By David Rudge, Jerusalem Post, 12.6.00
HAIFA (June 12) - Hundreds if not thousands of Syrians working in
Lebanon have been packing their belongings and returning to their homes in
Syria following the death of president Hafez Assad, according to reports from
Lebanon.
Analysts said the workers' exodus might have been caused by their
uncertainty over the future.
Around one million Syrians work in Lebanon, most in menial tasks, and
the salaries they earn there, though a pittance by Western standards, have
become integral to the Syrian economy.
Other observers said the sudden return of so many Syrian workers could
be related to their desire to be in the country for Assad's funeral and the
40-day mourning period announced by the Syrian regime.
Television pictures showed busloads of workers heading back to their
homes via the Beirut-Damascus highway and others cramming belongings onto
trucks and heading in the same direction.
In Damascus, heir-apparent Bashar Assad hosted Lebanese President Emile
Lahoud, who was the last person to speak with Hafez Assad, alongside Prime
Minister Salim Hoss, Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Beri, and former prime
minister Rafik Hariri.
Meanwhile, UN teams continued the process of verifying Israel's
withdrawal from south Lebanon in compliance with Security Council Resolution
425.
The work of confirming the pullback to the "withdrawal line"
marked out by UN cartographers has been delayed because of Lebanon's objections
over what it described as discrepancies that leave parts of Lebanese land in
Israel's territory.
Lahoud told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the cartographers had
rejected "an existing and recognized border to establish in its place a
fictitious withdrawal line to be used as the basis for confirmation of the
Israeli pullout."
UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, who has been discussing the frontier
with the Lebanese and Israeli governments, has said the cartographers are not
trying to redraw the border, but to define it according to the line fixed by
the colonial powers France and Britain in 1923.
In a separate development yesterday, Lebanese threw stones across the
border fence at an Israeli army post, but IDF troops held their fire. In
another incident, IDF troops fired warning shots in the air as several Lebanese
tried to cross the border into Israel in the Har Dov region. Nobody was hurt.
Annan is expected to arrive in Israel on Thursday, and spend most of the
weekend in the region verifying that Israel has complied with UN Security
Council Resolution 425, officials in Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office said
yesterday.
One senior official said Barak expects the debates over whether Israel
has fully complied with 425 will be settled before Annan's arrival, leaving it
for the secretary-general to give his nod of approval.
Despite the problems, Western diplomatic sources were optimistic that
the remaining issues would soon be resolved. Lebanon has said it intends to
send 500 Lebanese Army troops to the south along with 500 internal security
personnel to deploy in the vacated areas once Israel's withdrawal has been
verified to its satisfaction.
In the meantime, a ceremony was held at Kfar Giladi, not far from the
Lebanese border, yesterday to mark the official disbandment of the IDF's
Lebanese Liaison Unit, which in its 17 years of existence lost 18 soldiers, as
well as its commanding officer, Brig.-Gen. Erez Gerstein.
OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi said the IDF was proud of
the determination with which members of the unit had adhered to their mission
with the overall aim of protecting the border.
He stressed that the disbandment of the unit, whose soldiers are to be
transferred to other IDF units, was the beginning of a new period.
The ceremony was attended by the outgoing head of the unit, Brig.-Gen.
Benny Gantz, the commander of the Galilee division, Brig,-Gen. Moshe Kaplinski,
and hundreds of members of the unit and their families.
"We can look back with satisfaction at our achievements and more
than that look to the future in the hope that it will be one of peace and
security on both sides of the border," said Gantz.
(Danna Harman and news agencies contributed to this report.)