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Since his accession to power in 1971, Hafez Al-Assad , the Syrian dictator - who thought about himself as the new Saladin of the Arabs - decided to re-annex Lebanon , the Land of the Cedars. He believed that Lebanon was an integral part of Syria that the "French Colonialism " has extracted from his country. He considered that Lebanon was artificially created through the Sykes-Picot Agreement . In fact, all along its recent history, Syria persistently refused to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon or to clearly define the borders between the two countries. Since Lebanon was internationally recognized as an independent country and founding member of the United Nations and the Arab League , Assad needed a justification that could be accepted by the international community, in order to occupy this country and annex it to Syria . Since the early 1970s, Assad started to arm some Palestinian guerillas known as the Sa'ika, and sent them to fight in Lebanon and to create chaos in the neighboring country. Assad distributed arms to several factions that were fighting in Lebanon . He cleverly contributed to the start of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. On July 19, 1976, he made a famous speech in Damascus where he clearly stated that " Lebanon and Syria are one people", which implicitly signaled his intention to occupy the Land of the Cedars, in a similar way that Hitler used to invade Austria in 1938. Assad claimed that he will be sending 40,000 troops to protect the Maronite Christians who were fighting the Palestinians (initially armed by Assad). In the same year, the Palestinian militia committed the Damour Massacre . In 1978, after that Egypt signed the Camp David agreement with Israel, Assad felt that he was isolated, and decided to use the Palestinians in Lebanon in order to enforce his position. He sided with the Palestinians against the Maronites , and by September of that year, Maronites and the Syrian government were openly feuding. Some suspected that Syrian officials viewed Lebanon as rightfully Syrian territory. The Syrian army fought terrible battles against Bashir Gemayel in Ashrafieh . After several months of fighting, the Syrians lost and were obliged to withdraw from Ashrafieh . During their occupation of Lebanon , the Syrian army committed several crimes against the Lebanese population and their leaders. The Syrians bombarded several regions, killing thousands of Lebanese innocent citizens. They murdered the Druze leader Kamal Jumblat in 1977. They assassinated the French Ambassador Louis Delamare. They assassinated the President Bashir Gemayel 's daughter Maya, and killed the President himself though Lebanese proxies on September 14th, 1982. The Syrians tried to oblige Lebanon to sign unfair treaties that would undermine Lebanon 's independence and sovereignty. During the mandate of President Amine Gemayel , the Syrians tried to impose the "Tripartite Accord", but failed in their attempt after that Samir Geagea undertook a coalition with President Amine Gemayel against the Syrians . After the end of the mandate of President Gemayel, the Syrians tried to impose a President that would be totally controlled by Damascus . Again, despite the US support, they failed in their attempt, and Gemayel nominated General Michel Aoun as the Prime Minister of a transition Government. Aoun tried to apply UN Security Council resolution 520 and asked the Syrians to leave Lebanon immediately. Upon the Syrians ' refusal to cooperate, Aoun launched on 14 March 1989 the "War of Liberation" against the Syrian occupation of Lebanon . Due to the regional and international context, Aoun did not manage to recover Lebanon 's independence and was forced into exile in France on October 13th, 1990, following a Syrian invasion of the Baabda Palace in coordination with Israeli air forces. Syrian forces remained in Lebanon , effectively dominating its government from 1990 to 2005. They established a strong intelligence apparatus based in the town of Anjar. The Syrians secret services and military army persecuted the Lebanese resistance by killing and imprisoning its members in the Mezzah jail, or torturing them in the Beau Rivage or Villa Jabre. The Syrian High Commissioners Ghazi Kanaan and Rustom Ghazaly had absolute power on all political issues. They contributed to the widespread corruption in Lebanon . The Syrian occupation of Lebanon ended until the Cedar Revolution that took place on March 14th 2005, which was received with much international support. The Cedar Revolution was primarily sparked by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005. Accusations of responsibility were particularly directed at Syria because of its extensive military and intelligence presence in Lebanon. The public rift between Hariri and Damascus (over the extension of (pro-Syrian) President Lahoud's term) only strengthened these accusations. Anti-Syrian protests by Lebanese citizens in Beirut grew fast and strong, demanding the immediate resignation of the pro-Syrian government. In response, Hezbollah organized a large counter-demonstration, staged on March 8 in Beirut, supporting Syria and accusing Israel and the United States of meddling in internal Lebanese affairs. On March 14, one month after Hariri's assassination, more than one million Lebanese citizens rallied in Martyrs' Square, in the largest gathering to date. Protesters of all sects (even including a number of Shiites) marched together, demanding the truth of Hariri's murder and "independence from Syrian occupation". The march reiterated their will for a sovereign, democratic, and unified country, free of Syria's hegemony. International pressure also continued to mount, and by the 26th of April, 2005, Syrian troops had completely pulled out of Lebanon. Thus far, no person or party has been directly accused of the murder of want me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon." Jumblatt said "When I heard him telling us those words, I knew that it was his condemnation of death." This testimony has not been officially confirmed; and the UN 's FitzGerald Report has called for a further, much more extensive international inquiry. This has been seconded by the UN Secretary General and agreed to by the Lebanese government, but with stipulations about respect for Lebanese sovereignty and the participation (not supremacy) of Lebanese agencies. After the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, all Lebanese including Hassan Nasrallah , Omar Karameh and Suleyman Frangieh clearly stated that Syria should never come back to Lebanon. Although the military had officially withdrawn by the end of April 2005, some have suggested that Syria still has a large network of agents and Collaborator s in Lebanon, who influence Lebanese politics and maintain Syrian Hegemony . Some have claimed that the Baath Party is one of these collaborators. ILLUSTRATION OF SYRIAN BARBARISM DURING ITS OCCUPATION OF LEBANON '''A Lebanese Housewife Tells of Horrifying 8 Years in Syrian Torture Camps www.naharnet.com - Beirut, 26 Apr 06, 11:31 On the occasion of the one-year anniversary of Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, An Nahar published the horrifying story of Hala el Hajj, a Lebanese housewife who spent 8 years of hell in Syria's torture camps. Hajj was kidnapped in Beirut in 1992 and then disappeared for 8 years during which she was transferred to three detention centers run by the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon and Syria where she was tortured, almost starved to death and thrown in an underground cell hardly big enough for a dog. Hajj, who now lives with her family in France, is married to Gaby Karam, a Lebanese intelligence officer. She says Syrian agents, who were after her husband, seized her near the Beirut Museum after they failed to capture Karam. Her four assailants immediately handcuffed her, placed a black bag over her head and drove her to the notorious Syrian intelligence command center near the Beau Rivage Hotel in Beirut. For three days, she was beaten with sticks while the bag was still covering her head and her hands were in cuffs. The beatings were so severe that her face was mangled and covered with blood while she slipped in and out of consciousness. When her tormentors failed to make her confess that she was gathering information about the Syrian army in Lebanon, Hajj was transferred to Syrian intelligence headquarters at Anjar in the Bekaa Valley where she met Ghazi Kanaan, the head of Syria's security operations in the country at the time. "We will strip off the skin of anyone in Lebanon who dares to say anything (negative) about Syria," Hajj recalls Kanaan as saying to her and the 8 other people who arrived at Anjar on that fateful day. After their short stop in the Bekaa, Hajj and her fellow detainees were hauled into truck and taken across the border to the Mazzeh detention in Damascus where political prisoners are usually interrogated before being sent to jails in other parts of Syria. As soon as the group got off the truck they were received with more beatings and insults, recalls Hajj. "I will crush the biggest head in Lebanon with this boot," Hajj quotes one of her tormentors Munir el Abras as saying to them. Of all her long ordeal, Hajj seems to have been particularly marked by her arrival at Mazzeh. "I will never forget this night. We called on all the prophets and saints to show their mercy but (our prayers) were in vain," she said. The worst was yet to come. The prisoners were then led to their cells which Hajj said were 40 meters underground. She described them as dim boxes that were no bigger than 80x180cm with a ceiling height of 1.5 meters. Hajj recounts the torture methods used at Mazzeh which included whippings, removal of finger nails, beatings of genital areas, electric shocks to the nose and ears, burning with cigarettes and hanging from the ceiling sometimes for days. Their injuries were covered with salt to make them even more painful and when they passed out from the pain, they were drenched with ice cold water to wake them up. Hajj miraculously survived 150 days of unbearable torture during which she was fed handfuls of stale bread mixed with unrecognizable particles and forced to defecate and urinate on herself. When Hajj's torturers realized she had no information to give them, they allowed her to bathe, change into a Syrian army uniform and then they transferred her to a cell with other Lebanese and Jordanian women. They were all charged with "threatening Syrian security." REFERENCES SEE ALSO
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