Lebanon
Country Profile
Geography: 10,452 square kilometers (4,036
square miles) with a western coastline on the Mediterranaen and bordered in the north and
east by Syria and by Israel in the south.
Population: 4.5 million, including around
400,000 Palestinian refugees. According to the Lesbanese Council of International Affairs,
around 20 million people of Lebanese origin are to be found around the world.
Capital: Beirut.
Languages: Arabic (official). French and
English are also spoken.
Religions: Lebanon can count no fewer than
18 different religious communities, 13 of them Christian, four Islamic and a tiny Jewish
community. The largest Catholic Christian faction is the Maronites, while the others are:
Greek-Melkite, Armenian, Syrian, Roman, Chaldean and Coptic. The non-Catholic faiths
practised are Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Assyrian, Protestant and
Orthodox Coptic.The biggest community is Shiite Muslim, while the other Islamic divisions,
Sunni, Druze and Alawite or Nusayri are also present. Lebanon is the only predominantly
Arab country to be led by a Christian president.
Recent History: Ruled by a League of
Nations mandate under French administration in 1920, Lebanon became independent in 1943.
In April 1975, civil war broke out setting Muslims and left-wing groups, backed by the
Palestinian resistance, against the milita, Christian parties and anti-Palestinian
interests who were fighting to keep the status quo under which power was shared between
Muslim and Christian.
The Syrian army began its long occupation of Lebanon in
June 1976 and Israel invaded the country in March 1978. Despite a partial withdrawal the
Israelis occupied the a large part of Lebanon and Beiirut in 1982, forcing the Palestine
Liberation Organization, its leader Yasser Arafat and the Syrian army to leave Beirut.
Israel withdrew from most of the country in June 1985 but
still occupied a strip of land in the south of Lebanon, although the pull-back was
accompanied by fierce inter-religious fighting which lasted until the end of the civil war
in October 1990.
The peace was brokered in 1989 in Taef, Saudi Arabia, and
the agreement bears the name of the town.
At the end of the fighting, General Michel Aoun, head of
the Christian military government, was ousted in a push orchestrated jointly by the Syrian
and Lebanese armies and he was forced into exile in France.
Israel finally withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
Last September, the United Nations adopted Resolution 1559,
calling for a total withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon, clearly aimed at Syria.
Mass anti-Syrian demonstrations, backed by US and UN
pressure, led Damascus to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon by the end of April,
thereby ending 29 years of military and political dominance.
Government: A parliamentary republic presided over by Emile
Lahoud since 1998. In September 2004, at the behest of Syria, an "exceptional"
constituional amendment was passed, allowing Lahoud, a close ally of Damascus, to seek a
further presidential mandate beyond the single six-year term specified by law.
The powers of the president, traditionally a Maronite, were
restricted by Constitutional reforms in September 1990, handing a greater say in the
running of the country to the government and the prime minister, a Sunni Muslim, and gave
Muslims and Christians an equal share of seats in the 128-member parliament.
In October 2004, Omar Karameh became premier and formed a
new 30-member cabinet after the resignation of Rafiq Hariri in protest at the dominant
role of Damascus in his country. Hariri was assassinated in a bomb attack in February
2005. Later on July 19, 2005, former minister of finance and close Hariri aide Fouad
Siniora formed a 24-member cabinet.
Economy:
Currency: the pound.
GDP per capita: 4,040 US dollars (World Bank 2003).
Growth in 2004: 5 percent
Inflation in 2004: 4 percent
Exports in 2004: 1.747 billion US dollars (a 14.6 percent increase on 2003).
Public debt at end of 2004: 35.86 billion US dollars.
Military: 72,000 men
- A UN interim force (UNFIL) of nearly 2,000 men has been stationed in southern Lebanon
since 1978.
Major armed groups
- Hezbollah is said to have over 30,000 regular fighters backed by a $billion yearly
budget from Iran.
- Palestinians are fully armed with small to medium range weapons and are able challenge
the Lebanese authority inside and outside camps in Sidon area, west Biqaa's borders with
Syria and north Lebanon's Bedawi and Nahr Al Bared camps. |
