By Appo Jabarian

Executive Publisher / Managing Editor

USA Armenian Life Magazine

Friday,  June  19, 2009

The 2009 Lebanese parliamentary elections are over.

But the problem caused by the 2005 election which defrauded the majority of the Armenian Lebanese of their right for true representation still lingers.

The disastrous policy that is still haunting the Armenian Lebanese community began in 2000 when the government of the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri changed the established parliamentary election laws, and stripped the Armenian Lebanese majority (75%) of its right to directly elect its representatives.

During the ’09 election, the hijacking of the four out of six Armenian seats in the parliament from the Armenian Lebanese majority by Mr. Hariri’s Sunni voters in Zahlé, Beirut I, Beirut II, and Beirut III districts, has raised several eyebrows in Lebanon and around the world.

The four Hariri-controlled seats are filled by Armenian individuals that were hand-picked by Hariri’s son Saad. These individuals received only 15%-20% of the Armenian Lebanese votes in their respective districts, yet they were able to get “elected.”

How is this possible?

As a result of adverse redistricting, the number of the Armenian Lebanese voters inside those districts was dwarfed by the huge number of Sunni Lebanese voters.

During the 1970’s, the most popular Armenian Lebanese Tashnag party (with over 75% of the Armenian Lebanese votes), reached out to the minority Armenian Lebanese groupings by including a Ramgavar and a Hunchak candidate in its party list thus fostering the formation of the traditional Armenian Lebanese Parliamentary Bloc.

The 2008 Doha agreement that ended Sunni-Shiite conflict in Beirut, only partially re-instated the Armenian Lebanese majority’s right to true representation.

For some odd reason, the Doha agreement placed three Armenian Lebanese parliamentary seats in Beirut’s districts where a limited number of Armenian-Lebanese voters reside.

In these districts, they were clearly outnumbered by the Sunni Lebanese and non-Armenian Christian Lebanese voters.

In order to re-establish a truly representative government, the seats allocated for each community should be based on demographics. Seats should be allocated to districts where the majority of the members of that particular community permanently reside. In the case of Armenian Lebanese, that district would be Metn (Matn).

The incoming parliament should facilitate that move in order to help preserve each community’s right to true representation. The Armenian-Lebanese community must study the legal options that are available in the Lebanese Judicial System and its Constitutional Council.

No democracy is perfect. There is always room for improvements. By constantly fine-tuning its communal democracy, Lebanon can continue to maintain its position as the bastion of democracy in the entire Middle East.

Lebanon: Communal and Parliamentary Democracy

Recently, a Western political commentator criticized and ridiculed the Lebanese form of democracy.

He has mistakenly compared the American form of democracy with the Lebanese form of democracy, and has deemed the American model superior.

In my opinion, they cannot be compared. The make-up of the American and the Lebanese populations is different. The population of the United States consists of over one hundred ethnic groups, speaking over 144 languages. Lebanon’s population is made up of only ten major ethnic communities, speaking mostly four languages – Arabic, English, French and Armenian.

Nearly 95% of the Lebanese citizens are composed mostly by the following communities: The Maronite Catholic Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Greek Catholic Christians, Armenian Apostolic Christians, Armenian Catholic Christians, other minority Christians; Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Druze, other minority Muslims. The remaining 5% are made up with various Christian and Muslim minorities.

During the Lebanese civil war (1975-1989), the Lebanese people still felt relatively safe in their respective neighborhoods. Had there been a civil war in the United States it is highly doubtful that the same level of relative comfort would be the norm for the ethnically diverse American populace.

The 128-seat parliament is divided equally between Christian Lebanese and Muslim Lebanese, and subdivided among the largest of the country’s recognized 10 ethnic/religious groups.

On the Christian side, Maronite Catholic Lebanese get 34 seats, Greek Orthodox Lebanese 14, Greek Catholic Lebanese eight, Armenian Orthodox Lebanese five, Armenian Catholic Lebanese one, Protestant Lebanese one and another one for “minorities.” On the Muslim side, Sunni Lebanese and Shiite Lebanese each get 27 seats, the Druze Lebanese eight and the Alawite Lebanese two.

The reason that the Communal Democracy is just right for Lebanon is because Lebanon is diverse with limited number of communities.

So the best way to describe Lebanon’s unique form of democracy would be Communal and Parliamentary Democracy.  1) Communal, in the sense that every four years, each community is free to directly elect its representatives; 2) Parliamentary, in the sense that the country’s members of the parliament are the designated electors of the country’s President, which,  according to “al-myssaq al-watani” (The National Pact), should be a Maronite. According to the same agreement, the country’s Prime Minister must be a Sunni, and the Speaker of the Parliament, a Shiite.

What democratic system is good for the United States or the West may not be successfully applicable to other unique democracies such as Lebanon.

Lebanon’s communal democracy lives on. And that’s the way Lebanon has been since its independence nearly seven decades ago. It looks like it will continue to function as long as the country’s leadership practices the open door policy in its intra-national relations.

Aside from short-changing the Armenian-Lebanese community of its right to true representation, the ’09 Lebanese Parliament is the most pluralistic elected body so far. Even the tiniest minorities are somehow represented.

By STEPHEN SINGER
Associated Press

Corporate America typically hires lobbyists to pressure Congress on taxes and trade rules. But in an unusual – some say risky – move, five military contractors and an energy company have stepped into a fight over whether the U.S. should label Turkey’s slaughter of a million Armenians nearly a century ago as genocide.
The six companies have strong ties to Turkey, a key strategic ally of the U.S. in Mideast peace efforts and the fight against terrorism. None would state their position on the House resolution, but industry analysts and others said they likely lobbied against the measure to show support for Turkey, an important market for weapons and industrial products.
“They don’t want to be seen opposing a resolution that has a very evident human rights element,” said Rouben Adalian, director of the Armenian National Institute, a Washington research organization. “It would put them on the side of denying history and denying genocide.”
BAE Systems Inc., Goodrich Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., Raytheon Co., United Technologies Corp. and energy producer Chevron Corp. spent $14 million to lobby Congress in the first quarter of this year. Besides the genocide resolution, the companies lobbied on Pentagon spending, climate change, taxes and more.
United Technologies, which sells Sikorsky helicopters to Turkey, says it provided information to  lawmakers “that helped round out their understanding of the international trade and national  security interests involved.”
But businesses lobbying against the resolution are not being “good corporate citizens,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., its lead sponsor.
Lobbying on human rights issues comes with risks, said Gerry Keim, associate dean at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.
Several companies halted their efforts opposing restrictions on white minority-ruled South Africa in the 1980s when anti-apartheid activists applied pressure.
“Originally, they were concerned about markets in South Africa. Then they were concerned about markets here,” Keim said.
Other analysts say any public backlash against companies lobbying on the Armenia genocide resolution would be minimal because the firms serve governments, not individual consumers who
could boycott their products.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee has not taken up the resolution and the Senate does not have a version.
A spokeswoman for the House committee said its chairman has not decided when the resolution
– or other pending bills – will be taken up as the House considers legislation on Pakistan, State Department funding and other matters.
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million mostly Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman
Turks around the time of World War I. Turkey denies that the deaths were genocide, saying the number of casualties is inflated and was the consequence of civil war and unrest.
Turkey’s embassy in Washington did not return calls and e-mails seeking comment.
President Barack Obama, before visiting a World War II-era concentration camp in Germany earlier this month, said the world has an obligation to stop genocide, even when it’s inconvenient.
His administration is working to end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, he said.

While running for president, Obama promised to “recognize the Armenian Genocide” once in office, but he avoided the term during a speech in Turkey in April.
Putting the U.S. on record that the killings of Armenians 94 years ago was genocide gives  credibility to the drive for international support to stop killings in Sudan, Schiff said.

But pressure on the six companies to avoid offending Turkey is intense. Among the ventures between U.S. businesses and Turkey are a $3 billion contract from Northrop to a Turkish
company to be a supplier for fighter jets.
Goodrich Corp. and a Turkish firm agreed to a joint venture for maintenance and repair work on engine components.
BAE Systems and a Turkish company jointly market and supply armored vehicles to the Turkish armed forces.
Chevron holds a stakes in a pipeline that crosses the country. Raytheon has agreed to sell to Turkey Stinger missile launcher systems valued at $34 million and is working to sell its missile
defense systems.
Chevron said it lobbies on a range of interests, “including international issues that fall outside of a narrow energy policy focus.”
Representatives of the U.S. subsid- Companies lobby (quietly) on Armenia genocide bill iary of London-based BAE Systems PLC and Northrop referred questions to the Aerospace Industries Association.
The trade group defended Turkey as a key U.S. ally and cited “large and growing commercial ties” between the two nations.
Raytheon and Goodrich did not respond to requests for comment. Andrew Kzirian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee’s western region in Glendale, Calif., said backers of the resolution, which has been considered before, will not quit if it fails again.
“If you don’t call it out and call it for what it is, you have Darfur,” he said.