FOUR MONTHS ON and the tent city that Hizbollah, the Shia militant group, set up last year in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, is still blocking the city’s administrative centre. The positioning of the tents in the heart of the reconstruction zone near the seat of government is a calculated show of defiance.
Near the tents, Lebanese soldiers, protected by armoured personnel carriers mounted with machine guns, have laid miles of razor wire to guard the Serai, the Ottoman-era palace that houses the government of prime minister Fouad Siniora.
True, the tents are for the most part deserted and the bedrolls inside are rolled up. The only signs of life are a few teenagers kicking a football around under an awning. But Hizbollah showed on December 1 2006 that it could bring 800,000 of its supporters into the centre of Beirut and choke economic and governmental activity out of...
