Supporters of Lebanon's 14 March Movement flooded into Martyrs Square this week, but they have little power to back up calls for the disarmament of Hizbullah, reports Lucy Fielder from Beirut Thousands of Lebanese thronged Martyrs Square in downtown Beirut last weekend to commemorate a vast rally on 14 March 2005 that pressured Syria to end its three-decades-long domination of Lebanon. This time round, the demonstrators' sights were trained not on Syria but on the Shia party Hizbullah in what was intended to be a show of strength and a revival of the so-called "Cedar Revolution". As always in Lebanese street politics, crowd estimates oscillated wildly between the hundreds of thousands, reported by caretaker prime minister Saad Al-Hariri's Future Movement, to the tens of thousands stated by news agencies. While the flag-waving crowds were large and exuberant, they were nowhere close to the fabled one million people that launched the Western-backed 14 March Movement six years ago. Much has changed since then, with the memory of Rafik Al-Hariri, Saad Al-Hariri's father and the former Lebanese prime minister whose assassination in February that year galvanised the movement, remaining potent but inevitably less raw. Powerful allies have also left the younger Al-Hariri's side, General Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, having returned from exile in Paris in the interim and confounding expectations by entering into an alliance with Hizbullah. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt was also originally one of the 14 March movement's most prominent and hawkish figures until his de facto defection in 2008, confirmed this January when he joined Hizbullah in backing the appointment of prime minister-designate Najib Mikati. Hizbullah members resigned en masse from Al-Hariri's national unity government in January, bringing it down after he had refused to end Lebanon's support for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in the Hague that is expected to indict members of Hizbullah in the killing of Rafik Al-Hariri, possibly during the next few weeks. Nevertheless, the mood at Sunday's demonstration was festive, with speaker after speaker taking to the podium under warm sunshine. Following Christian leaders Samir Geagea of the Lebanese Forces and Amine Gemayel, head of the Phalange, and many others, Al-Hariri came to the podium last of all and was greeted like a rock-star. "We demand a state where nobody carries arms," he told roaring crowds. "We demand a state that has only one army standing against Israel." For all those present, the demonstration was intended as a show of strength by the Movement, one protester, giving his name only as Rami, from Beirut's Achrafieh district saying that "today we showed that we exist and that we won't be silenced. This is the Cedar Revolution Mark II." The demonstrators said that the disarmament of Hizbullah was for them the most important issue. "All weapons should be in the possession of the army, not threatening other citizens," said Ghada Bitar, a Beirut resident wearing a peaked cap bearing the Arabic word for "no" -- the slogan of the disarmament campaign. For many weeks now, billboards have towered over Lebanon's highways with variations of this slogan appearing on them, including "No to the dictatorship of weapons," or "No to oppression." Al-Hariri's speech at the demonstration was also more strident than those he gave when he was head of the government, and it was apparently aimed at galvanising the movement, also dented by a possible loss of regional support. Deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was a key ally, and other Sunni Arab leaders, formerly supportive, are now preoccupied with their own backyards. Reports of a fall-out between Al-Hariri and his main Saudi backers have also circulated since the local television station Al-Jadid leaked recordings of him criticising Saudi Interior Minister Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz. Disagreements have also been reported over how to resolve the crisis over the Tribunal, though such disagreements, if they exist, did not stop a several-storey-high image of Saudi king Abdallah being dramatically unrolled during the demonstration. According to Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, the poster was an appeal to King Abdallah, rather than a sign of his continued backing. The strident tone of Sunday's meeting also concealed the Movement's powerlessness, which has made it unable to act effectively against Hizbullah. "They couldn't do much about disarming Hizbullah when they were in control of the cabinet, so it's hard to see what they can do now," Khashan said. Mustering large crowds is relatively simple in Lebanon due to the system of sectarian patronage, he added. "The March 14 Movement's main tactic now is to stay afloat. They're rocking the boat politically, so that they can remain in the picture until there's some change in the region that's in their favour," Khashan said. Al-Hariri may also be hoping to benefit from the STL indictment, which could increase the international pressure on his opponents. Many fear that if Shia Hizbullah members are accused of killing the Sunni al-Hariri, simmering tensions between the two communities could boil over. Sahar Atrache, a Beirut-based analyst for NGO the International Crisis Group, said that the 14 March movement had crossed the red lines it had had to respect while in power at Sunday's meeting. "However, it's clear that March 14 officials have no idea how to implement what they're promising," she said. "The United States will back them on any plan to disarm Hizbullah, but we saw the limits of this support even when 14 March was at the peak of its power." In May 2008, Hizbullah and its allies seized control of parts of Beirut loyal to Al-Hariri in response to the March 14- dominated government's decision to clamp down on Hizbullah communications and intelligence networks. Even so, on this occasion US support for the movement, vocal over the preceding years, did not materialise, and since then Al-Hariri and his supporters have focussed on accused Hizbullah of using the arsenal it maintains to fight Israel to turn against fellow Lebanese. "Anyone who wants to liberate [Palestine] should direct his weapons towards Israel and not towards his own country. He should disrupt the state of Israel and not his own country, and he should weaken the economy of Israel and not the economy of Lebanon," Al-Hariri told Sunday's protest. Atrache said that the absence of security incidents in mixed Sunni-Shia neighbourhoods this year had been a departure from previous anniversaries, and that this could either be because the "balance of power is not in favour of 14 March, or because the Shia are trying not to provoke," she said. "The Shia control the government and the military balance, so there is no need for provocation." Cranking up the rhetoric against Hizbullah was likely to lead to increased tensions, but it was unclear whether these would translate into strife on the ground, Atrache said. "There's real Sunni frustration," she said. "But there's also real fatigue after six years of paralysis and polarisation. Many people are willing to give Mikati's government a chance if it manages to function and to implement its policies."
