The year of 2006 is full of troubles for Lebanon, which endured
a 34-day Israeli military offensive that brings not only huge
casualties but also economic loss and political crisis to the
beautiful coastal country.
The Israeli-Hezbollah conflict erupted on July 12 when
guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite group crossed the border at
Aita al-Shaab, and killed three Israeli soldiers and seized two
others.
The Hezbollah action provoked immediately the fierce
counterpunch from Israel, which pounded Hezbollah's strongholds and
Lebanese infrastructure in the following month.
Economy shrinks at all-round levels
In a period of more than one month, many key infrastructure in
Lebanon, including bridges, highways, power stations, oil tanks and
the only international airport, were destructed by Israeli
devastating assault, which also claimed the lives of some 1,200
Lebanese.
According to a recent government report, total direct loss to
Lebanon from the war were US$2.8 billion, which, as what Lebanese
Prime Minister Fouad Seniora said, had wiped out 15 years of
economic development of the country.
Facing the huge loss from the war, the Lebanese government is
unable to make it up by itself as the government revenues also
shrink greatly.
The 34-day conflict totally shattered the government's hope of
reaching a record high revenue growth in 2006.
As a destination country for tourism, Lebanon every year has a
large number of foreign tourists, who bring considerable income to
the country.
However, this summer's war scared almost all foreign tourists
away the resort country, whose economy largely depends on tourism
and the related businesses.
The worse is that the revenues of postwar Lebanon did not
restore to the prewar level, because Israeli continued siege on
Lebanese ports and airport after the war cut off the government's
revenues from another backbone industry -- transport. Huge loss
plus low revenues caused a large budget deficit, which jumped to
40.54 percent of total spending in 2006 from the previous year's
30.83 percent.
Affected by the government's budget deficit, the public debt
could reach more than US$40 billion at the end of 2006, according
to Lebanese Finance Minister Jihad Azour.
Meanwhile, Lebanese central bank also adjusted the inflation
rate in Lebanon, giving a staring 7 percent compared less than
0.5percent in 2005.
Local economic analysts said that the negative impact of the war
will not be confined to 2006, but will spill over to the coming few
years as well.?
Environment needs years to restore
Similar to Lebanese economy, the environment of the country also
needs years to restore from an environmental disaster caused by the
Israeli bombings.
On July 13 and 15 Israeli jets targeted the fuel tanks at the
Jiyeh power station, some 30 km south of Beirut, resulting in the
leak of between 10,000 to 15,000 tons of fuel oil into the
Mediterranean, the worst in the world maritime history.
Some environmental experts worried that the spilled oil will
release toxic substances, which will go into the marine animals and
the food chain.
"It's going to affect seafood trade, fisheries and tourism. It's
going to be a hard and tough few years in terms of marine
environment," said Wael Hmaidan, a coordinator with the Lebanese
environmental Non-governmental Organization Greenline.
The contamination of the sea affected not only the marine life
but also the human being.
An evaluation on this oil leak disaster said that the oil
evaporation could cause air pollution, which would affect the
long-term health of as much as three million population living on
Lebanese coast.
In the heavily pounded southern Lebanon, intensive bombings on
the residential area produced a mass of construction rubbish and
dust, which could enter the lungs with breath and cause diseases in
respiration system.
Another killer to Lebanese is the unexploded bombs, including
the prohibited cluster bombs, which have killed at least 24 people
and wounded more than 100 since the end of the war on Aug. 14.
According to an early testimony of an Israeli army officer,
Israel fired at least 1,800 cluster bombs containing over
1.2million bomblets on Lebanon.
However, the estimate made by the United Nations is much higher
than the testimony, saying that three million such bomblets were
fired into Lebanon during the war.
The UN estimates that around one million unexploded cluster
bombs now litter 590 sites in south Lebanon posing a serious hazard
to civilians who returned to the area after the war and are now
trying to rebuild their lives.
The clearing work is estimated to cost at least a year because
the task will become much harder as winter rains and the growth of
grass in spring will conceal the bombs.
?
Local press describes the unexploded cluster bombs as "hidden
Azrael" which threatens the life of civilians at any moment.
Political rift deepened
As a multi-sect country, Lebanon had suffered a 16-year civil
war between 1970s and 1990s, during which the country's
infrastructure and economy were heavily damaged.
Learning lessons from the civil war, the Lebanese people in
recent years began to be aware of the importance of a peaceful and
harmonious society and dedicated to stabilize the domestic
political situation, which tended to stability in 2003.
However, Israeli assault in this summer smashed the relative
tranquility in Lebanon, where sectarian tensions and power
struggles rose again and reached a climax after the assassination
of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel this month.
Israeli army launched a large-scale assault on Lebanon with the
aim of eradicating Hezbollah and bringing back the two abducted
soldiers but had to end the offensive resultless after a
34-dayoperation.
Encouraged by Israeli failure in reaching the established goals,
Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah declared "divine victory" few days
after the end of the conflict, and thus given higher support by the
Lebanese people.
With the stronger backing, pro-Syrian Hezbollah began demanding
for a greater say in the government, which has been dominated by an
anti-Syrian coalition since elections in last year, and called for
the formation of a national unity government.
But the country's top leaders failed to reach agreement on the
formation of such a unity government in which Hezbollah and its
allies would have a third-plus-one veto power.
Collapse of the consultation led to resignation of six
pro-Syrian cabinet ministers, including two from Hezbollah, in
earlier November.
After a few days, Lebanese political crisis turned to a sharp
deepening when the Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel was
assassinated on Nov. 21.
Gemayel, a Christian anti-Syrian leader in Lebanon, was shot
dead when his convoy was attacked in Jdeide, about 15 km northeast
from Beirut.
The resignation of the six ministers and the death of Gemayel
put the Lebanese government on the brink of collapse, as according
to Lebanese law, the government dissolves automatically if eight
ministers, or one third of the 24-member cabinet, quit the
government.
That would lead to the miscarriage of a newly approved draft to
set up an international tribunal to try the suspects in the murder
of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
?
The government, headed by Premier Fouad Seniora, approved on Nov.
25 a UN draft on the international tribunal despite the absence of
six pro-Syrian ministers.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Parliament Speaker Nabih
Berri, also an ally of Hezbollah, rejected the draft, citing that
the government was no longer constitutional after the six
ministers' resignation.
At the key point, Hezbollah called for street protests to topple
the current government while anti-Syrian Christian leader Samir
Geagea warned in response a counter-protest.
Despite the two sides' pledges of peaceful action, the country
has still been gripped with fears that the country would fall in
civil war when several clashes erupted between anti and
pro-government protestors.
Some local analysts say that Lebanese postwar rebuilding project
would doubtless be hampered by the ongoing sharp political
crisis.
(Xinhua News Agency December 12, 2006)
