An interview with HMA Tom Fletcher, UK Ambassador to Lebanon

Yesterday I met with the new British Ambassador, Tom Fletcher, who last month replaced the popular Frances Guy as the U.K.’s representative in Beirut.

I was impressed. He remained on message, but thoughtful, on a whole range of potentially thorny issues, including the STL, Syria and Hezbollah. Below is the full transcript of the interview:

Q: What are your thoughts of the country so far?

A: The first thing is just how stunning the place is. Even though everyone had told me to expect that, I still find that overwhelming. When I drive up the mountain in the evening and look back at the sunset, it’s just extraordinary. But then also, as we discussed, the complexity of Lebanon, and the fact that on the surface so much is logical and yet beneath the surface it becomes much, much more complicated. So I’m very daunted by the scale of the challenge in trying to understand how politics and society works. I think, most of all, [I’m struck] by the energy and the dynamism of life here and of people here. You know, the talent of the people I am working with at the embassy, who actually are more talented I think than any group of staff I have worked with in much bigger embassies, but also then the talent of the people you meet around the circuit, it’s just overwhelming how many incredibly well-educated people you come across, who have a point of view on everything, very articulate, often in a third language. That is extraordinary. I think that encourages me that this is somewhere where, as an ambassador, you can actually have an impact because people want to talk and people are receptive and people are engaging. It’s not a country where an ambassador is just writing reports for his capital and going to diplomatic receptions. Here you are actually part of the game.

Latest Lebanon WikiLeaks: meh

After having spent the most part of 10 hours going through the more than 1,000 leaked diplomatic cables on Lebanon released last night by WikiLeaks, I feel qualified to advise against you doing the same. It’s really not a fulfilling pursuit.

Whereas the last tranche of cables, released late last year, from the US Embassy in Beirut and other consuls throughout the region, were in the “kind of interesting, but we probably already know that” vein, this latest batch is decidedly less eyecatching.

Here are some mildly interesting cables I’ve come across:

Former PM Fouad Siniora accused Iran of discouraging Lebanon to make a big deal out of Shebaa Farms in order to perpetuate a pretext for Hezbollah.

TIME interview and the ensuing storm

When the article dropped, myself and several colleagues were stunned. TIME magazine had gotten an interview with one of the four men accused by an international court of killing Rafik Hariri. This man was subject to an INTERPOL arrest warrant and, if we are to believe the Lebanese authorities, the focus of a nationwide manhunt.

What the anonymous suspect said was not exactly life changing. It didn’t need to be. The sensational point of the article was that the magazine had managed to get an interview in the first place. The shockwaves had began.

Twitter reacts to fall of the government

Not to many people’s surprise, 11 ministers left cabinet today, toppling Saad Hariri’s fragile and – let’s face it, ultimately useless – national unity government.

The fall had been coming following the failure of Saudi-Syrian initiatives aimed at reaching a compromise over forthcoming STL indictments and “false witnesses” collapsed late on Monday.

As usual, Twitter had some interesting (and rather flippant) things to say about Lebanon’s latest bloodless coup.

Here are some of my favourite tweets with the #Lebanon hashtag (not to say that I agree or endorse any of these views):

@arzleb: Who cares? Nothing changed and nothing will change only one thing is sure in Lebanon is that the Lebanese are always screwed! #fail #Lebanon

@LebaneseVoices: government or no government, we still have no proper internet #Lebanon

@elmassari: BEIRUT: Politics fiasco is further evidence of Lebanon’s inability to overcome its internal divisions, now centred on the tribunal! #LEBANON

@jonathanshainin: Poor Lebanon, so far from God and so close to Syria, Saudi, Israel, Egypt, Iran and the United States.

@agrahamwilcox: initially I read the Lebanon headlines as Lebron and was just confuuuused. RT @nprnews Lebanon‘s Government Falls As Hezbollah Pulls Out

@tomgara: How screwed you would be if your country’s best hope for peace was being negotiated by the Saudi and Syrian governments

@Lebanesevoices: government or no government, Lebanese people will still vote for new MPs based on affliation/alignments & sects #lebanon #fail

 

Documentary delay raises more than eyebrows

If, like me, you take more than a passing interest in the security situation in Beirut, you might have set aside some time this evening. For that’s when BBC World documentary series, “Murder in Beirut”, was due to be screened. It was going to deliver shocking truths regarding Hariri’s assassination.

More than that, though, it was going to tell us what a lot here already know – or think they know: Hizbullah killed the premier. At least it was, if we believe Al-Akhbar’s front page on Monday. The decision to shelve the production, given Lebanon is currently at any time 60 seconds from disaster, has raised eyebrows along with anticipation to see the finished product.

“Murder in Beirut” was officially withheld in order for the World News channel to ensure it complied with their stringent editorial standards; a spokesperson for the BBC told me the film would definitely be shown, just, you know, not yet. But as Sharif Nashashibi of Arab Media Watch pointed out, why did it take producers and BBC executives until six days before broadcast to realise there may have been some discrepancies? One’s thoughts can’t help but drift towards comments made by Hizbullah and their Christian political allies the FPM, in recent days, warning of all-out carnage if Hizbullah is implicated in the 2005 bombing.

Will the STL stay the course?

Politicians do it, former generals love to do it. Now even patients at a Beirut gynaecology center are doing it: attacking the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).

The incident today at a clinic in south Beirut – wire copy won’t print those two words without first saying ”the Hizbullah stronghold of” – demonstrates one of the first incidents of popular uprising against STL investigators, even if several occurences and threats of attacks prompted former investigation heads to seek refuge in the quieter climbs of Mount Lebanon. 

The beleaguered court has been beset with a string of high-profile resignations and accusations of politicization since its inception and popular support for the probe into the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is it an all-time low ebb.