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إلى سفّــــــــاكي الــــــــدم في العـــــــراق
إلى أيـــــــن تهربــــــون يـــــا "أولاد الأفـــــــاعي" ؟

by Rita Daou, AYHA, Lebanon (AFP) - 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 zig-zag 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 9:00pm 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.

BEIRUT (AFP) - A mutiny at Lebanon's largest prison in Rumieh during which prisoners took seven warders hostage ended peacefully early Friday, a security official told AFP. "The prisoners handed over the seven warders they were holding hostage and returned to their cells after having negotiated and handed over demands to the chief of internal security, Antoine Shakuri," the official said requesting anonymity.

The prisoners at Rumieh, eight kilometres (five miles) northeast of Beirut, were calling for an improvement in their prison conditions and a reduction in their sentences, he said. Most of the inmates were serving long sentences, or were on death row."General Rifi promised to examine ways of replying to these demands in the framework of the law," the official said. Earlier he said that the rioters had set fire to their cells in the block holding convicted inmates. An AFP photographer saw a plume of smoke billowing over the prison and troop transporters deployed inside the compound.

The mutiny broke out after a quarrel between a warder and a Palestinian prisoner got out of hand. Academic Omar al-Nashabi, who has carried out a study on the prison, told AFP that more than 4,000 prisoners were being held in the jail which was originally designed in 1971 to hold a maximum of 1,500.