60 Minutes case: three obstacles to getting the Australians out
Over the weekend the various lawyers and officials representing the parties in the 60 Minutes case will be working overtime to find a way out of the drama involving Sally Faulkner, Ali Elamine and their two children.
The court will concern itself with securing an agreement between the two parents, and perhaps the question of what payment – if any – passed between the 60 Minutes team and the „rescuers” apparently led by Briton Adam Whittington.
But beyond the court there are three major factors that can influence the outcome of this debacle. They are: where the abduction attempt happened, who it happened to and who is trying to help resolve this matter to Australia’s satisfaction.
1. Where it happened
The Beirut suburb of Hadath is right on the fringe of the southern part of the Lebanese capital known as the Dahiya, a stronghold of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah („the Party of God”).
For decades, Hezbollah has in effect been a state within the Lebanese state, controlling and based in the Bekaa Valley that runs along Lebanon’s eastern border with Syria. But all Lebanese parties have to have a presence in the capital, and the Dahiya – which surrounds Beirut’s international airport – is under Hezbollah’s full security control.
In Hadath, surveillance cameras have been installed to cover every street corner. Hezbollah militia also patrol the area, and those patrols were stepped up in December 2013, after the assassination of high-ranking Hezbollah commander Hassan al-Laqqis outside the door of his home in the neighbourhood.
Hezbollah’s leadership of Lebanon’s Shiite population does not rest primarily on its religious credentials or its radicalism but on its ability to provide for that population, both economically and in terms of security.
Hezbollah refers to this contract with its supporters as al-Waad al-Sadiq, or „the faithful promise”. When the Dahiya was devastated by Israeli bombardment during the 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, Hezbollah announced a „jihad of (re)building” which was given the corporate name „Faithful Promise”. By outperforming the government in providing relief and services, it enhanced Hezbollah’s standing as an alternative authority.
It is a role that is under severe pressure as Hezbollah asks its young footsoldiers to fight and die across the border in Syria in support of the Assad regime. Some of its opponents have taken to planting bombs in the Dahiya, one of the reasons Ms Faulkner cited in her decision to leave Lebanon and take her children with her.
Because the abduction attempt happened in Hadath, it touches on Hezbollah’s promise to its constituency that it can uphold the law where it operates.
2. Who it happened to
When the two children of Ms Faulkner and Mr Elamine were snatched from the bus stop in Hadath, a relative was with them, Mr Elamine’s mother, Ibtisam Berri. She claims to have been assaulted in the fracas, and the footage we have seen does appear to show her being manhandled.
Many of Lebanon’s notable families are large and have branches in many parts of the country. But the Berri family are a close-knit group with notable contingents in the United States and Canada but all of whom hail from the southern Lebanese town of Tebnine, to which they regularly return.
The most notable member of the family is Ibtisam Berri’s cousin, Nabih. The Lebanese constitution states that the country’s president must be a Christian, that its prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim and that its speaker of parliament must be a Shiite Muslim. Nabih Berri has filled the latter role since 1992.
It is hard to imagine Australia’s speaker in 1992 – under Paul Keating – still holding the post today. What makes this even more bizarre is that Mr Berri is the leader of a movement called Amal („Hope”) which was once dominant in Lebanon’s Shiite community but which long ago had its role and powers subsumed by Hezbollah.
So why is he still there? Because the turbaned Shiite clerics who run Hezbollah need a representative in parliament and the region who wears secular garb and is not associated directly with their militant activities. Mr Berri lived in the US in the 1970s and has global connections.
If one of the most influential men in Lebanon feels his family has been slighted, it can present a significant problem for diplomats trying to untangle this mess.
3. Who is trying to help
Australia has a great deal of connective tissue with Lebanon, but this can itself be a complicating factor. In a country where everything – even the collection of garbage – is subject to political and sectarian considerations, who tries to help in a case involving a Shiite family in a predominantly Shiite part of Beirut is also important.
When the case first hit the headlines, leading Lebanese-Australian Jamal Rifi said he had made contact with Lebanese authorities. But both Dr Rifi and his brother Ashraf Rifi, a former police chief and justice minister, are on the wrong side of the divide over Syria in Lebanese life. When Ashraf Rifi quit his ministry in February, he did so in protest at Hezbollah’s influence, which can make any intervention by him here counter-productive.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who has reportedly been in „constant communication” with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and proposed a joint Australian-Lebanese committee to sort out the custody issue in this case, is the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah, making him better placed to help.
He has visited Australia and his party – known in this country as the United Australian Lebanese Movement – has offices in Parramatta in Sydney and Coburg in Melbourne.
But even he will have to tread carefully, and not only to avoid being seen to interfere in a judicial process.
The plan for a joint committee was made after Mr Bassil met with Australian ambassador Glenn Miles. But the first person that Mr Miles (second from left, below) and embassy liaison Marko Dokmanovic (first from left) went to see when this affair broke was Lebanon’s internal security chief, Major-General Ibrahim Basbous:
General Basbous was supposed to retire in June last year, but Lebanon’s politicians can’t agree on who to replace him with, and the question is now also tied to who will be the next army chief. Mr Bassil wants the army job to go to his brother-in-law, Brigadier-General Chamel Roukoz.
With no deal in sight, General Basbous’ contract was extended. Incensed, Mr Bassil warned that such measures and the failure to bring in new blood could bring down the government.
That earned him a harsh rebuke from none other than Nabih Berri, who reportedly warned the foreign minister against „dangerous words” that were „not heard even during the Civil War”.
These three men – Basbous, Bassil and Berri – now find themselves thrown together again in a most unexpected way. But as they watch the 60 Minutes case unfold, none of them will have forgotten what went on in 2015.
Maher Mughrabi is the Foreign Editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
