Global Policy Forum

By Leila Hatoum

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will present a progress report to the UN Security Council today regarding Lebanon and Syria's execution of Resolution 1559, according to a UN official. The official, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: "Annan will present his first report to the Security Council on the extent of Syria and Lebanon's implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559."

The resolution, passed last September, and sponsored by the U.S and France, calls for a complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, and the disarmament of all militias in the country, in clear reference to the resistance group Hizbullah. The UN will also be dispatching a team of experts to confirm the Syrian pullout on the ground. But the date of the UN team's arrival in Lebanon remains undisclosed.

As a result to mounting international pressures, Damascus had pledged late March that it would completely withdraw from Lebanon by April 30. By then, Syria's withdrawal would end an approximate three decades of heavily felt military and intelligence presence in Lebanon.

Syria, which pledged to fully withdraw after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a massive explosion two months ago, is blamed by Lebanon's opposition of having a hand in the crime. The terrorist act had sparked large-scaled protests which toppled resigning Premier Omar Karami's pro-Syrian government on February 28.

The demonstrations also prompted the UN to initiate an international probe commission to the terrorist act. Lebanon has pledged full cooperation with the international investigation, with its officials stating more than once that they want the probe to be done as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Syrian troops in the Bekaa accelerated their withdrawal on Monday as they dismantled two Syrian intelligence posts in Hermel and Ras-Baalbek. Both areas are close to the Syrian-Lebanese border. Syrian military were also spotted loading their army telecommunication cables and statues of Hafez and Bassel Assad into their trucks.

By Monday, Syrian forces pulled out two units from areas near the border, witnesses said. After the withdrawals of Syrian military from Lebanese areas toward Syria, around 1,500 soldiers remain in the Bekaa, according to one senior Lebanese security source. Syria, whose troops entered Lebanon in 1976, remained in the country ever since, in what constituted a full domination over political and internal matters of its smaller neighbor.

It had 15,000 troops there before it started pulling them out on March 8. In the meantime, Hizbullah remains a hanging issue as to the implementation of UN Resolution 1559, as the group refuses to disarm saying that its role is not done yet. The group argues that Shebaa Farms in South Lebanon remains occupied by Israel, and therefore the resistance should continue.

Lebanon claims the farms to be Lebanese, while Israel, which occupied the land back in 1967, argues that it is Syrian, with Syria maintaining its silence. This has sparked accusations that Syria has not confessed that the land is Lebanese in order to hold a pressure card over Israel by giving Hizbullah the reason to thrive.

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