“Lebanon Debate” – Walid Khoury
The amnesty law was never an actual national priority for the Lebanese authority. For many years, the file was opened and closed, meetings were held, slogans were raised, promises were distributed to the families of the detainees, and then the law returned to the same drawers in which it had slept for more than a decade. Suddenly, at a sensitive regional political moment, the entire political class was mobilized. The amnesty has turned into an urgent item, and into a “humanitarian” necessity that cannot tolerate postponement. What has changed? Did the people in power suddenly discover that there are oppressed people in prisons? Or is what is simply required to implement a new political decision coming from abroad, this time from Damascus?
The truth that many are trying to evade is that the sudden push toward amnesty is neither innocent, nor separate from the recent Syrian transformations. What is taking place is neither a legal discussion nor a fair judicial treatment, but rather a political process with a clear goal: to remove the remaining Islamists associated with the Syrian scene, whether from those who previously fought in the ranks of the “Al-Nusra Front” or from those who formed part of the military and security environment that served this project on the Lebanese-Syrian border and inside Syria.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa knows exactly who wants to release him from Lebanese prisons. These are not just “detainees” as is marketed to public opinion, but rather a large portion of them fought within the same project from which Sharia emerged, and some of them were, at certain stages, direct or indirect field allies of the organizations that later turned into the nucleus of the new authority in Syria. Therefore, what is happening is not a humanitarian file, but rather a political and security completion process aimed at liberating what remains of the Lebanese and Syrian “Al-Nusra” environment from Lebanese prisons.
In the first stage, the “Syrian detainees” deal was completed. That day, the Lebanese were told that these people would complete their trials in Syria, that judicial coordination was in place, and that the Lebanese state would not give up its rights. But what actually happened? The detainees arrived in Syria and completely disappeared. No trials, no prosecutions, no judicial action. It was all over as soon as the border was crossed. The Lebanese state handed over the wanted persons and closed the file. Today, the same scene is being continued, but in a Lebanese version under the title “General Amnesty.”
The blatant irony is that the same political forces that had been stressing for years that committed crimes do not allow for any amnesty, and that blood cannot be wiped away by settlements, suddenly started talking about “turning the page on the past” and “national healing.” Why now specifically? Because Ahmed Al-Sharaa wants to get his former allies and his political and security environment out of Lebanese prisons. That simple. As long as the regional decision has been taken, the Lebanese interior must translate it legislatively, just as the rest of the external dictates are translated within the Lebanese state institutions.
In Lebanon today, the House of Representatives no longer legislates according to the need of the state or the interest of the Lebanese, but rather according to the desires of those with external influence. Financial laws are detailed according to the International Monetary Fund, sovereign policies are written under pressure from embassies, and today amnesty laws are being cooked over the fire of Ahmed Al-Sharaa. As for the representatives, many of them have become mere ratification tools, raising their hands when requested, and granting legitimacy to any settlement that reaches them ready and packaged.
What is most dangerous is that this debate is presented to public opinion in a misleading and deceptive manner. It is said that there are detainees without trial, that justice is faltering, and that the file is humanitarian. Yes, the Lebanese judiciary bears a clear responsibility for delaying trials, but is the solution to drop the crimes all at once? Is what is really required to achieve justice, or to recycle people involved in the most dangerous security and military files under the slogan of “settlement”?
Then what about the families of fallen soldiers? What about the Lebanese who paid the price for terrorism, chaos, bombings and fighting? Who convinces these people that those who carried weapons, fought battles, kidnapped, killed, and bombed people suddenly deserve a new opportunity under the title of “general amnesty”? Who has the audacity to tell the Lebanese that the state, which was unable to hold the corrupt accountable, decided in return to be lenient with those involved in the most serious security crimes?
The problem in Lebanon is no longer only political dependence, but rather the collapse of the concept of the state itself. A state that legislates upon request is not a state, and a parliament that acts as a certifying chamber for foreign desires is not a legislative authority. What is happening today in the amnesty file is nothing but an additional example of a country that no longer produces its own decisions, but rather receives instructions and implements them, while the Lebanese are asked to applaud in the name of “settlements” and “political realism.”
This is how legislation became in Lebanon: at the whim of the outside world, and based on regional interests, while the state is no longer more than a stamp placed at the bottom of the page.
