2 million jam Beirut, want U.S. puppets out

Dec. 4—They came by foot and on motorbike or jammed into cars, vans and buses. Women and men, most of them young, some with their children. From the south, east and north they came—from everywhere but the sea. They poured into central Beirut until the parliament building was surrounded by a sea of Lebanese flags.

Dec. 1 in Beirut, Lebanon. Photos: Samia Halaby/Al-Awda

By 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 1, nearly half of Lebanon was there. Two million voices roared "America out of Lebanon" and "We want a free government." On Saturday and Sunday they rallied again. Today tens of thousands remain camped in a giant tent city outside parliament. They vow to stay until the U.S.-backed government of Fuad Siniora resigns.

On Sunday night, Dec. 3, the forces of wealth and power struck back in cowardly fashion. Two protesters were shot to death in an ambush as they drove through a rightwing neighborhood on their way home from the rally. Several others were wounded.

Heavily armed soldiers surround government buildings and patrol the streets. But people strongly feel they have the soldiers' sympathy and that the prime minister is afraid to order the army to stop the protests.

The people came on 27 hours' notice, after a televised call by Sayid Hassan Nasrullah on Nov. 30. Sayid Hassan is general secretary of Hezbollah, one of the many parties that make up the March 8 alliance, Lebanon's democratic opposition. Hezbollah is based among Shiite Muslims, Lebanon's largest and poorest community. But it is popular in all Lebanese communities because it repelled last summer's Israeli attack while the Siniora regime did nothing.

A majority who came were Shiites. They came from the Dahiye—Beirut's impoverished southern suburbs—and from war-torn villages in the South and the Bekaa Valley. Many had lost loved ones last summer when Israel's U.S.-made bombs and missiles rained down upon their homes. Many had taken up arms against Israel's U.S.-funded war machine.

But they were joined by hundreds of thousands of Christians from East Beirut and from the mountains of the north. And by Sunni Muslims, Druze and Armenians as well. There were Palestinians too, exiled to Lebanon for generations by Israeli apartheid, as well as "guest workers" from Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

All expressed common desires in their conversations with someone from the United States: An end to economic policies dictated by Wall Street. An end to the growing divide between wealth and poverty. An end to U.S.-financed Israeli terror. A Lebanon and an Arab world free of U.S. political and economic domination.

Many identified with the global struggle against U.S. imperial power. An older woman wearing the hejab head covering waved a giant Venezuelan flag. A young man carried a giant flag of Palestine.

As in Palestine, Iraq and the North of Ireland, the Western corporate media try to cast what is happening here as a fight over religion. But it is at heart a class struggle.

On one side is the ruling March 14 coalition, which represents the power of a privileged Westernized elite. Its control is based on a system of sectarian divisions left behind by French colonial rule. It is propped up by the U.S., France, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

On the other is the March 8 alliance, which has the support of Lebanon's poor and exploited, those who suffer the most from Siniora's U.S.-dictated economic policies and from Israel's U.S.-made missiles. It includes the Shiite-based parties Hezbollah and Amal, the mostly Christian-based Free Patriotic Movement and Marada parties, the Druze-led Democratic Party, the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian People's Party of Lebanon.

"Look and see! This is the real new Middle East," said Hussein Husseini, a motorcycle mechanic from the Dahiye, Beirut's southern suburbs. "Not the Middle East of George Bush and Condoleezza Rice. This is the people's Middle East. We are all here together—Shiite, Sunni, Catholic, Orthodox, Druze, Armenian. Bush thinks he can rule over us. But this will be the end of his dream!"

"I am Sunni," said Khidr, 24, a student. "My father is a Sunni Muslim, my mother is Druze. They are both here with me today. We all love Hezbollah. Not just because it defeated Israel. But because it helps the poor, it builds schools and hospitals."

"I want this government to go down," said Tariq, 16, from South Lebanon. He fled his home last summer to escape Israel's bombs. "It is controlled by the U.S. and Israel. We want a government that represents the people of Lebanon—all the people, not just a few."

Ahmed N. grew up in Michigan, where he worked as a driver. He returned to Lebanon this year to help his family. "You can't believe how poor people are here," he said. "Whole families live on 200 lire a day [13 cents U.S.] and, like the U.S., there are a few capitalists who have everything."

People laughed at the Bush regime's assertions that Hezbollah is "terrorist" and that it is being controlled by Syria and Iran. "Look at all these people," said Yusuf, who works nights as a security guard. He earns $50 a week in a city with prices almost as high as New York's. "They are all terrorists? They are Syrians and Iranians? No, these are the real people of Lebanon. We are here because we cannot find decent work; we can no longer afford to live in our own country.

"But we have nothing against Syria and Iran. They are our neighbors; we want to be friends with them. They are not attacking us. It is the U.S. and Israel that attack us."

Again and again, people emphasized that they distinguished the people of the United States from the government.

"I have a message for the U.S. people," said Fatima Al Kubaisi, a mother from the Dahye, whose home was destroyed in the bombing. She lived for a year in Michigan. "Listen to what we say ourselves, not what CNN says about us. And be aware of what your government is doing here in Lebanon and in Iraq and in Palestine, where they are killing the kids. And also inside the United States, what they are doing to the Black people and to white people, too. And we want you to make a change in your country."