Daily Star staff
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
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Interview
BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea said Monday that Syria was most likely behind last month’s kidnapping of seven Estonians in Lebanon, adding that an explosion outside a church in Zahle 10 days ago was linked to the abduction and meant to be a diversion.
Geagea also told The Daily Star in an interview that the failure of Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati to form a government so far showed that the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition was fragmented and incapable of building a state.
The LF leader, a key figure in the March 14 coalition, said the Estonians, snatched at gunpoint near Zahle March 23 while cycling, were likely being held in Syria.
“I don’t want to analyze, I want to discuss the information that we got in the past 24 to 48 hours,” Geagea said of the kidnapping. “When we see that four, five days ago the Syrian brothers started telling the Estonian government through mediators that they can help in this, and crossing that with other almost confirmed information that they [Estonian hostages] are now in Syria or at the very least if they were not in Syria then the key to the hand [that is holding them] is in Syria … the issue becomes clear.”
“Until further notice, I can say that the main side behind it [the abduction] is the brothers in Syria,” he said. “How would they benefit, in what area, it is not clear yet but as long as they [Syrians] offered their services to see if the door is open [for them to negotiate], then we will find out exactly what they want.”
Lebanese security forces have made several arrests linked to the kidnapping but despite earlier reports that they were close to locating the Estonians little progress has been announced in recent days.
Geagea, speaking at his fortress-like complex in Maarab north of Beirut, said the blast outside the church in Zahle was aimed to divert attention away from the kidnapping. “It was a secondary operation and the church wasn’t the target per say. It left damages but it wasn’t a separate attack.”
Geagea said what worried him was the ease with which Lebanese sovereignty was again violated. “Is it right that six years after the Cedar Revolution, 21 years after the Civil War and nearly 68 years after independence such a thing can happen?”
But the LF leader played down fears of a sharp deterioration in the security situation in the country despite the lack of a fully functional government.
“Of course the absence of a government has repercussions and fallouts on the various elements of national life, including security, but until now it seems that all sides in Lebanon are being reasonable and no one has bad intentions,” he said.
On the political front, Geagea predicted that forming a government would eventually fall back into the hands of the March 14 coalition because the rival March 8 camp would not be able to govern Lebanon.
“What is delaying the formation of the government is that what we call the other side, are not one side. All that brings them together is their rejection of the reality that was established after the Cedar Revolution and their wish to destroy it,” he said, in reference to a series of street protests in 2005 that led to the ousting of Syrian troops from Lebanon after an almost 29-year-presence.
“Now that they have toppled the Cedar Revolution from power … they can’t agree on one thing to form the government.”
Geagea said Hezbollah and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun could not govern or build a state: “Hezbollah, with all my due respect, is not a state builder. It is not shy with its ideology, the party wakes up on resistance and sleeps on resistance. You can’t build states on a slogan, regardless if it was a right one or not.”
“General Aoun, of course, is very far from having the mentality of building a state, or the mentality of building, full stop. General Aoun is good for opposition where he attacks all the time … He claims he has a reform project, [but] after all these days and until now I don’t know what is this project.”
The LF leader said regional developments and the domestic stalemate make it very difficult to predict when the government deadlock would be broken or how instability in several Arab countries would reflect on Lebanon.
“In these circumstances, it is very difficult to make predictions but my impression is it will be very difficult for the other side to form a government … and in case it managed to form a government, it would not be able to do anything.”
He predicted that March 14 would eventually be entrusted with forming a government, but cautioned that it would find it difficult to govern, mainly because of Hezbollah’s weapons.
“We know that nothing positive can be done in the country in this abnormal situation. There should be a solution to this abnormal situation of having an authority outside the authority of the state due to the presence of weapons outside the control of the state.
“This issue must be resolved before I can have hope in delivering an actual achievement.”
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