BEIRUT, Aug 21 (Reuters) - A Lebanese army crackdown on Christian groups opposed to Syria's dominant role in Lebanon has badly backfired, forcing authorities to try to put the pieces back together.
The man who formally ordered arrests in the clampdown was at the prison gates on Monday to release the majority of Christian activists who were rounded up earlier this month.
Interior Minister Elias al-Murr personally supervised the release of 75 anti-Syrian Christian activists -- part of 200 loyalists of jailed Lebanese Forces (LF) militia leader Samir Geagea and exiled army general Michel Aoun.
The decision followed sharp criticism of the sweeping arrests, including a stern rebuke at the weekend from Pope John Paul, and warnings from across Lebanon's political spectrum that the country was in danger of becoming a Syrian-run dictatorship.
Those behind the crackdown seemed to have thought twice.
"The reactions were stronger than expected. The costs proved to be very high. The crisis was very damaging...the losses very big. It hastened the economic decline in the country," opposition leader Samir Franjiyeh told Reuters.
"The regime wants now to minimise the damage and cut the losses by containing the crisis," he said.
RECONCILIATION
Further signs of attempts to cool down the political climate were clear on Tuesday when President Emile Lahoud met Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, who has been leading the drive to end Damascus's grip on Beirut.
Lebanon's Maronite Christians have spearheaded a campaign to remove the 20,000 troops Syria has in Lebanon. Many Christians resent a Syrian-inspired post-war settlement that diminished the political influence of Christians in favour of Muslims.
The army swoop on Christians who fiercely oppose Syria's role in Lebanon drew international condemnation and rare unity across the local political and communal spectrum, most of which denounced the campaign as authoritarian.
The arrests have raised fears that Lebanon, traditionally the most democratic country in the Arab world, was turning into a "garrison state" run by the military and intelligence bodies.
"While the release was important, it is more important to stop arresting people on the basis of their political thoughts. In totalitarian regimes some detainees are released from time to time, but this does not change the nature or make-up of these regimes," wrote columnist Rafik al-Khoury in al-Anwar newspaper.
Beirut newspapers have carried dozens of pictures showing plainclothes police beating and kicking students and barristers protesting over the arrests.
The crackdown widened a rift between Lahoud, a Maronite Christian strongly allied to Syria, and the government of Sunni Muslim Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, who accused Lahoud of acting without informing the cabinet or getting its consent.
It paralysed the cabinet and damaged the credibility of the parliament which last week, under pressure from Lahoud and his political sponsor Syria, passed a law that reinforced the president's discretionary powers of arrest and detention.
It also raised the spectre of economic turmoil in a country recovering from 15 years of civil war and straining under a $24 billion public debt.
The Central Bank had to intervene heavily in the foreign exchange markets in the past two weeks to allay fears of a devaluation of the Lebanese pound. The already-suffering Beirut stock exchange dipped further this month while Lebanese investors rushed to buy dollars.
Judicial sources said those still held include those alleged to be connected with the case of senior LF member Tawfik al-Hindi, who was formally charged along with journalist Antoine Bassil of conspiring with Israel against Lebanon and Syria. Two others were charged with failing to inform on them.
POWER STRUGGLE
The clampdown was widely seen as an attempt by Lahoud, the former army commander, to establish supremacy with Syrian backing over Hariri, the dominant figure in post-war Lebanon and the architect of its reconstruction programme.
Hariri, a billionaire businessman with a wide range of international contacts, has been the key until now to investors' confidence in financing the rebuilding of post-war Lebanon.
But the premier has had a tense relationship with Damascus, which fears that his reformist programme could upset the power arrangements inside Lebanon, which Syria firmly controls.
The Syrian-blessed crackdown has however tipped the balance and maximised Lahoud's presidential powers, which had been sharply reduced under the Taif peace pact that ended the 1975-90 civil war.
The Taif power-sharing formula took away executive powers from the President -- traditionally held by the Maronite Christians -- and invested them in the Prime Minister, a post traditionally occupied by a Sunni Muslim.
The recent events also cemented an unprecedented alliance between Patriarch Sfeir, who since the end of the war has taken on the mantle of Christian leadership, and the leader of the Druze sect Walid Jumblatt, an old-time ally of Syria and formerly a bitter enemy of the Maronite militias.
Jumblatt, an ally of Hariri, has emerged as a key figure arguing for greater Lebanese autonomy from Syria and denouncing what he called a slide towards a police state.
Analysts have warned of the hazards of involving the army in crushing intercommunal dissent, recalling past defeats by presidents who dared to do so during the civil war.
"Lebanon's confessional system did not then, and does not now, take kindly to the diktats of armed forces," said Michael Young in a commentary in the English-language Daily Star.
09:00 08-21-01
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