Lebanese are holding out for their leaders to break an 18-month impasse in Doha and put them out of their misery, Lucy Fielder reports "If you don't agree, don't come back," read the placards, held up by about 100 disabled Lebanese, most injured in the 1975-1990 Civil War, on the airport road, shortly after Lebanon's leaders left for Doha. The civil society group Khalas (Enough) staged a similar demonstration on Tuesday, singing the national anthem. Hizbullah and Amal blockades of Lebanon's only international airport had just been lifted, and a week of the worst internal fighting since the civil war had come to an end, leaving at least 81 dead and more than 250 injured. After months of trying to mediate an end to Lebanon's political stalemate, an Arab League delegation had scored a minor victory. Under its initiative, the Western-backed government formally retracted decisions to ban Hizbullah's communications network and to remove the head of airport security, Wafiq Shoucair, that Hizbullah saw as the opening shots of a war on its weapons. And off the leaders went to Doha, to reiterate for the umpteenth time positions their citizens now know by heart and squabble over cabinet seat ratios and electoral boundaries. Reflecting the dark humour of a people inured to wars, assassinations and political crises, jokes could be heard in shops, restaurants and on street corners about accidents -- or missiles -- befalling the plane carrying all the leaders bar Future Movement leader Saad Al-Hariri and his ally, Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora, who flew to Qatar by private jet. In Chayyah, in the mainly Shia southern suburbs of Beirut, residents hoped the deadlock had been broken in their favour. A shopkeeper who gave his name as Abu Abbas said the situation could only get better. He conceded that many Lebanese had been frightened by Hizbullah's swift take-over of parts of Beirut and the Shouf mountains, after years of promising not to use its weapons internally. "Those who fear Hizbullah's weapons don't understand the end result Hizbullah wants for the country, for it to be calm," he said, unfurling large Hizbullah flags to sell outside his toyshop. "It was dragged into using its weapons here." Fawziya Noureddin, a mother of four, also said Hizbullah was pushed to take action critics say has cost it considerable internal credibility. "If the state was strong, if we had an army to protect us, we wouldn't need the resistance weapons and we wouldn't be bearing the burden all by ourselves." Noureddin believed the leaders would agree in Doha. "But if they don't, they can stay where they are," she said. A Beirut-based rights group, Khiam Centre for Rehabilitation, called for a new law banning sectarian incitement, saying last week's events could have a lasting psychological effect on Lebanese. "We're talking about this now because the leaders in Doha are just trying to get seats in the next government, or arrange the electoral law so they can win," said Mohamed Safa, the centre's general-secretary. He pointed out that the Taif agreement that ended Lebanon's 1975-1990 Civil War called for the establishment of a national body to oversee phasing out the sectarian political system, but that had never been seriously debated. "Last week's events didn't fall from the sky, they're a result of this sectarian structure," he said. "If we don't change it, we'll find that this was just the latest chapter of a civil war." As the days dragged on, it appeared that Hizbullah's perceived advantage following its military swoop on positions it swiftly handed to the army could not easily be transformed into political gain. The US and Saudi backers of Al-Siniora's government did not appear ready to let go and risk fulfilling widespread predictions that the Lebanon debacle could prove a nail in the coffin of Washington's deeply unpopular Middle East policy. Saudi Information Minister Iyad Madani, said the Lebanese meeting in Doha should not give in to "non-Arab schemes" for Lebanon -- a reference to Hizbullah's Iranian backers -- and said any deal should guarantee Lebanon's "independence from any foreign domination". It was widely assumed he was not referring to Saudi influence. Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed bin Abdullah Al-Mahmoud announced on Tuesday that the two teams had been granted another day at the request of one side. Qatar had presented two proposals to try to break the deadlock, but Mahmoud declined to outline them. Al-Jazeera reported that both deals had two points in common -- electing the president and formation of a national unity government giving the opposition 11 seats, or a blocking third. But they differed when it came to the election law. One deal offered a return to the 1960 law, a key demand of the opposition, but had altered the Beirut districts. Beirut is a stronghold of Al-Hariri's Sunni Future Movement, but also has large Christian constituencies that are important to Aoun. The second proposal suggested using the electoral law proposed by a government- appointed committee headed by former minister Fouad Boutros. The law has become the sticking point because parliamentary elections are less than a year away. In an interview with his own OTV channel, Aoun said the majority was redrawing the boundaries so as to "swallow" some of the Christian seats, in other words, dilute them in larger Sunni areas. He said the 14 March ruling team wanted to barter a national unity government for concessions on the election law. "Our answer to that was 'thank you', you share the government with us for 11 months then you take control over the presidency and parliament and everything," he said. The "blocking third" of cabinet seats has been a long- standing demand of Hizbullah and Michel Aoun, its main Christian ally. The former is keen to be able to veto any future government move on its weapons, while Aoun argues that his Christian constituency is under- represented in the cabinet. On the 14 March side, the election of consensus candidate Army Commander Michel Suleiman remained the main issue. Baabda Palace, the seat of the Christian head of state, has been empty since November. At the time of writing, the two sides appeared no closer to a deal, or to receiving a hero's welcome back in the Lebanese capital. "Lebanese in the same village, street or even building are now divided," Khiam's Safa said. "Our leaders can portray themselves as protectors of their sect, they are happy with this." An opinion piece by Iskandar Mansour in the pro-opposition daily Al-Akhbar summed up the Lebanese mood this week in an article entitled: "The ruling team and opposition offer a model on how to fail at everything." "Everyone failed. The politicians, whether from the ruling team or the opposition, failed. They failed in everything they said and did. They failed in what they promised to do and in what they swore an oath to do. They failed in playing the role of real politicians," he wrote. "Pity the nation where bullets take the place of words."
