DAMASCUS ROAD
 

A Refractory “file”

An excerpt from an Arabic poem reads “…and then, the one who bears the news [you hope to learn] is the one you least expect.” Where Yaqub Shamoun is concerned, that adage certainly applies. Near the end of August 2012, media outlets reported that a Lebanese citizen who had gone missing in 1985 had returned from Syria after 27 years of incarceration. While Shamoun's sudden reappearance hints at a seemingly miraculous confluence of events, that perception confuses the real issue. The extraordinary element in the Yaqub Shamoun "story" is that during his nearly three decades of incarceration, the Syrian authorities never once acknowledged his detention, nor did the Lebanese government inquire about his fate. Evidence of this omission and inaction, respectively, came to light through testimonies provided by other Lebanese prisoners who, while incarcerated in Syria's Mezzeh Prison, encountered him there in 1987. According to Shamoun's testimony, his release resulted ultimately from huge ransom payments made by his family to his Syrian captors. To date, Shamoun's narrative has never been contradicted.

Without doubt, neither anyone in the Shamoun family nor the family members of other detainees needed Shamoun's return to convince them that their loved ones were indeed being held against their will in Syrian prisons. Among those counted as missing were Lebanese and non-Lebanese individuals who disappeared while on Lebanese soil, such as refugees from Palestine and other areas. Under those conditions, the responsibility for investigating all such disappearances rests clearly with the Lebanese authorities—and therein lies the problem.

As reported in the press on August 30 (the eve of the International Day for Missing People held annually on August 30), the story of Yaqub Shamoun was finally made public. Unfortunately, however, that story is certainly not unique. Against the bloody backdrop of Syria, where prisoners are typically the weakest link in the long chain of possible victims, other instances abound of missing people having returned unexpectedly from prisons in that country. Therefore, the "issue" of Lebanese political prisoners who remain confined in Syrian facilities is especially urgent.

Under the general heading of missing persons in Lebanon, those supposedly still languishing in Syrian prisons incite particular controversy. Moreover, the attitude being exhibited by the Lebanese authorities about determining the whereabouts of those still missing must be considered vis-à-vis prevailing political trends in the post-Taif Agreement era. As evidenced by the amnesty law passed by the Lebanese parliament in August 1991, the government adopted a policy that can only be described as "closing the files." In general, unless specific political reasons prompted the reopening of any given case, Lebanon's past was not to be revisited. Soon enough, governmental insistence on "collective amnesia" regarding the civil war became a political obsession. To enforce that policy, a decision was made to avoid investigating any instances of human rights violations that occurred during the civil war, including the matter of "enforced disappearances" that took place within and outside Lebanon's borders. Those who claimed in the early 1990s to be agents of peace paid no heed to the country's emerging civil society or the protests held sincerely by the families of the missing, who for more than a decade sought the state's assistance in locating their loved ones. As a result, that status quo was not altered when the official declaration was made to end the war.
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Syrian intervention in Lebanese affairs dates to the earliest stages of the civil war. Although the presence of military forces shifted according to region and period, pro-Syrian Lebanese militias continued to impose Syrian influence throughout the conflict. Accordingly, detention in Syrian prisons could easily have been a likely fate for many people who began disappearing as early as the mid-1970s. Despite those circumstances, the notion of enforced disappearance became a "national issue" only after the joint Lebanese-Syrian military operation of October 13, 1990. That action neutralized the dissident activities of General Michel Aoun but failed to address the whereabouts of hundreds of Lebanese civilians and servicemen. This wave of disappearances in which Syrian authorities were clearly involved finally propelled the issue into the public light.

Following the 1989 Taif Agreement, relations between the Lebanese and Syrian authorities were consecrated under the auspices of the "Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination Agreement" of May 1991. That protocol sparked renewed cooperation between the security services of the two nations, which made it all but impossible for the "partners" to discuss the fate of missing Lebanese. Doing so would have been seen clearly as a criticism capable of damaging the "improved" relationship between Lebanon and her neighbor.

Unless a missing person was believed to be held in Israel or in the custody of the militias that collaborated with Israel, it was taboo to speak of enforced disappearance. That sentiment was underscored in the political statements being made at the time, an example of which were the comments offered by former Defense Minister Michel Murr following a prisoner exchange between the Lebanese Forces and Hezbollah on July 18, 1981. On that date, Murr declared conclusively "There are no more detainees under the custody of any party; those who were released today are the last ones." In retrospect, that claim was symptomatic of the rush by Lebanese authorities to "close the files" on those missing and thus preclude any further investigation.

In an effort to help overturn the impact of the extant politics, Law 434 was voted into existence in 1995. Entitled “Rule to Prove the Death of Disappeared Persons”, the legislation streamlined the procedures used to declare missing people deceased. Following such a reclassification, the immediate need to conduct further investigations into the fate of the missing was easier to ignore. However, this "official policy of denial" regarding the disappeared (in general and as it pertained to those suspected of being incarcerated in Syria) was not conceived in a vacuum. Many Lebanese had already begun to demonstrate their unease with the increasing intimacy between the Lebanese and Syrian authorities and the actions they took jointly to mute any related protests. In fact, one method used to silence the dissent was to ensure the disappearances continued.

By 1996, Human Rights Watch (HRW) had gathered sufficient evidence upon which to base the writing of an open letter to then-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The correspondence stated in part, "Human Rights Watch expresses its deep concern regarding the abduction of Lebanese citizens and Palestinian refugees, the conditions of interrogation that they are subject to, and about the fact that some of them are being transferred to Syria without any clear accusation." The HRW letter not only confirmed facts already widely acknowledged by many Lebanese citizens, but it also conferred a level of formal recognition of the issue. To address the concerns raised in the letter, then-President Elias Hrawi addressed a staged rally comprised of students and journalists on November 24 and confirmed that 210 Lebanese nationals were in Syrian custody. He refined that number as 200 Muslims and 10 Christians, and stated, "Lebanon is trying its best to have them released." Despite this, months passed without related governmental action of any kind. Two years later, in 1998, Syrian authorities released 122 prisoners in two installments and without previous notification. Those released had been incarcerated either within Syria or at Syrian military-run detention centers in Lebanon. Lebanese authorities responded to the release as if it had been an act of decisive closure. Rather than open the issue to further scrutiny, the release was treated as if it had actually and finally tied up loose ends. In other words, the "missing" file was closed, arbitrarily, once again. That attitude prevailed in the ensuing years despite evidence that continued to leak out of Syria about Lebanese citizens still being detained there.

The case of Adil Khalaf Ajjouri is one example of just such a leak. On May 5, 1990, Adil Khalaf Ajjouri was kidnapped at a Syrian army checkpoint along Beirut's Airport Road. From there, he was transferred first to Anjar, then to Tadmor Prison (Syria) and later to Sidnayya Prison (Syria), where he likely died on September 22, 1999. On October 22, 1999, his family received a telephone call from the administration office of Sidnayya Prison notifying them of Ajjouri's passing. The same day, an ambulance from Sidnayya Prison delivered the corpse to Hayek Hospital, where it was handed over to the family. The following day, Ajjouri was buried under the exceptionally watchful eyes of the Lebanese-Syrian security services.

Ironically, it could be said that the Ajjouri family was among the luckiest facing similar circumstances. Ajjouri's body was returned, his relatives were permitted to bury him and they succeeded in establishing a physical location at which they could mourn his passing. Such congeniality is certainly not typical of the experiences of most families whose relatives died while in Syrian custody. In most of those cases, the detainees simply disappeared in the truest sense of the word. These conditions offer stark testimony regarding the responsibility of Lebanese authorities to not only be tasked with coordinating the return of every prisoner left alive in Syrian jails, but also to recover the remains of those who passed away during their incarceration. At the very least, the Lebanese authorities should obtain all information related to the location of each individual's grave, whether he (or she) was interred individually or collectively.

Over time, protests about the fate of those suspected of being incarcerated in Syria started to gain momentum, and the year 2000 proved to be a milestone in that effort. In wider regional history, the Israeli withdrawal from most of the occupied Lebanese territories took place that year. Before Israel's disengagement from those areas, the issue had long since dominated popular and political discussion in Lebanon, which meant that other issues, such as missing persons, were subordinated to that particular focus. Ultimately, when those square kilometers of land were returned, the freedom to discuss the missing returned as well.

Bowing to pressure being exerted by public protests, the Lebanese cabinet (headed at the time by Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss) formed a commission in January 2000 that was charged with investigating the fate of missing Lebanese citizens. In principle, the development was positive. However, since the commission was comprised entirely of military and security service personnel, many Lebanese doubted its capability. Those fears were realized when the commission published its final report, which recommended that those whose whereabouts remained unknown for more than four years and whose bodies had not been recovered should automatically be presumed dead. For individuals believed to be incarcerated in Syria, the report stated, "According to the testimonies of some families of disappeared persons, 168 people are allegedly detained in Syria. The commission consulted the relevant authorities and it was proven that none of these 168 is present in the Arab Syrian Republic."

The commission's abject failure to achieve its mission, combined with the duplicity that was rampant within that body, was explained in a document published by the Lebanese parliament as part of its efforts to devise a National Plan for Human Rights. "The problem with the results published by the commission is that during the same year [2000], the Syrian authorities released 54 detainees. Some of these released were amongst those that the commission recommended to consider as dead. This fact breached the credibility of the work of that commission."

On September 20, 2000, the Council of Maronite Bishops published its famous statement. Among other points, it requested a review of Syrian military presence on Lebanese soil. The statement also mentioned the issue of Lebanese detainees in Syria: "Many Lebanese are still held in Syrian and Israeli prisons where they have been held for many years. They were given identification numbers instead of names. When their families attempt to discover their whereabouts, they are told that they do not exist." Recognition of the issue by the Maronite Church gave additional moral legitimacy to those still seeking the truth.

Meanwhile, a third significant event occurred that summer when Syrian President Hafez al-Assad died (June 10, 2000) and was succeeded by his son Bashar. Following the death of the elder Assad, hope soared that Bashar would follow the example set by King Muhammad VI of Morocco, whose ascendancy to the throne following the 1999 death of his father ushered in an era of political change in that country. Indeed, it appeared initially that Syria would follow suit. Bashar al-Assad's inaugural speech given on July 17 galvanized the Damascus Spring, a popular social movement that called for political reform. Optimism increased further after Bashar's decision in December 2000 to close the notorious Mezzeh facility, the name of which had become a synonym for the word "prison" throughout the Arab word. Likewise, many Lebanese hoped that Bashar's arrival would precipitate some change to Lebanese-Syrian relations. Along that line, the rumors being circulated about Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons were confirmed by Lebanese authorities close to Damascus. The new president intended to take advantage of the November 16 anniversary of the "Reformist Revolution" (as it is known in Syria) and declare amnesty for all political detainees, including those from Lebanon. In confirmation of that initiative, 54 prisoners (45 Lebanese, 8 Palestinian and the last, a senior member of the Progressive Socialist Party security apparatus of Egyptian origin) were handed over to Lebanese authorities on December .

Although only a relatively small number of prisoners were freed, their release (in contrast to the 1998 release) received wide political attention. It was declared that the release finally marked the end of the matter of Lebanese detainees in Syria, and the “file” was subsequently and decisively closed. Such was the zeitgeist of the time. Rafik Hariri, then prime minister, discussed the issue twice publicly within 48 hours. In fact, Hariri's words are particularly interesting since they do not relate solely to the issue of Lebanese detainees in Syria, but also to his vision for dealing with Lebanon's violent past in general. The most important element in those statements was his impassioned argument that raising the issue of missing people would risk reopening all of the files from the civil war. Ultimately, Hariri was quite accurate about his worst fears, and he certainly could not have imagined that his own assassination would reopen many of Lebanon’s most painful files, including the one on Lebanese-Syrian relations.

Of course, Hariri was by no means the lone voice in Lebanese politics. On December 17, 2000, while receiving a delegation of families of the disappeared, Speaker of the House Nabih Berri stated, "After President Bashar al-Assad took the initiative [to free the 54 prisoners], there are no more detainees in Syria." That typical example of political willingness to retire the "missing" file once and for all was consecrated in a statement made by cabinet spokesman Minister Ghazi Aridi. After warning of the dangers associated with allowing Lebanese families to believe their relatives were still alive and incarcerated in Syria, Aridi made the statement following a ministerial session that "In order to preserve national harmony and turn the page of the war, it is not beneficial to reopen the chapters of the past."

Beyond such statements, and to prove once and for all its desire to "close the file," the Lebanese cabinet entrusted Lebanon's general prosecutor with investigating the issue. During a press conference, the general prosecutor published the names of the 54 people who had been released and confirmed that they had indeed been incarcerated in Syria because they spied for Israel, killed Syrian soldiers in Lebanon and threatened (Lebanese) national security. The general prosecutor held a second press soon after during which he announced the identities of another 93 Lebanese prisoners currently serving time in Syria for crimes of a non-political nature. As before, he concluded the presentation by avowing that with the addition of 93 names to the original 54, "…there are no more Lebanese detained in Syria."

Despite the efforts taken at the time by the Lebanese political establishment, public demands for the truth persisted. Increasing pressure on the government prompted the January 5, 2001 establishment of yet another commission charged with investigating the disappeared. Composed of the usual lineup of military and security officers, that latest commission included two civilian representatives, one of which was from the Beirut Bar Association, and the other—the head of the commission—who was the Minister for Administrative Development. This latest commission was charged with receiving "the claims of those citizens who wish to follow up on their disappeared relatives that they still consider to be alive. This commission must investigate these claims and produce a report to be handed to the cabinet within 6 months of its constitution." Although originally sanctioned to exist for just six months, the commission's mandate was extended twice, and it persisted officially until June 7, 2002. Despite its enduring nature, however, it posted few achievements. In fact, no report was ever submitted to the cabinet, and the extensions granted to the commission merely bought it additional time.

Following the commission's collapse and an abortive attempt to revive it in 2004, that era of "closing the file" persisted until 2005. The lack of success cannot be attributed exclusively to the Lebanese, as it paralleled the failure of Bashar al-Assad to create a decisive turning point in domestic politics as well as Syrian-Lebanese relations. The Damascus Spring did not last the year, and the period 2003 – 2005 became the "golden age" of the Lebanese-Syrian security cartel, an association which ensured that security would prevail, flagrantly, over politics. However, change was destined to arrive sooner rather than later. Regardless of the truth that may eventually emerge regarding the February 14 assassination of Rafik Hariri, it is universally accepted that 2005 became that decisive turning point. Fortunately, the issue of enforced disappearances was no exception. If the year 2000 instituted and accelerated certain political dynamics, then those changes developed and matured in 2005.

On April 11, 2005, the eve of the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of civil war, “as the Syrian troops are scheduled to finish their withdrawal from Lebanon by April 30, and as the issue of Lebanese detained by Syrian forces [is] still pending, the families [of the missing have] decided to start a sit-in in front of the UN building.” Since that day, the “ESCWA tent” has been a permanent fixture on Beirut's landscape.5 That initiative most likely prompted the head of Beirut's Bar Association to hold a press conference and publicize a draft of the report, which was never submitted to the cabinet by the second commission. The draft included a list of names that “the commission advises the [Lebanese] authorities to investigate, [in conjunction with their] Syrian [counterparts, relative to missing persons believed held in Syria."]

Later that year, the first government established following parliamentary elections was headed by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. For the first time in history, its ministerial statement included a pledge that "the government commits itself to follow up the issue of the abducted detainees in Syrian prisons through the Lebanese-Syrian committee which was agreed upon between the two countries."6 Clearly, tongues were loosening, and the media was no longer hesitant to tackle the issue of the missing. In November, a lengthy investigative article published in an-Nahar prompted a significant development in that regard. The piece reported testimony offered by several Red Cross volunteers who participated in humanitarian operations following the joint Lebanese-Syrian attack on the Baabda presidential palace in October 1990. The volunteers stated that they helped clear the battlefield and wrap the corpses before transferring them to the Lebanese army. The army subsequently transported the bodies to the Ministry of Defense compound in Yarze, where they were buried in a mass grave. Excavation of the site began on November 13, 2005, and the army exhumed the bodies of 11 servicemen. It was confirmed that several of those bodies belonged to soldiers killed in the October 1990 offensive. But how do those incidents relate to the plight of the detained?

First, the appearance of the ESCWA tent and the press conference held by the Beirut Bar Association confirmed the legitimacy of civil society advocacy for the cause. Second, relative to the ministerial statement, the issue of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons will remain an agenda item in any future Lebanese-Syrian negotiations. Finally, the macabre findings at the Ministry of Defense shed light on several issues.

In general, arriving at the truth is indeed possible despite the passage of decades. The easy solution, turning the page and closing the file, does not work. Every element of Lebanese society must become involved in seeking the truth. No individual or organization, including the military, should be exempted from that responsibility.

Fortunately, 2009 marked another step forward. In the aftermath of the 2008 Doha Agreement and on the eve of Lebanese parliamentary elections, related developments began to take legislative form. On July 14, 2008, the Lebanese Forces parliamentary bloc submitted a draft law to parliament, which aimed to provide reparations to Lebanese citizens formerly held prisoner in Syria. Another draft, submitted by the Free Patriotic Movement on April 1, 2008, proposed a system of compensation similar to that in effect for former detainees in Israeli prisons. These plans for reparation continue to navigate a serpentine path of parliamentary progress. Moreover, they are limited in scope as they are confined exclusively to the notion of financial recompensation. Despite that constraint, it remains important to appreciate that the issue is being debated in parliament. At the very least, the appearance of these draft laws has destroyed the politics of denial that for so long obscured the truth in Lebanon.


On the Partnership between UMAM Documentation & Research (UMAM & D&R)
and the Association of Lebanese Political Detainees in Syria (LPDS)

UMAM Documentation and Research (D&R) has been interested in issues related to the missing since it was founded. Not only are these issues part of the legacy of the civil war, but in a way, they are also the most persistent component of that conflict. Overall, the issue of missing persons is one of ongoing human suffering: lives in limbo, whereabouts unknown and families who forever remain victims of the disappearance of their relatives. In 2008, UMAM began work on the issue in a project called "Missing." It sought to facilitate an easy, almost tactile expression of that ongoing drama, which involves thousands of individuals. "Missing" commenced with the collection of as many photographs and as much information as possible about those who disappeared. It later became a "mobile exhibition" that toured Beirut and other regions of Lebanon.

Through its interest in the disappeared, UMAM D&R noted specific details about individuals believed to be missing in Syria. Above all, the disappeared in Syria are at the heart of past, present and future attempts to normalize relations between the Lebanese and the Syrians, interactions that are integral components of Lebanon's civil war—and its ongoing strife. Beginning in 2009, UMAM D&R began to follow closely the establishment of the Association of Lebanese Political Detainees in Syria (LPDS). UMAM's relationship with the late human rights activist Kamal Al-Batal (to whom we owe—among other things—his adoption and advocacy of this cause within and outside Lebanon) prompted the organization to assist in the development of this issue and the activities of LPDS. Of note, the year in which Kamal Al-Batal passed away also introduced formalized cooperation between UMAM D&R and the LPDS.

Between fall 2011 and spring 2012, the two organizations coordinated a series of group sessions facilitated by therapists. During those sessions, the idea of a live performance was conceived. All involved agreed that the men's ability to engage in a theatrical re-living of their ordeal as detainees would help them heal the effects of their incarceration by allowing them to express their emotions and experiences, raise awareness of their ordeal to a wider audience and build the capacity of other individuals similarly traumatized by this and similarly heinous human rights violations. After conceiving, rehearsing and actually producing the performance, it was presented for the first time on October 11, 2012 in Beirut. Beyond serving as a therapeutic tool, the performance also became an opportunity to publicize On the Partnership between UMAM Documentation & Research (UMAM & D&R) and the Association of Lebanese Political Detainees in Syria (LPDS) Held under the auspices of the German Ambassador to Beirut, the performance also included an exhibition of objects that were either created by the former detainees during their incarceration or re-created specifically for the event. Following the Beirut performance, and thanks to the inspired commitment of several parties, "One Day in Tadmor" (which ultimately was retitled as "The German Chair") was performed in three different German cities. The trip became an invaluable opportunity for the members of LPDS to advocate their cause to an international audience.

While the above describes some elements of the cooperation that continues to exist between the two organizations, it must be highlighted that such cooperation was not always activity oriented. While the main goal of the cooperative effort was to introduce this issue to a broader public, another component was that of building the capacity of LPDS. Thus advanced, the LPDS would be better positioned to engage with the wide civil society landscape and become self-reliant in terms of creating and implementing its own lobbying strategies. Thus, in parallel with the activities described above, regular training sessions were conducted that focused on management, fund raising and public/media relations. Beyond facilitating the development of individual capacities, meetings were also held to enlist additional members. This not only helped strengthen group cohesion, but also infused it with a sense of participatory decision making.

As the issue of reparations was making its way through the Lebanese parliament, UMAM D&R and LPDS hit upon the notion that proving someone had served in a Syrian prison was one of the major obstacles to the advancement of the legislative effort—especially since Lebanese and Syrian authorities were always tight-lipped about the issue. To overcome that shortcoming, UMAM D&R and LPDS were joint hosts at a roundtable held October 19, 2013 at the Riviera Hotel in Beirut. Titled "Lebanese Political Prisoners in Syrian Prisons," the event was attended by a host of officials, legal experts and representatives of international human rights organizations.

Inspired by UMAM's "Missing" project, LPDS members also engaged in the collection of data about other Syrian detainees, both former and (presumably) present. The result of this data collection effort was an exhibition known as "Damascus Road." It was held first in Beirut on December 6 – 7, 2013 and then in Tripoli on December 21 – 22. Of note, North Lebanon, historically, is home to the vast majority of Lebanese detainees in Syria.

Finally, the cooperative efforts of UMAM D&R and LPDS were expressed in several publications that either were related to specific activities or were focused on the overarching issue of enforced detention. Beyond the joint UMAM-LPDS activities described briefly above, UMAM D&R continued its exhaustive documentation efforts related to this painful issue. The results of those efforts are evident in a newly created section of UMAM's Memory at Work website. Listed under the heading "Passionate of Darkness," the section is dedicated to the issue of Lebanese held in non-Lebanese prisons. These documentation efforts are not only important to advocating the issue of Lebanese prisoners in Syrian prisons, but also in the broader context of Lebanese-Syrian relations. Ultimately, realizing a joint revision of those relations will depend in large part on normalizing interactions, past, present and future, based on mutual respect.

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