Robert Fisk 17

Robert Fisk schrijft:

'I think there are enough weapons for the next war.

To Khiam, in the far south of Lebanon, to photograph Israeli bomb craters in which a British scientific team say they have found traces of enriched uranium. Spanish troops - along with Indian soldiers - now patrol this dangerous corner of Lebanon, and their UN vehicles hum past us as we drive under a white-bright winter sky.All of this has a screen of irrelevance over it - journalists writing yesterday's story for tomorrow's paper - as the dangerous political war between supporters of the Lebanese government - Sunni Muslims and Christians - and the pro-Syrian forces opposed to it, especially the Shias, employ increasingly incendiary language. The Shia Hizbollah's leadership demand an end to the democratically-elected Fouad Siniora cabinet, set up after the murder of the ex-prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, last year. The Christians are calling Hizbollah fascists. Tomorrow the cabinet is supposed to sign up to the new UN tribunal to try suspects for Hariri's murder, even though all six Shia ministers (largely pro-Syrian, of course) have resigned.Monday 20 NovemberSure enough, Syria's faithful Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, claims the cabinet is constitutionally unable to approve the UN's tribunal, which just might point a finger at Emile Lahoud himself.My driver, Abed, mourns for the French mandate of Lebanon under which he was born. The French, according to Abed, provided a respite between the brutality of the Ottoman Empire - Abed's father was taken from his young bride only days after his marriage to fight for the Turks against General Allenby in Palestine - and the corruption of post-independence Lebanon.I am not sure I agree with Abed. The French cruelly suppressed riots in Sidon with troops from Senegal and resisted independence. But in these fearful, sectarian days, it's easy to see how the grand boulevards built by the French, the Parisian cafés and boutiques - all exquisitely restored by Hariri after the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war (150,000 dead, no less) - has become a useful myth, an oasis of colonial peace between Oriental massacres.I visit the BBC office in the city centre to record an interview and talk to their Beirut correspondent, Kim Ghattas. We talk about the demand of the Hizbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for Shia street demonstrations, and I tell her I fear there will be another political assassination soon. I name two Christian leaders who might be murdered and whose killings could unleash the ghost of the civil war.Tuesday 21 NovemberPierre Gemayel shot and wounded. Minister for Industry. Maronite Christian. I remember my conversation with Ghattas - the two prominent Christians I had identified to her did not include the young Falangist MP. But I should have written about my general suspicions in this morning's Independent. I have 38 minutes to write more than 1,250 words. Pierre Gemayel, son of ex-president Amin Gemayel, nephew of murdered ex-president-elect Bashir Gemayel, uncle of Bashir's murdered two-year-old daughter Maya. Unmarried. Driving almost alone. Three gunmen. The hospital pronouncing him dead. The sixth prominent political figure to be slaughtered in 20 months. How many more before we hear gunfire?'

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