are not in uniform then they wear the badge of "Assad" identified by their pig-like manner. In the Lebanon of today, Syria is the banality of evil. Recently the Right Reverend Rector of St Joseph's University in Beirut, Father Selim Abou SJ, in giving his oration on the celebration of its patron saint on 19 March 2002, spoke of the parlous state in which Lebanese society, both physically, spiritually and emotionally, had devolved as a result of the Syrian occupation. Regrettably, whilst the focus of the world, with some justification, centres on the Israeli - Palestinian conflict and had for some time had as its focal point the Afghanistan situation, the neglect of the Lebanese and their occupation and subjugation has been a pathetic betrayal of a human rights crisis of equal proportion to any other area where devastation and civil war have wreaked havoc.

One asks: why have none of the innumerable members of the foreign press covering the conflicts in the Middle East not done a story about the brutalised Lebanese civilians who have suffered as a result of human rights abuses? Why is it that the vanquished of the Levant are ignored? In his oration, Reverend Father Abou SJ spoke of the Lebanese society which is now imbued with the ideal of human rights manifesting itself in robust protests where intellectuals, students and political parties and organisations are expressing their discontent with the tyrannical regime that is in place as a result of the patronage of the Syrian government. In this ferment and amidst this maelstrom of malaise there has been discerned, and has come to the fore, a reconciliation which one would never have imagined ten years ago. It is not only the Christians who, under the leadership of Dr Samir Geagea, General Michel Aoun, Mr Dori Chamoun and Sheikh Gemayel who are united, but also members of the Druze and other Islamic groups who no longer will tilt their head to the Syrian master. There is no doubt that Lebanon is hemmed in on all sides, to the south and to the north it faces oppression and occupation. It has been the target of relentless bombing and the recipient of invasive forces who have raped and brutalised her society by their repeated incursions into her sovereignty and the domination and subordination of her will.

One wonders whether the current war of attrition will be successful as raised by the Syrians when compared to the campaign between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In this regard and to this end there has been a painstaking mobilisation of secular and religious Lebanese opinion which is under way and which is slowly overtaking the factional facades that have existed to Lebanon's detriment. In August 2001, as a result of student protests and a justifiable expression of dissent at the manner in which the Syrian forces were attempting to suppress the Lebanese populace, prominent human rights activists were arrested and subsequently tried before what pass as abysmal excuses for ‘Courts’ and even more abysmal excuses as judges and prosecutors working in those ‘Courts’. They are military tribunals trying civilians – an outrage in any civilised society. On 21 March 2002 the following activists were given gaol sentences in respect of verdicts of guilt which were both popularly and unanimously decried as miscarriages of justice:
(a) Tawfik Hindi, an adviser to the Lebanese Forces leader Dr Samir Geagea;
(b) Habib Younes; and
(c) Antoine Bassil, journalists

were each sentenced to terms of three and four years, respectively, for allegedly collaborating with the enemy (Israel). They were all stripped of their civil rights.

A further death sentence in absentia was passed on Ghassan Touma, a former Lebanese Forces security chief, and Etienne Saqur, a leader of the Guardians of the Cedars Militia. They were also stripped of their civil rights. Luckily, because they were outside the statute of limitations, were Salman Samaha, the Head of the Students' Division of the Lebanese Forces and Elie Keyrouz, an anti-Syrian activist. Inevitably, Amnesty International urged the Lebanese authorities to order an independent and impartial probe into charges of torture and confessions obtained under duress, which were not used in Court but were relied upon to achieve convictions. What was comforting, and what was very discernible in the outcry after the verdicts were passed, was the unified stance taken by all responsible peoples within the Lebanon and in particular prominent politicians such as Boutros Harb, the Member for Batroun, and also Nayla Mouawad, the Member for Zghorta and widow of the former President, His Excellency Rene Mouawad, who each denounced the convictions as politically based and aimed at justifying the August raids of 2001. They were also critical in discrediting the verdicts as nothing more than a shameless attack on the Christian opposition.

From this regrettable reflex of a reactionary regime there has sprung, and has continued to grow, a unified Christian compact as a key feature of the opposition within Lebanon to the government and its Syrian backers. Cedarwatch both decries and denounces the Syrian regime and will do so at each and every opportunity made available to it. What is equally perplexing and disturbing is that in Lebanon the suffering of civilians is not only disregarded but now has reached the level where it is not proportionate to the scale or intensity of the military operations that were a hallmark feature of the Lebanese Civil War. In recent times it has become a feature of the world we live in that after military insurrections have passed, the civilian casualties long outlast the military campaign. Lebanon is but a feature of this modern phenomenon. Looking at the two-week war between India and Pakistan over the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, which was regarded as a modest affair, it produced 10,000,000 refugees.

Equally, the insurrections that have occurred between armed units in Africa have only involved several thousand troops, but have resulted in several million refugees. The effect of civil war on the civilian life in Lebanon is a factor that has largely gone unnoticed and has been swept aside because it is both convenient and accommodating to ensure Syria's silence and its inactivity in the Middle East thereby assuaging the concern of other powers who are happy to sacrifice Lebanon to keep the Syrians appeased. Syria's occupation has effectively dulled, if not blurred or obliterated, the distinction between war and peace. For instance, in Lebanon one can neither say that there is a state of war nor is there a state of peace. Equally applicable is the state that exists in Iraq since the formal end of the Gulf War. Whilst that country is still the target of bombing raids, one could hardly say it was at war. Equally disconcerting is the perplexing position into which Lebanon has been placed. She has become a target and an all too unfortunate legacy of the twentieth century. The global machinery of mass propaganda which Lebanon has endured in a period of confrontation between incompatible and passion-laden ideologies have brought into her life a crusading element comparable to that seen in religious conflicts of the past where she has been ravaged, ransacked and repeatedly raped to the point where she knows no better than the disturbed existence into which she has been thrust and is continually engaged in. Lebanon did not and will not find peace with the end of armed conflict. Like Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Angola, Kashmir and Colombia, she, as a State has virtually ceased to exist and has no power over her own territory. The occupying force that Syria represents is all pervasive and utterly emasculating.

What this means is that Lebanon cannot survive while internal stability and the avoidance of military conflict are denied to her. She cannot put in place effective mechanisms for negotiation and settlement. While-ever the States that surround her are beset by rivalries and frictions and are engaged in armed conflict, she cannot be allowed to rest. In this scenario, States with thriving, stable economies and a relatively equitable distribution of goods among their inhabitants are less likely to be shaky, either socially or politically than poor, highly inegalitarian and economically unstable ones such as Lebanon. In the ultimate, all of this as a revelation that it is sought to be relied upon, must heighten the concern and tug at the heart-strings, of each and every concerned person and in particular all Lebanese throughout the world. While-ever Syria maintains economic and social inequality within Lebanon it will forever reduce the chance of peace. There can be no legitimacy given to the present Lebanese government, in the eyes of the majority of Lebanon's inhabitants or any responsible outsider. Equally, no government, and in particular the Lebanese government, can take for granted the existence of an unarmed civilian population or the fact that public order will allow itself to be dictated to by oppressive and dictatorial governments who neither observe law and order nor are considerate of society and its right to exist in peace and harmony. In short, the usurper of one's sovereignty can never feel free but will always be looking over their shoulder, wondering when, how and from where the inevitable attack will come.

Granted that Lebanon's languishing in the wilderness is seemingly indefinite, the hope that has sprung forth from the reconciliation of the Christian groups and their unification in their opposition to the Syrian forces, with other prominent Lebanese members of society from the Druze and Islamic communities offers, optimistically that the freedom that was once cherished will soon be restored. It is both unfortunate, but nevertheless a reality, that Lebanon must endure the dislocation of its community for some time yet. The repetitive, repressive measures carried out by the Syrian armed forces at the behest of the Lebanese government acting in the forefront does not auger for a return to normalcy. Embattled and imprisoned, but defiant, Dr Samir Geagea, along with his comrades in exile, General Aoun and others throughout the world, are symbols of the resistance that must never be allowed to waiver, nor their sacrifice taken for granted. Equally, the solidarity of the Church in Lebanon is both an uplifting and a very reassuring response to what inevitably must seem a lost cause which has been globally ignored for so long. Cedarwatch rejoices in the reconciliation and asks that each and every concerned Lebanese be swift in their support and equally terse in their condemnation of the Syrian presence.

Like the poet, Darwish, we may well think that the world is closing in on us and that we have nowhere else to go but one thing is certain, neither the love for our beloved nation will ever die nor our thirst for freedom be ever quenched until and unless we have seen the Syrian invaders leaving by the same road along which they came.