BEIRUT:Sectarian tensions boiled over in Beirut yesterday as Shia, Sunni and Christian protesters clashed with pro-government forces. Lucy Fielderreports from the Lebanese capital
"Wake up and smell the smoke - it's started," read a text message from a Lebanese friend. And Beirut did.
From dawn scores of anti-government Shia Muslims and Christians burned tyres in the streets of the city and across the country to enforce a general strike. At least three protesters were killed and more than 110 wounded, police said.
Rubble strewn across the airport road in the mainly Shia southern suburbs came from nearby bombsites, protesters said, as an indictment of alleged government inaction since Israel's heavy bombardment of the suburbs and south last July and August.
"The government said it would help us and rebuild, but they haven't done anything," said a protester, who gave his name only as Ahmed, his face covered by a bandana and pulled-down hat. "We have our worth too. Our people are homeless."
Daniel Hanna, a Christian from the area, said he was protesting against economic reform proposals the government will take to a Paris aid summit tomorrow.
"Prices are going up, petrol is going to go up, and now they're going to impose new taxes. The government will steal it all and they will live on it, not us," he said. A crowd of children watched flames leaping from the tyres and a burning car wreck, transfixed.
Beirut's old civil war flashpoints warmed up. Protesters hurled stones across the central Corniche al-Mazraa boulevard, which has pro-government Sunnis living on one side and many Shias on the other. The army shot in the air and tried to force them apart.
Later, an angry pro-government crowd stood behind a line of soldiers cursing Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Christian leader Michel Aoun of the opposition - or more precisely, their mothers.
Old Christian rivalries also came to the fore. Crowds of Aoun supporters blocking roads from Christian areas clashed with members of the pro-government Lebanese Forces, a former militia.
One LF member was killed near the northern town of Batroun, police said.
At a roadblock of burning tyres outside the National Museum, between Christian Achrafieh and neighbouring, mainly Muslim areas, was student Indra Hajj. "For 15 years, the same people have been in power and they haven't changed a thing. The economy is always in recession," she said, wearing a scarf in the trademark orange of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. "We tried a sit-in but the government didn't want to change the way it acted, so now we have no choice but to cut the roads and show the people that we're not going to stand back," she said.
Spring weather came early, but called to mind last summer's days of siege, with columns of smoke rising to an acrid pall against a clear blue sky. Then, as today, the absence of endless jams of honking cars bestowed an eerie peace on parts of the capital. Hamra's shop-lined high street, Achrafieh's cobbled alleys of bars and restaurants, the Cola Junction transport hub were all deserted.
"I've started to love the Beirut traffic," taxi driver Abu Talal laughed grimly. If only the army would take over and ban both sides from the streets, he said. "They should send them all home and say: 'When you both love Lebanon the same way, you can come out.'"
As it was, the army was out in force. Soldiers manned checkpoints or leaned against armoured personnel carriers on all the main roads, intervening little. Upturned wheelie bins and smouldering tyres force us to change route every few blocks.
One man exempted from the strike was Abu Kamal, selling corn on the cob from a handcart at a protest camp that has spread downtown. "Our morale is high. We'll stay on the streets as long as it takes for the government to fall," he said. The tent shantytown was among the liveliest places in town, with young men milling around and smoking water-pipes when not tending the barricades.
In the pristine central streets rebuilt by assassinated former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, the pavement cafes around the Place d'Étoile were shuttered, as across much of the capital. It was hard to tell which businesses closed by choice; few would brave the roadblocks to head to work.
But in the pro-government Sunni stronghold of Tarika Jdida, it was business as usual, with wares stacked on the pavements outside the shops. Lebanese flags flew from balconies, a sign of support for the government requested by the prime minister, Fouad Seniora, last month.
Bassil Kabbani, behind the till in a family lighting shop, said the conflict was between Sunnis and Shia, sectarian sentiments that have surged to the surface in Lebanon. "None of the Sunnis are with them. Why don't they strike in their own areas?" he asked. "If they don't want to eat, may they never eat."