A
group of four armed men opened fire indiscriminately
on a bus full of Syrian workers in Tabarja north of
Beirut, killing the driver. The same day, a bomb went
off in the northern city of Tripoli targeting Syrian
soldiers. In the previous two months there were four
attacks on immigrant workers from Syria, according to
L'Orient Le Jour, a French-language daily published
in Beirut. The same paper reported that a group calling
itself the Christian Lebanese Resistance, in its "Communique
no. 1," called on people to target Syrian citizens and
troops. There are 30,000 Syrian troops currently stationed
in Lebanon with the backing of the Lebanese government.
Following
the terrorist attack, the Lebanese government of Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri launched a wave of arrests,
targeting opposition politicians with ties to the
right-wing leaders Michel Aoun, Samir Geagea, Dory
Chamoun, and former president Amin Gemayel, who ruled
parts of Lebanon during the civil war. Journalist
Pierre Atallah was charged with distributing a leaflet
seeking to tarnish Lebanon's relations with a friendly
country. No charges had been made for the bombings.
The
government uses the excuse of limiting the ability
of these forces to start new troubles in order to
carry out restrictions on the democratic rights of
the population, in particular of working people.
This
was one of the issues in a November 28 general strike
called by the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers
(CGTL). The slogan was "Against the high cost of living
and for democratic freedoms!" The strike was met by
a massive display of state repression.
