With Hizbullah's Nasrallah vowing that the suspects in the Rafik Al-Hariri killing will never be found, Saad Al-Hariri is set to return to pressure the government, writes Lucy Fielder Lebanon's 14 March opposition group prepared to up its offensive on Prime Minister Najib Mikati's government this week as reports said the movement's leader, Saad Al-Hariri, would return to his country after a three- month absence before Ramadan. The anti-Syrian, Western- backed opposition was due as Al-Ahram Weekly went to press to hold a meeting with the expected result of a legal committee tasked with following up on the government's cooperation with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). The Hague-based court issued indictments at the end of June believed to charge four members of Shia movement Hizbullah in the 2005 killing of former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri. That killing polarised the country and plunged it into political crisis. Lebanon's judiciary received the indictments on the day the new cabinet was to approve its policy statement, including its position on the tribunal. Hizbullah condemns the court as a US and Israeli conspiracy. Hassan Nasrallah, the group's secretary-general, was due to speak as the Weekly went to press. Although the judiciary is understood to have mandated police to arrest the suspects, few expect them to be found. Nasrallah has vowed the suspects would never be arrested. The UN court's charges put Mikati, especially, in a difficult position. Much of the Sunni community to which both he and the Hariris belong strongly backs the court, making him vulnerable to charges of betrayal. Saad Al-Hariri's government was brought down in a dispute over the tribunal in January, which prompted Hizbullah's ministers and their allies to resign. Hizbullah backed Mikati's nomination as the next prime minister. Two issues seem poised to dominate the debate over the tribunal in the coming weeks: the fate of Lebanon's share of the funding for the court, and the "false witnesses" who gave testimony early in the Hariri investigation but later retracted it. Mikati has promised to work with the tribunal, but Hizbullah has said it rejects all such cooperation. "The government's trying to buy time on the tribunal and keep its head buried in the sand," said Osama Safa, an independent analyst based in Beirut. "I think it will try to revive the issue of the false witnesses while tightening its grip on the justice, security and foreign policy areas." In its policy statement, the new cabinet fudged the issue somewhat by pledging to respect international commitments as long as they do not harm stability. If Lebanon does not, as expected, manage to arrest the suspects within the prescribed timeframe, before 11 August, the court is allowed to publish the suspects' names and initiate in absentia proceedings. Safa said the government would try to contain any reaction to the publishing of the names if it happened, as when the indictments were issued. "It will simply maintain its line that the tribunal is politicised," he said. Hizbullah has waged a media campaign against the court that intensified over the past year after Nasrallah first pre-empted the indictments by announcing that members of Hizbullah were likely to be accused. Despite fears of Sunni-Shia strife, when the announcements came, reaction was muted. Many have also speculated that Lebanon will withdraw its funding for the tribunal; if forced to a head, this too is an issue that could challenge Mikati's attempts to steer a middle course on the court. Special Tribunal for Lebanon Registrar Herman von Hebel told the English-language Daily Star that Lebanon has not yet paid its $65 million dues for 2011. "The STL has a solid financial basis due to other voluntary contributions. Lebanon has not paid its dues for 2011 and we expect the government to comply with its international obligations," he said. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1757, Lebanon is obliged to pay 49 per cent of the court's costs, so this is an issue that will need to be addressed in any attempt to pass a budget. Mikati has also asked Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi to prepare a report on the false witnesses file for cabinet discussion. Hizbullah argues that establishing who set up the witnesses, whose testimony led to the arrest and arbitrary detention of four top generals, will lead to the truth in Al-Hariri's case. WikiLeaks released several US embassy cables this week that reported the concern of US, Lebanese and UN officials (including the head of the investigative commission, Serge Brammertz) about the shakiness of the evidence that led to the generals' detention two years before they were released. No one was willing to take the politically "seismic" decision to set them free, the cables acknowledged. The generals, who ran Lebanon's intelligence and security apparatus when the Syrians were dominant, were arrested in 2005 and held for four years. One cable acknowledged that the evidence that led to the arrests was based on the testimony of the men now dubbed "false witnesses". Lebanese analyst Elias Muhanna wrote on his influential Qifa Nabki blog that the cables represented "yet another blow" to the public image of the UN tribunal. "More seriously, they are a significant indictment of the integrity of the UNIIIC [United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission] commissioner (Brammertz) and the various Lebanese officials involved in the Hariri investigation, to say nothing of the evidentiary standards in place and the UNIIIC's judicial independence," he wrote. Al-Hariri is reported to be returning to Lebanon before Ramadan, after three months of absence that earned him some criticism. Some members of his camp have alleged he was warned of assassination plots. The opposition has vowed to campaign to topple the government if it does not cooperate with the tribunal, and Al-Hariri's return would galvanise the movement. Safa said he might also be hoping events in Syria are turning in his favour. "Lebanon is in a wait-and-see stage, especially with the situation in Syria evolving relatively rapidly," Safa said. Opinion in Lebanon is somewhat split on the uprising gripping Syria. While many supporters of the anti-Syrian 14 March hope to benefit from a weakening of the regime, which supports Hizbullah, others fear that civil strife would attend such a weakening and likely spread across the border. Lebanon and Syria share an intertwined history and have a similarly complex sectarian makeup. Syria dominated Lebanon politically and militarily after the civil war ended in 1990, but pulled out under intense international and Lebanese pressure after the Hariri killing. Saad Al-Hariri for years blamed Syria for the killing, though he retracted his accusation last year.
