OA: "Hariri tribunal will polarise politics"

[Oxford Analytica]

Tuesday, March 3 2009

EVENT: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon -- the international court established to try the suspected killers of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri -- opened on March 1 in The Hague.
SIGNIFICANCE: The launch of the Hariri tribunal reintroduces the deep internal schisms over Lebanon's regional and international allegiances that brought the country to the edge of civil war in 2007 and 2008, and which have been successfully shelved by the political class since the Doha Accord in May 2008.Go to conclusion
ANALYSIS: The UN Security Council unilaterally set up the tribunal in 2007 after the speaker of the Lebanese parliament refused to call a session to ratify the statutes to create it:

• It is housed in the Netherlands, which already is home to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and International Criminal Court, primarily for security reasons.
• As the first Middle Eastern court of its kind, the tribunal will use Lebanese law applied by a mixture of Lebanese and international judges. Its heaviest punishment is life imprisonment.

Suspects. The court's first act is likely to be a request for the Lebanese government to hand over four generals held in custody since 2005, as it has been given 60 days to transfer all arrested suspects from Beirut to The Hague. On February 25, three other suspects were freed by the Lebanese judicial authorities in Beirut. The three are considered 'small fish' who may have assisted in carrying out the crime but, unlike the generals, played no alleged role in planning it. Although they may later be summoned by the court, letting these potentially incriminating persons go is widely seen as a gesture by the Lebanese government towards Syria. Hizbollah has called for the four generals to be released on grounds that the investigation is unfinished. This claim was rejected by the Lebanese investigating judge Sakr Sakr as well as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

End of quiet. The spat over the suspects signals the re-emergence of mounting tension brought on by the Hariri tribunal as Lebanon looks ahead to parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7 . So far, the country has remained remarkably quiet. Since the Doha Accords in May, President Michel Suleiman has been largely successful in subduing the feud between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions, which threatened stability in the country several times between 2005 and 2008. This quiet period could now be over :Days before the launch of the tribunal, Rafik al-Hariri's son, Saad al-Hariri, signalled that his Future Movement will not share power in a unity government if Hizbollah and its allies win the election. Although other March 14 leaders may still favour a power-sharing agreement, Hariri's remarks suggested that elections are unlikely to produce a repeat of the broad unity governments that have dominated in Lebanon since the 2005 elections.

• March 14 leaders such as Walid Jumblatt and Samir Geagea have openly stated their expectation that the tribunal will lead to incrimination of Syrian top officials. The return of fiercely anti-Syrian rhetoric to Lebanese politics comes after a period when many leaders appeared to be accepting a Syrian-Lebanese rapprochement . It will have a polarising effect on Lebanese politics.
• As the court begins its work, political comments will provide fuel for disagreement and add to the expected rise in sectarian tensions surrounding the elections.
• In a worst-case scenario, victory for a Hizbollah-led coalition in the June elections could put the Lebanese government's full support for the tribunal in jeopardy. The court has a budget for this year of 40.3 million euros (50.7 million dollars) of which Lebanon pays 49%. If Hizbollah was indeed to abandon Lebanese support for the tribunal, it would spark a serious political crisis.

Slow process. The first UN investigator to investigate the assassination, Detlev Mehlis, has recently restated his belief that the plot's complexity suggests that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services played a role. In contrast, his two successors as chief investigator, Serge Brammertz and Daniel Bellemare, have revealed little about the progress of the investigation. However, since a date was set for the court's opening by Bellemare, who now assumes the role of general prosecutor, it has been clear that the investigation has gathered enough material to begin the process, which will eventually lead to hearings and trials. Despite the politically explosive content of the case, the actual workings of the court look set to be slow and arduous:

• The court's work is likely to take at least four years to finish, and progress may be slow. Robin Vincent, the tribunal's registrar, has made it clear that formal charges or trials should not be expected before 2011.
• No judges have yet been named and the court still has no rulebook for prosecutors and judges. The appointment of Lebanese judges has been extremely controversial and remains unfinished.
• Syria is unlikely to cooperate and freely hand over suspects, which could slow down the proceedings considerably. Vincent has said that the tribunal could hold trials in absentia, but it is questionable how effective such trials would be.

Pressure on Syria. Despite its likely slow progress, the Hariri court will inevitably throw negative light on Syria. That is particularly troubling for Damascus as it seeks to make real the many promises of a speedy thaw with the new US administration .Western powers expect Syria to work actively against the court and have in response formed an 'administrative committee' consisting of the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France and Japan, to ward off diplomatic pressure on the tribunal. The Syrian leadership, for its part, will continue to reject all charges while maintaining a semblance of cooperation with the UN. While the Hariri court may weaken President Bashar al-Assad's image as a moderate whose central position is vital to US Middle East policy, he will seek to balance the pressure by stressing Syria's ties to:

• Hamas, seen as crucial for Palestinian reconciliation and a renewal of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks;
• Hizbollah, which will emerge in a new and more official role in charge of Lebanon's government if it wins the June elections; and
• Iran, whose nuclear file tops the Obama administration's list of pressing issues in the Middle East.

CONCLUSION: The results of the Hariri tribunal will not materialise for several years. However, its effects in the short term will be to polarise Lebanese politics and hinder the formation of a unity government after the June elections.