Lebanese Torn Over Syria Pullout

Most days, this town near the Syrian border would be bustling with shoppers from Damascus and Lebanese travelers stopping for a meal on their way east to Syria.

But weeks of political turmoil in Lebanon have all but halted the flow of Syrian cars. The most conspicuous vehicles heading toward Damascus these days, residents say, are Syrian military trucks carrying troops as part of the country’s promised phased withdrawal from Lebanon.

Trade in Chtoura has plummeted, and thousands of Syrian laborers in the area have fled home out of fear they will be targeted as part of the broad outcry over Syria’s presence in Lebanon.

Sitting in the verdant Bekaa Valley midway between Damascus and the Lebanese capital of Beirut, people in this crossroads of geography and commerce find themselves torn over Syrian President Bashar Assad’s pledge to withdraw soldiers and intelligence officers from Lebanon.

Many Chtoura residents say they will be glad to see Syria go, allowing Lebanon to govern itself unfettered. But amid expressions of nationalism, many also acknowledge feeling gratitude toward the Syrians for their efforts to restore order during and after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.

Those sentiments were on display Sunday, following word that Assad had assured United Nations special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen of his commitment to comply with the U.N. resolution calling for a full withdrawal of Syria’s 14,000 troops. Roed-Larsen did not disclose a timetable, saying he would first report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan this week.

“If you come into my house and I give you coffee, what do you say? ‘Thank you,’ ” said shopkeeper Mahmoud Irheme, a 55-year-old Shiite Muslim. “That’s what we should say.”

Between hungry puffs on a cigarette, Irheme noted that Syrian forces had been invited by Lebanon to keep the peace when they came in 1976 after the start of the civil war. During ensuing years, he said, Damascus would supply flour when there were bread shortages and electricity during blackouts.

At a time when the fighting left many residents too afraid to venture outside, Irheme said Syria “stopped the bloodshed.”

His wife, Fatme Halabi, 45, said, “We don’t want it to withdraw humiliated.”

Those most vocal in calling for a complete pullout say the time for Syria to end its heavy-handed meddling is long overdue. Under a 1989 accord ending the civil war, Syrian troops were to begin leaving by 1992, but the provision was never put into effect. Damascus has dominated its neighbor’s politics since.

“All the people are pleased about the withdrawal of the Syrians,” said Hisham Salhan, a shoe-store owner. He said the Syrians had silenced Lebanese foes at will and disenfranchised a people in their own land. “This is my store and I own it. Before, it was like Lebanon was a store but didn’t own it.”

Competing emotions are roiling the rest of the country. In southern Lebanon, more than 100,000 demonstrators turned up at a pro-Syria rally Sunday in the town of Nabatiyeh. The rally is the second mass gathering organized by the Hezbollah party in less than a week. It came a day before the Lebanese opposition, which has called for an immediate Syrian pullout, plans a major demonstration in Beirut.

In Chtoura, signs of Damascus’ influence are seen throughout the town. Syrian officers man a checkpoint at the western entrance to the city. Nearby stands a statue of Basil Assad, the late brother of the Syrian president, on horseback.

Chtoura is a commercial hub for the farming villages in the Bekaa Valley, a fertile plateau walled by snow-draped mountain ranges on either side. But much of the town’s relative prosperity stems from ties with Syria. Though it has fewer than 5,000 residents, Chtoura has 16 banks -- an industry that has profited from Syrians’ distrust of their country’s banking system.

With a mixture of Catholics and Sunni Muslims, and some Shiites, Chtoura is also a place where Lebanese families have married into Syrian ones, twining fortunes across the border six miles away.

Tens of thousands of Syrians once worked the valley’s fields of potatoes, peas and tomatoes, and provided labor for its construction industry at half the pay demanded by Lebanese workers.

But many foreign workers left Lebanon after reports of attacks against Syrians since the Feb. 14 assassination in Beirut of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a killing widely blamed on Syria and its Lebanese allies.

The exodus has brought building to a standstill, though some residents say there now may be more jobs available for Lebanese. Syrian workers remaining in Chtoura say residents have treated them well, though they are bothered by how fashionable it has become to criticize Syria’s presence.

“The Syrians have sacrificed a lot in Lebanon,” said Imad Hamod, a 31-year-old who works at a vegetable stand here, returning home for a week each month to join his wife and three children in Syria. “They have made mistakes, but they don’t deserve the current talk.”

The Bekaa has been a fairly dependable supporter of the Syrians, residents say, but that has changed since the Hariri assassination.

“All of the Bekaa was with Syria before. They valued them. They liked them,” said one Chtoura official, who declined to be named because he said municipal officials were told not to speak with the media. “But now 70% of people here are against them.”

Assad has said troops would be redeployed to the Bekaa from elsewhere in Lebanon as the first step of the withdrawal. That shift began last week, though there were no signs Sunday of troops moving into the area, or leaving through the border.

Damascus has moved about 4,000 -- or nearly a third -- of its troops back to Syria, with about 10,000 now in the Bekaa, Associated Press reported, citing a senior Syrian military officer.

Most Chtoura residents voice confidence that the Syrians will leave, and that the Lebanese army can keep order in the face of the country’s sectarianism.

“We thank the Syrians for what they did here, but it’s finished. Their mission is accomplished,” the Chtoura official said. “They should return to their own country.”