The mass demonstration in Beirut on Monday was not just to protest against Syria's lingering presence in Lebanon: It was to announce the Lebanese opposition as a major political force, writes Graham Usher in Beirut They said they would match Hizbullah, person for person, square for square, metre for metre -- and they did. On Monday 14 March the Lebanese opposition conquered Beirut's Martyrs' Square as comprehensively as Hizbullah had done in the neighbouring Riad Al-Solh Square the week before. Numbers for both demonstrations were impossible to quantify. But, for both, there were hundreds upon hundreds of thousands. In Martyrs' Square the crowd swelled from the mourning tent of ex-prime minister Rafiq Al- Hariri (whose assassination a month ago yesterday galvanised these contesting demonstrations of Lebanese people power) to the half-built "cinema", blackened and bullet riddled monument to Lebanon's 15-year civil war. Some sat on the immense cranes that tower above the mud coloured Al-Amin Mosque, facing Al-Hariri's tomb: some hung from its minarets. Thousands snarled the streets from Christian East Beirut to Muslim West Beirut in endless convoys of honking cars. Most packed the square, so densely peopled, it took an hour to walk east to west. And all flew the Lebanese flag. There were well-groomed Christians, veiled Sunni Muslim schoolgirls, Druze and the occasional Shia, like Ahmed, a Lebanese policeman. "This is Lebanon. We all want to be free. We all want Syria out," he said. The mood was relaxed, by turns a carnival and a victory parade. And for those who had lived through Lebanon's wars and other turmoil it was deeply, deeply moving. "I have waited all my life for this day," said Violetta Tarde, a gray- haired "60-something" grandmother and writer. "But it has come -- the new Lebanon waving the old flag but with everyone under it". Including Hizbullah? "Including Hizbullah. I have no fears we will return to civil war. We were all younger then. We are so much older now." The greater question is what was the demonstration about? The rallying cry was still "Out, Syria, out!" But Syria is out, or at least getting there. Some 4,000 of its 14,000 troops in Lebanon have already crossed home to Syria. Ten thousand are mustering in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, but will withdraw soon, and probably before Lebanon's parliamentary elections in May, if the signals emanating from UN envoy, Terje Rod Larsen's, trip to Damascus and Beirut are any measure. There was of course the demand for an international investigation into Al-Hariri's death, fuelled by newspaper reports that the special UN investigation team had found evidence of a cover up "at the very highest levels of the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence authorities," according to one. "We want the full truth about who conspired, planned and executed the assassination," said Bahia Al-Hariri, Al-Hariri's sister, on Monday. But the demonstration also seemed to be the opposition's first step from being a largely spontaneous movement, born of Al-Hariri's murder and the Syrian-backed Lebanese "security" regime they hold accountable for it, to an organised political force. "The opposition doesn't claim to represent the Lebanese will. It is smart enough to know there are others, like Hizbullah, not within its camp. But it believes it represents the dominant popular will in Lebanon. The question now is to organise it," says Samir Kassir, a columnist with Lebanon's An- Nahar newspaper. Its first challenge is what to do about Omar Karami, the Lebanese prime minister who stood down under the heat of popular protest only to be re- appointed by parliament last week on the back of Hizbullah's demonstration. So far the opposition refuses to join any "national unity" government without "guarantees" that the international investigation will be held and that Lebanon's intelligence chiefs will be removed from office. The problem is that without a government there can be no elections -- and the opposition desperately wants elections, especially now when the popular mood is with them. Together with the international pressure represented by Larsen, the demonstrations are thus intended to press Karami on the guarantees so that the opposition can get to elections, says Kassir. "Elections are a priority for the opposition. It cannot boycott them the way it is boycotting Karami. But nobody has any illusion that any real change will come without the dismantling of Lebanon's state security system." This is perhaps why Monday's demonstration felt less like a protest than an election rally, with all the trappings of crowds, candidates, speeches and anthems. It was self-consciously national, with the main adversary less Syria than the emerging political power of Hizbullah. But there was also hope. All seemed sure that as long as Lebanon was left alone -- free from foreign influence "whether Syrian, Iranian, American, French or Israeli" -- the Lebanese could resolve their differences themselves. "Hizbullah says it represents the majority. We say we do. That's fine. The challenge is to have a Lebanese majority that everyone accepts once the Syrians leave," said Danny Abu Ziad, a 24-year-old Lebanese student, at the demonstration.
