Posted on 03/19/2005 12:35:02 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Osama Muhammad, a Damascus businessman, says he no longer makes the 50-mile trip to Beirut to shop, dine and see movies. He's turned off by the anti-Syrian curses from Lebanese protesters, and the reports of Syrians being murdered.
"I'm boycotting everything Lebanese until my dignity is restored," said Muhammad.
He hasn't been there since a wave of anti-Syrian feeling erupted over the assassination of a popular politician. Hotel executive Imad Mansour did go back, but only to withdraw his life's savings from a Lebanese bank, because he has lost trust in Lebanon's economy.
And cabbie Ali Serhan, who has been shuttling passengers between Syria and Lebanon for 10 years, says times are bad. "I used to make up to three trips a day before," he says. "Now I barely make a couple a week."
Many Syrians suddenly feel embittered and insecure in a country where they saw themselves as privileged. During 29 years in control of their tiny neighbor, Syrians looked at Lebanon as an engine of wealth, a place to play and a source of jobs for Syria's many unemployed.
They were always told by their government and state-controlled media that Syrian troops were in Lebanon as peacekeepers preserving stability in an ethnically fractured nation. But Syria's control has started to erode with its pullback of troops and intelligence agents a few days ago from populous areas to the eastern Bekaa Valley along the Syrian border, and many Lebanese are clamoring for their complete departure.
Now Syrians are seeing the sneering banners, jibes and obscenities directed at them during street rallies, and they have heard the anti-Syrian jokes, often racist and cruel, spread by e-mail and phone text messages in Lebanon.
One Syrian has been confirmed killed and several injured in stabbings and scuffles following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, blamed by the Lebanese opposition on Syria and Lebanon's Damascus-backed government.
Damascus media reports say 35 Syrians have been killed, but there has been no official Syrian or Lebanese confirmation. Lebanese opposition leaders have urged their followers not to attack Syrians.
In a speech on March 5, President Bashar Assad became the first Syrian official to publicly admit that not "all our acts in Lebanon were correct."
"Yes, there were mistakes," said Muhammad, the businessman, over dinner of chicken with friends at a trendy Damascus cafe. "But what we're seeing from the Lebanese is spite and hatred. The Syrian soldiers sacrificed their lives for Lebanon's stability. We're getting ingratitude in return."
His friend, Shadi Thafer, a 31-year-old physiotherapist, told of a Syrian colleague whose car windows were smashed at the Lebanese ski resort of Faraya.
Noor Moussa, a 28-year-old radiologist at the table, saw an American plot to weaken Arab countries, grab their oil and boost Israel.
"America is an empire that ... doesn't want to have powerful nations in the region," he said. "Close ties between Lebanon and Syria make the two countries strong."
The alienation cuts both ways; shopkeepers in Damascus report a huge drop in Lebanese coming to shop for cheap clothes and food on weekends.
The tensions are likely to hurt the closely integrated economies of Lebanon and Syria.
Lebanon relies on hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers for manual labor, but their numbers have dwindled in recent weeks because many are scared to venture back into Lebanon. That adds to the 20 percent unemployment rate in Syria, while fewer migrant workers means less cash being sent here.
A Syrian run on Lebanese banks could also be a problem.
Lebanese banks still provide most foreign currency letters of credit that allow Syrians to import goods, both because such services do not exist in Damascus and because Syria is under U.S. sanctions imposed in 1979 and strengthened last year.
"Going through Lebanon is a good way to get around (the sanctions)," said Andrew Tabler, a Damascus-based fellow at the Institute of Current World Affairs and consulting editor for Syria Today.
Mansour, the hotel executive, said the Lebanese bank manager tried to dissuade him from withdrawing his money.
"I refused. I'm scared the Lebanese economy will deteriorate," he said. "Who wants to live with such worry?"
--
Oooh, poor babies.
You terrorist supporting little piece of sh!t. You have no dignity to restore.
Talk about spin!
""I'm boycotting everything Lebanese until my dignity is restored," said Muhammad."
Yeah, that's the ticket, Mohammad, your "dignity"!
Now is the time to invade Syria , kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity...
Thanks for the advice Ann :^)
FMCDH(BITS)
"I'm boycotting everything Lebanese until my dignity is restored,"
Look who is talking!
The Syrian occupation of Lebanon, formally since 1976, took all dignity from the whole Lebanese state.
Lebanese people start asking questions about their abductees in syrian prisons. These abductees, if they are still alive, has been rotting as political prisoners in syrian jails, some for more than two decades.
http://www.syrianprison.com/
http://www.syrian-jail.com/
Who said dignity?
It's a BS piece...
couldn't say it better
http://www.syrian-jail.com/archive/solida-solide/year2004/solida23.6.04.htm
Lebanese monks in Syrian jail
SOLIDE says pair disappeared in 1990 and are now in Tadmor prison
23/06/04 - Daily Star
The Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE) group announced Monday that two Antonine monks, Fr. Suleiman Abu Khalil and Fr. Albert Cherfane, are being held in the Tadmor prison in Syria, a finding the group said it learned of during several meetings held in France between the committee and former Syrian political prisoners.
Abu Khalil and Cherfane both disappeared in 1990, along with many Lebanese.
SOLIDE had repeatedly asserted that the two monks are among Lebanese still being held in Syrian prisons.
In June 2001, State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum said the monks were buried in a mass grave with an undetermined number of soldiers in Yarzeh, in Baabda.
Both Lebanese and Syrian authorities deny the presence of Lebanese prisoners in Syria.
"We challenged Addoum to unearth the grave and show us the bodies of the two monks and the soldiers, but he failed to do so," said SOLIDE director Ghazi Aad.
According to SOLIDE, Haytham Naal, a former Syrian political prisoner released from Syrian prisons on Aug. 11, 2002, recently revealed he had seen both monks in Tadmor prison.
"The meetings SOLIDE held with former Syrian prisoners to specify the location of Lebanese detainees at the Syrian prisons were very recent," Aad said, without specifying the exact date.
The meetings also revealed that Cherfane and Abu Khalil were not the only monks inside the prison, but were accompanied by other monks and several other Lebanese detainees.
"We were informed that ... Tadmor prison was full of Lebanese detainees, including the two monks, until 2001 when they were transported to other prisons," Aad said.
Aad said that SOLIDE would wait for feedback from both the Lebanese and the Syrian authorities, before the group decides on its next steps.
"We tried three times to discuss the Lebanese detainees' issue with the Syrian authorities, but could not reach any positive outcome. It seems that they don't want to discuss the file," he said.
The presence of Lebanese detainees inside Syria was asserted by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a report it issued in November of last year. The report noted the presence of Lebanese George Shallawit, Najib Jarmani and Tanious Habre in Syrian prisons.
Lebanese monks in Syrian jail
SOLIDE says pair disappeared in 1990 and are now in Tadmor prison
23/06/04 - Daily Star
The Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE) group announced Monday that two Antonine monks, Fr. Suleiman Abu Khalil and Fr. Albert Cherfane, are being held in the Tadmor prison in Syria, a finding the group said it learned of during several meetings held in France between the committee and former Syrian political prisoners.
Abu Khalil and Cherfane both disappeared in 1990, along with many Lebanese.
SOLIDE had repeatedly asserted that the two monks are among Lebanese still being held in Syrian prisons.
In June 2001, State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum said the monks were buried in a mass grave with an undetermined number of soldiers in Yarzeh, in Baabda.
Both Lebanese and Syrian authorities deny the presence of Lebanese prisoners in Syria.
"We challenged Addoum to unearth the grave and show us the bodies of the two monks and the soldiers, but he failed to do so," said SOLIDE director Ghazi Aad.
According to SOLIDE, Haytham Naal, a former Syrian political prisoner released from Syrian prisons on Aug. 11, 2002, recently revealed he had seen both monks in Tadmor prison.
"The meetings SOLIDE held with former Syrian prisoners to specify the location of Lebanese detainees at the Syrian prisons were very recent," Aad said, without specifying the exact date.
The meetings also revealed that Cherfane and Abu Khalil were not the only monks inside the prison, but were accompanied by other monks and several other Lebanese detainees.
"We were informed that ... Tadmor prison was full of Lebanese detainees, including the two monks, until 2001 when they were transported to other prisons," Aad said.
Aad said that SOLIDE would wait for feedback from both the Lebanese and the Syrian authorities, before the group decides on its next steps.
"We tried three times to discuss the Lebanese detainees' issue with the Syrian authorities, but could not reach any positive outcome. It seems that they don't want to discuss the file," he said.
The presence of Lebanese detainees inside Syria was asserted by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a report it issued in November of last year. The report noted the presence of Lebanese George Shallawit, Najib Jarmani and Tanious Habre in Syrian prisons.
Well the truth hurts when you have not known it for three decades. They wern't want thenand they arn't wqanted now. Daddy Assad just kept the press under the gun, so to speak, so the populace never knew it.
Guess the Syrians will just have to stay home and enjoy all that Assadville (aka Damascas) has to offer for a change.
Leningrad and Stalingrad returned to their original names as soon as the dictature went down.
No Assadville will outlive the Baas regime. Their first Bagdad branch fell down in March 2003. Do you want to open the bets for the second Damascus branch?
LOL this is great!
Muhammad, you live in a Baathist dictatorship. You want your dignity restored. Grab a rifle, overthrow your damn government!
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