Institutionalized Mass Murder

The United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission charged with investigating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination in 2005, took its second mandate-round seriously under the second of its appointed heads, Canadian Daniel Bellemare.

Mr. Bellemare, throughout the period he acted as head of the investigation, became a target for assassination himself. "The reason that I chose to go there is because I believed in what was being done. Once you meet the Lebanese people, you fall in love with them. They deserve an end to impunity. So I thought I could bring a little bit of Canadian justice to the process."

Lebanon, in its 'cedar revolution', in the wake of the Hariri assassination, protested vigorously against Syria which had occupied it for years, absorbing the country's wealth to itself, and governing by proxy. Syria responded, as a result of strenuous Lebanese opposition to their continued occupation of the country, and international condemnation after the Hariri assassination, by departing.

In effect, it hardly mattered. Hezbollah, Syria's creature-militia simply took over where Syria left off. With the support of a large refugee contingent of Palestinians, Hezbollah was effective in political manoeuvring that had some of its 'political wing' members elected to the Lebanese parliament. And although Lebanon formally required Hezbollah to surrender their arms and integrate their militias with the regular Lebanese army, they refused.

Hezbollah, in fact, has a more powerful, better armed military than Lebanon itself has. This is a country that is effectively governed by two separate interests, and which hosts, reluctantly, two separate armies, one of which could easily destroy the other; a country held captive by a militant Islamist entity that the EU, U.S., Canada, and much of the world holds to be a terrorist group.

So when, in the course of their investigations the UNIIIC under Bellemare began to make inroads in discovering who was behind the tremendous concussive explosion that killed Mr. Hariri along with 21 other Lebanese, and wounding 231 additional people, Hezbollah became increasingly restive. Its chief, Nasrallah, accused Bellemare of being a puppet of Israel.

While Mr. Bellemare lived and worked out of Lebanon, the Lebanese military gave him around-the-clock protection. At least 85 people had to be mobilized to secure a route and travel in a convoy of a dozen SUVs through traffic, when he had to leave the hotel he was sequestered in. Guards wearing helmets, bulletproof vests, armed with machine guns, sat on either side of him in the vehicle conveying him.

A Lebanese police investigator proved to be the indispensable link to discovering who was behind the Hariri assassination. Wissam Eid had obtained cellphone call records that represented the evidence required to delve deeper into the plot through an interconnected cellphone network that identified Hezbollah involvement. For his troubles, Mr.Eid was murdered in a bomb blast.

Finally, Mr. Bellemare felt satisfied that his investigators had acquired enough circumstantial evidence to feel confident they could lay charges. An indictment for review by the tribunal's pre-trial judge came through in January, 2011. Just a short week after the Lebanese government headed by Saad Hariri had fallen because a furious Hezbollah had withdrawn its support, when Saad Hariri had refused to renounce the tribunal's results.

Arrest warrants were issued for four Hezbollah members in the summer. They were charged with intentional homicide, terrorism and conspiracy. Since then, a fifth Hezbollah member has additionally been charged. Discovering their whereabouts to take them into custody, however, is another matter entirely. Hezbollah has sworn that none of its men will be arrested.

It has been decided that the only recourse to justice now lies in trying them in absentia. Something the Lebanon tribunal is uniquely empowered to do. "Now, what people want is to send a clear message: nobody's above the law. If you commit a crime, you will pay. This, to me, is a huge, huge step forward", said Mr. Bellemare.

But the Hezbollah members who have been found guilty of the assassination remain at large. The findings of guilt appear somewhat like a hollow victory, a bit of a let-down. On the other hand, Hezbollah has been revealed for what it most certainly is; a threat to the stability of Lebanon and of the Middle East in their standoff with peace and justice.

Their role as a client of Iran and Syria, at their orders prepared to embark on other missions to destroy security and to destabilize the geography with an eye to spreading their brand of vicious, violent Islamism is undeniable and despicable. It is inevitable that a clash will occur between the forces they represent and that portion of the Muslim Middle East that wishes to achieve normalcy.

It may be closer to becoming reality than most would like to contemplate, given the situation now in Syria, the presence there of Hezbollah and Iranian military advisers, and the anxiety of the Arab League, Turkey, the UN, EU and US to find a solution to the unbearable spectre of insufferable institutionalized mass murder.