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By Rita Daou
AYHA, Lebanon : As night falls on remote
villages in eastern Lebanon that border Syria, streets and alleyways
bustle into life as a small army of pick-up trucks, mules and cars
are readied for action.
Loaded up with whisky, bread, metal and other
goods, drivers head for the dirt roads that zigzag through nearby
hillsides and valleys to deliver loads to fellow smugglers across
the border before returning with staples such as heating oil,
laundry detergent and vegetables.
“We work from around 9 p.m. until dawn,”
said one 46-year-old smuggler who asked to be identified only by his
initials of M.Z. “We leave home in our pick-ups, cars and even
mules loaded with alcohol and other products.”
M.Z., who has plied the trade for decades, said
smugglers from both sides have specific meeting points along the
mountainous border.
“Once we get to a meeting place we wait for
Syrian vehicles loaded with products and we make the exchange very
quickly,” he added.
Smuggling between Lebanon and Syria goes back to
when both countries became independent in the 1940s, sharing a
170-kilometre (105 mile) long border that has never been officially
delineated.
“The Lebanese economy has depended on a
parallel economy for ages,” said Fares Ishtay, political science
professor at Lebanese University. “Salaries in both countries are
very low and people depend on undeclared goods to survive.”
He said that although hashish used to be the
main contraband, other products, not considered illegal as such,
have now become hot items.
Weapons smuggling is a major problem but is
concentrated farther north along frontier areas where the militant
Shiite group Hizbollah has a presence.
Following the 15-year civil war that ended in
1990, successive Lebanese governments have come under international
pressure to tackle smuggling—especially of drugs and weapons—but
have met with little success.
Many villages near Syria depend on smuggling for
survival as locals often live below the poverty line and have few
resources. Some villages do not have shops or bakeries.
Villagers, some of them children, risk their
lives daily going back and forth to smuggle heating oil, household
goods and food.
“My uncle who has four children was shot by
Syrian border guards in 1993 as he was smuggling items near his
village of Al-Suweira,” said Hala, 25, who asked that her last
name not be used.
“He had just delivered sugar and ceramic tiles
to Syria and was killed on his way back.”
She said 90 percent of people in Al-Suweira
depended at one time on smuggling to survive, but added that their
numbers have shrunk in recent years as many emigrated to Canada or
Brazil.
Villagers in Yantak, Ayha, Kafr Quq and Al-Suweira,
all with a majority Druze or Sunni Muslim population, shrug their
shoulders when asked about the illegal trade. They do not deny it is
taking place, however.
In Yanta, new homes built of thick white stone
stand ready for their owners but the village still resembles a ghost
town.
“Nearly 80 percent of the locals now live in
Edmonton, Canada,” said Kamel Ammar, 71, whose sons and brothers
are among the emigres. “People need to make a living—so they
left.”
Shepherd Mahmud Ishtay, 18, said his family of
nine depends on mazut—heating oil—from Syria to stay warm during
the winter months.
A jerrycan of 20 litres (5.2 gallons) costs 20
dollars (12.7 euros) in Lebanon as opposed to just $3 in Syria,
where heating oil is subsidized by the state.
In a bid to crack down, the Syrian government in
March began imposing a special tax on trucks that leave Syrian
territory loaded with mazut.
Authorities also place special seals on vehicles
that deliver goods in a bid to ensure they are not used for
smuggling.
But the traffickers still manage to come up with
ingenuous ways to get their merchandise across the border.
Standing on the roof of his home facing a chain
of mountains, M.Z. points to the Kussaya region to the west.
“Over there you have plastic tubes up to 10
centimeters [four inches] wide that run from the top of the mountain
to the valley below,” he said with a mischievous look.
“Every night we go there to fill jerrycans
with mazut sent by the Syrian smugglers.”
A senior Lebanese security official told AFP
that smuggling between the two countries was widespread.
He said controlling the frontier was essential
to stop weapons and armed elements from entering the country, and
said the issue has become even more pressing since Syrian troops
withdrew in 2005 following a 29-year presence.
-- AFP
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