Identificación de terpenos

Aside from the massive cost in human lives, and the displacement of thousands of people, the war brought in its wake economic havoc.121 This fourth phase of the power-sharing agreement put the Syrian regime as the predominant actor in local politics. The war led to a ‘crisis of state’, whereby public institutions were weakened and the state once again called for sectarian leaders and religious institutions to step in and assist in development and reconstruction.122 The settlement of the war in Lebanon by the Ta’if Accord was based on the reaffirmation of the principle of sectarian power-sharing. It enhanced the position of the Sunni Prime Minister as well as that of the Shi’a Speaker of the House, while curtailing some of the privileges that the Maronite President of the Republic had enjoyed.123 This redistribution of power created the need for consensus among

117 _{Makdisi, The Lessons of Lebanon, and Paul Salem, “Framing Post-war Lebanon: Perspectives on the} Constitution and the Structure of Power,” Mediterranean Politics 3, no. 1 (1998): 13-26.

118 _{Augustus Richard Norton, “Lebanon after Ta’if: Is the Civil War Over?” The Middle East Journal 45,} no. 3 (1991): 461.

119 _{Knudsen, “Acquiescence to Assassinations in Post-Civil War Lebanon?” 11-12.}

120 _{See more on this in Nizar Hamzeh, “Lebanon’s Hizbullah: From Islamic Revolution to Parliamentary} Accommodation,” Third World Quarterly 14, no. 2 (2007): 321-337.

121 _{Makdisi, The Lessons of Lebanon, 33.}

122 _{McCallum, The Role of the Maronite Patriarch in Lebanese History,” 924.} 123 _{Salem, “Framing Post-war Lebanon.”}

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the three major sectarian leaders on all policies and decisions of the government, which further weakened the possibility for state institutions to provide oversight and accountability. The Accord specified equal representation for the communities in Parliament. The principle of equal representation continued to apply in the Council of Ministers. The essence of the political system thus remained unchanged from pre-war Lebanon.124 _{The Accord was negotiated by parties in the}

conflict and by the Parliament that had been elected in 1972, before the outbreak of the violence, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Agreement brought the same faces and families back into power.125

The Ta’if Accord specified in Section 1 that “Efforts will be made to achieve comprehensive social justice through fiscal, economic and social reforms.” In Section 2 the

Accord stipulated that the electoral district shall be based on the governorate (muhafaza), that the parliamentary seats were to be divided provisionally equally between Christians and Muslims and proportionately among the denominations of each sect. It also stipulated “With the election of the first Chamber of Deputies on a national, not sectarian, basis, a senate shall be formed and all the spiritual families shall be represented in it.” While the Accord specifies the body (to be chaired

by the President of the Republic) that is supposed to initiate the process of national dialogue with the aim of reaching national agreement on the elimination of political sectarianism, it does not set a time frame for this purpose.126 Now, 18 years after the end of the conflict, this body has yet to be created.

In general, the gradual revival of the state and its institutions only partially took place. The transition from war to peace between 1990 and 1992 was too swift to allow for any process of reconciliation and of state building. Public institutions were under-staffed and most buildings were war torn and were barely able to perform daily administrative functions.127 Rampant corruption was indicative of the post-war distribution of resources and resulted in the subjugating of state institutions to the interests of sectarian elite.128 Three parliamentary elections were held in 1992,

124 _{After the ratification of the Ta’if agreement, parity between Muslims and Christians was kept in the} parliament. Whereas the president’s executive powers were reduced, the prime minister and the parliament speaker acquired new prerogatives.

125 _{Zahar, “Power-Sharing in Lebanon,” 318.}

126 _{See Michael Hudson, “Lebanon after Ta’if: Another Reform Opportunity Lost?” Arab Studies Quarterly,} 21, no. 1 (1999): 27-40, at p. 28.

127 _{See for example Randa Antoun, “The National Strategy to Combat Corruption,” (Beirut: United Nations} Development Program, 2009).

128 _{Randa Antoun, professor and author of the National Strategy to Combat Corruption, interview with} author, Beirut, November 2012.

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1996 and 2000 respectively. After the war, most militias were disarmed with the exception of the armed resistance against the Israeli occupation of the southern strip of the country, led by Hezbollah, which was permitted to continue.129

Of relevance to this phase of the power-sharing system are two major breaches to the Accord. The first was the beginning of negotiations outside the Council of Ministers, which began in 1992. The “Troika,” a grouping comprising the President, the Speaker and the Prime Minister began, in close collaboration with the Syrian leadership, to dominate political life and to become the effective decision-making body.130 _{This meant that the parliament and executive branches were}

rendered ineffective and domestic as well as foreign policy issues were settled outside these institutions. The second breach of Ta’if was the long-lasting role of the Syrian military, leadership and intelligence services in Lebanon’s affairs.131 _{After the Gulf crisis in 1990, the U.S. had the}

added concern of containing Iraq and gaining Syrian support for the Gulf War coalition. It is often noted that Syria’s hegemony over Lebanon was supported by the Americans in return for Syria’s role in the First Iraq War.132 The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union strengthened American influence in the Middle East and allowed it to pursue its policy objectives in Lebanon and other parts of the region. The U.S. supported the Ta’if negotiations and lent its support, both in Arab circles and through Syria, toward the successful completion of those talks. Despite the end of the war being a critical juncture for Lebanon, the following era of Syrian tutelage reinforced sectarianism and foreign patronage through granting specific Ministries to pro- Syrian Sunnis, Shi’a, Druze or Maronites, depending on agreements among sectarian leaders.133

Initially the main priorities of political leaders were security and the re-establishment of public institutions. But pressures from Damascus and the post-war economic strains led to the resignation of three short-lived governments.134 _{The fourth post-war government was headed by}

Rafik Hariri (a Lebanese Sunni billionaire). Hariri had played a major role in Lebanon’s post war politics and reconstruction. Hariri remained prime minister, heading three consecutive governments, until the election of Emile Lahoud as president in November 1998. The first

129 _{See Nizar Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2004).}

130 _{The ‘Troika’ dynamics are explored in Tom Najem, Lebanon: The Politics of a Penetrated Society, (New} York: Routledge, 2012), 62-65.

131 _{Norton, “Lebanon after Ta’if: Is the Civil War Over?” 470.} 132 _Ibid.

133 _{Salem, “Framing Post-war Lebanon.”}

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government following the election of Lahoud was headed by Salim el Hoss. After the parliamentary elections of September 2000, however, Hariri again headed a new government. In March 2003, he tendered his resignation, only to be asked once more to head the new government again in April. Hariri’s terms in government before 2000, perhaps in a similar manner to that of Chehab, were supported by three main factors. He was liked by the international community and boasted friendships with the world’s most powerful leaders.135 _{He also had the support of other}

political leaders to undergo a number of economic reforms that boosted the country’s capital Beirut and revived a number of commercial and touristic sites.

In pre-war Lebanon, the most common way of accessing benefits and services was through

wasta or the equivalent ofjoining clientelistic networks controlled by political leaders or zu’ama. The Civil War disrupted these networks and replaced zu’ama clientelism with a new and more complex mix of clientelistic networks developed around militias, parties, resistance groups, and charities. The Civil War brought new zu’ama, who benefited from the sectarian system to reinforce their power over state institutions. What emerged was a Syria-supported power-sharing system that enabled pro-Syrian elite to rise to power while maintaining the argument of coexistence through the nizam ta’ifi.136