Lebanonwire, November 30, 2002

The Daily Star

Tension between groups leads to charges of violence, security control

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
Daily Star staff

Students at the Lebanese American University on both its Beirut and Byblos campuses elected their representatives Friday at a university which has the most rudimentary form of student council.
On each campus, students are expected to elect 10 representatives to the different university committees. Each council elects only a president, but does not have a vice-president, a treasurer or a secretary.
Unlike at other private universities, the council does not have any allocated funds to spend on student activities.
The administration has also blocked media access.
The political lineup for the vote seemed contradictory when looking at both campuses. While the Progressive Youth Organization (PYO) led a pro-government coalition in Beirut, which faced a leftist bloc supported by a Christian group and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the two opponents shared the same list in Byblos ­ facing a Christian list composed of the FPM and the disbanded Lebanese Forces.
Moreover, for the first time the Byblos campus saw a confrontation between two lists. Previously, candidates had always been acclaimed.
Shortly after polls closed at 4pm, the rightist list’s victory over its leftist opponent was announced. All of the 10 rightist candidates were elected.
In Beirut, primary results showed that all 10 candidates of the coalition’s Student Choice list swept to victory. The PYO, which is pro-Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt, heads the coalition of pro-regime groups, including Amal, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s Future Youth Organization (FYO), Hizbullah, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and Palestinian and Armenian students.
LAU student sources talked about disagreements between the PYO and Amal prior to the formation of their list. The sources added that high-level, off-campus efforts had succeeded in bringing the two parties together.
At LAU, supporters of both groups justified the odd alliance as being a reflection of off-campus strategies of both parties and their leaders, Jumblatt and Speaker Nabih Berri.
The opposing list, U-Turn, was made up of candidates from the independent leftist Pablo Neruda Group, former Beirut MP Najah Wakim’s People’s Movement, the FPM and the Gathering of Christian Youth. The last two groups are not allied with the leftist groups.
As Pablo Neruda’s Walid Fakhreddine put it, there was an exchange of votes with the Christian groups only.
“Names of their candidates were not printed on our lists, but our supporters will be adding them in writing on the day of elections,” he said.
“They are trying to provoke us into seeking a gangster fight with our candidates,” said Nora Mrad, from Pablo Neruda. “But we’re trying to contain them and not give them what they want.”
Ryan Ashkar, head of the PYO, responded to Mrad’s claims of physical offenses, acknowledging that there were”a couple of small-scale problems,” but that these were resolved immediately.
“I assure you that PYO students were not involved in any troublemaking. These were individual misunderstandings,” he said, adding that his organization is keen to protect even Pablo Neruda and the People’s Movement from physical harm.
Tension between the two contending lists was building during the week.
“Look who’s talking: those who have been preaching sectarianism, racism and backwardness,” read one U-Turn statement, referring to the Student Choice coalition. “To those we say ‘no, enough is enough.’”
The coalition, for its part, accused U-Turn of being “dwarfs who claim to be leftists while they are the teenagers of the Riot Movement and the Pablo de Nora,” the Student Choice wrote in reference to the People’s Movement and Pablo Neruda’s Nora Mrad.
The coalition’s offensive also claimed leftist groups were “fragile groups run by intelligence apparatuses.”
“Those who claim to be non-sectarian are today using sectarianism to kill peaceful coexistence and national accord. They … decide who is sectarian and nationalistic and who is not,” the statement added.
Tension between the two lists was still mounting even after the polls closed in Beirut.
“We were playing the guitar and the PYO and the SSNP came and ordered us to stop playing since it was time for the call to prayer. Imagine, the secular parties told us so. They were hungry for trouble,” Mrad said.
Coalitions in LAU Beirut reflect alliances elsewhere.
“Pro-government groups strike the same coalitions in almost all universities. At AUB, they had a similar list headed by the SSNP,” said Bassem Deeb, member of the No Frontiers independent leftist group at the American University of Beirut.
Deeb called his group and Pablo Neruda twins: even though they have their independent decision, they have good coordination. “Many of us came to stand at the gates since we’re not allowed to go in. We are distributing their lists as backup.”
Like No Frontiers, Pablo Neruda found itself and the People’s Movement fighting what leftist students described as pro-regime groups.

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