Lebanon to snub Libya

The annual Arab League summit is being held this year in Libya, and Lebanon’s attendance at the meeting is doubtful.

Libya and Lebanon have been at odds since the highly influential Imam Musa Sadr went missing on a 1978 visit to Tripoli. Many Lebanese blame Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for Sadr’s disappearance,  and tensions between the two nations have simmered ever since. Libya denies any involvement in the disappearance and claims that the Imam safely departed Libya for Italy. In 2008, an arrest warrant for Gadhafi was issued in a Lebanese court.

The original invitation was rejected for “administrative reasons” because it was sent to the Lebanese embassy in Damascus. Some have interpreted Libya’s choice to send the invitation to Damascus instead of Beirut as a calculated slight to Lebanon. Syria used to rule the territory that makes up present-day Lebanon, and perhaps Libya was trying to say that it still does. If this is the case, then Libya probably  never expected Lebanon to accept the invite in the first place.

Some have attributed “the fuss” that is being made in Lebanon over the summit to the growing influence of Hizballah in the government, as Sadr was a key figure in the Shiite religious community, but this would be a mistake. Sadr was a monumental figure in Lebanon at the time of his disappearance  and his appeal transcended sectarian lines.

Musa Sadr, of Lebanese descent, was educated in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Qom. In 1960 he moved to Lebanon to become the Imam of Tyre. From then on, Sadr worked endlessly to improve the lives of his fellow Shia by enacting a number of social initiatives, such as getting schools and clinics built.

Sadr also acted on a number of occasions to put a stop to the civil strife that was beginning to plague Lebanon at the time. According to a 1978 Time Magazine article , “In 1975, during the Lebanese civil war, (Sadr) interrupted an antiwar hunger strike to persuade Muslim guerrillas to lift the siege of a Christian village, and thus averted a massacre.” It has been said that Lebanon may have been spared some of the horrors of the Civil War (1975-1990) if Sadr had never went on that trip to Libya.

Sadr left his legacy throughout the Middle East, particularly in the countries with large Shiite populations such as Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq. Since the dawn of Islam, the Shia have been outnumbered and marginalized by their Sunni counterparts. It was only in the latter half of the 20th century that the Shia began to assert themselves, and Sadr was a big part of it. Hizballah and Amal in Lebanon, the Khomeiniists in Iran, and the SIIC and Mehdi Army in Iraq have all been heavily influenced by Sadr and his teachings.

When one considers the life of Musa Sadr and the impact that he made in Lebanon and elsewhere, it is easy to see what all “the fuss” is about. President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and House Speaker Nabih Berri have all been vocal about the situation, and they demand answers from Libya, who has yet only stated that Sadr and his two companions left safely for Italy. The crew of the flight Sadr was alleged to be on were interviewed by Italian authorities in Rome and they did not recall seeing Sadr on the flight, which makes it hard to believed that he was actually on the flight because his imposing presence as a tall bearded man cloaked in the traditional garb of a Shia imam would surely have been remembered by someone.

If Lebanon does go through with the boycott, Libya has promised repercussions. There are an estimated 20,000 Lebanese living in Libya, which may be deported, or Mr. Gadhafi might just take out his frustration on Lebanese Shia in his country in some way.  As of right now, it looks like Lebanon will skip the summit, and it’s clear that time has not healed in the least this wound that was inflicted on the Lebanese people over thirty years ago, which is still as fresh as the day Sadr disappeared.