Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09BEIRUT417
2009-04-08 16:40:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Beirut
Cable title:  

LEBANON: CIVIL SOCIETY TELLS DAS SPIRNAK MEPI

Tags:  EAID OPRC PGOV PINS SCUL SOCI KDEM KCRS KISL 
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RR RUEHAG RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHKUK RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHLB #0417/01 0981640
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 081640Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY BEIRUT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4649
INFO RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 3646
RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO 3846
RHMFISS/USCENTCOM SPECIAL HANDLING MACDILL AFB FL
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 000417 

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR NEA/FO, NEA/ELA, NEA/PI
ALSO FOR IO ACTING A/S WARLICK
P FOR DRUSSELL AND RRANGASWAMY
NSC FOR MCDERMOTT AND SHAPIRO
DRL/NESA FOR WHITMAN, BARGHOUT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2019
TAGS: EAID OPRC PGOV PINS SCUL SOCI KDEM KCRS KISL
KMPI, KSPR, KWMN, XF, LE
SUBJECT: LEBANON: CIVIL SOCIETY TELLS DAS SPIRNAK MEPI
FUNDING BADLY NEEDED

Classified By: Ambassador Michele J. Sison for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

SUMMARY
--------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 000417

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR NEA/FO, NEA/ELA, NEA/PI
ALSO FOR IO ACTING A/S WARLICK
P FOR DRUSSELL AND RRANGASWAMY
NSC FOR MCDERMOTT AND SHAPIRO
DRL/NESA FOR WHITMAN, BARGHOUT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/08/2019
TAGS: EAID OPRC PGOV PINS SCUL SOCI KDEM KCRS KISL
KMPI, KSPR, KWMN, XF, LE
SUBJECT: LEBANON: CIVIL SOCIETY TELLS DAS SPIRNAK MEPI
FUNDING BADLY NEEDED

Classified By: Ambassador Michele J. Sison for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (SBU) In several meetings on March 30-31 with visiting
NEA DAS Madelyn Spirnak and the Ambassador, civil society
leaders thanked the USG for its support of civil society
reform initiatives, mainly through Middle East Partnership
Initiative (MEPI) funding. The groups also briefed DAS
Spirnak on a number of projects currently being supported by
MEPI. This support includes advocacy training, financing
independent media outlets, assisting moderate Shi'a political
figures in order to counter extremist Shi'a movements and
youth empowerment initiatives. DAS Spirnak and the
Ambassador also visited a number of Public Diplomacy and U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) projects,
including a school refurbishment project, American Corners'
facility, and an ACCESS Microscholarship cluster school. End
Summary.

CIVIL SOCIETY STEPS
IN WHERE GOL IS ABSENT
--------------


2. (SBU) In a March 30 meeting with visiting NEA DAS Madelyn
Spirnak and the Ambassador, accompanied by Poloff, National
Democratic Institute (NDI) Country Director Joe Hall and
representatives of local NGO partners provided a briefing on
the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI)-funded,
"Citizen Lebanon" project. Citizen Lebanon, a partnership
between NDI and seven Lebanese civic partners, aims to
empower Lebanese citizens to become part of the
decision-making process at the local level, with potential

for regional and national initiatives to follow. Through
intensive preparation of sixty community facilitators, NDI
and its partners have empowered community activists in thirty
targeted municipalities throughout Lebanon to hold regular
discussion and debate groups.


3. (SBU) Hall said Citizen Lebanon partners have held over
400 discussion groups with close to 5,200 citizens. The
discussion groups focus mainly on issues of citizenship, the
rule of law, elections, local governance, and the role of the
media. Hall noted that many Lebanese are not aware of their
rights or obligations as citizens, as the GOL has been
essentially absent in many areas of the country for decades.
He added that the Citizen Lebanon project fills a gap that is
badly needed, as facilitators are educating Lebanese citizens
on their rights, in addition to training local citizens how
to advocate for changes in their community.


4. (SBU) One local partner explained that in
Hizballah-dominated Bekaa, where she works, women in
discussion groups say that in the past they voted in
elections based on how their husbands told them to vote. Now
the women are beginning to ask why they should vote for a
particular candidate and question whether or not the
candidate's political platform will benefit them. While most
of the participants are young and enthusiastic, the majority
of the decision makers in the local communities are elderly
men, Hall noted. Hall said the Citizen Lebanon partners are
in discussions about future programming related to the
upcoming June 7 parliamentary elections, including
facilitating public debates between parliamentary candidates
in their home districts.

MEPI FUNDING SUPPORTS
INDEPENDENT MEDIA
--------------


5. (SBU) Founder of Statistics Lebanon, Rabieh Haber, told
DAS Spirnak that MEPI funding has been essential in
supporting Lebanon's only independent on-line news source,
Lebanonfiles.com. Almost all media outlets in Lebanon are
partisan, and Lebanonfiles provides those looking for
unbiased news an outlet they can rely on, according to Haber.

BEIRUT 00000417 002 OF 003


Lebanonfiles published more han 226 non-partisan interviews
with local politcians (from both the opposition and majority
parties),and 136 interviews with NGO and civil society
leaders.


6. (SBU) Lebanonfiles is currently ranked number 3, out of
41, among all Lebanese on-line news sites, and is ranked
number 20 among all national and
international news sites visited from Lebanon, Haber said.
He noted that most Lebanese newspapers and radio stations,
and a number of international media sources, reference
Lebanonfiles' reporting in their newspapers and broadcasts.
Haber highlighted a number of sections on the Lebanonfiles
web-site, including a 2009 elections documents page,
political interviews section, and a civil society page. Over
a two-year period, Lebanonfiles has received over 40 million
hits, Haber added.

MODERATE SHI'A FIGURES
SUPPORTED BY MEPI
--------------


7. (C) DAS Spirnak also met with representatives involved in
a MEPI supported project, managed by the International
Republican Institute (IRI),but implemented by a local
organization, Hayyabina. (Note: Hayyabina is one of NDI's
seven local partners, working in the Bekaa, under the Citizen
Lebanon project, and also implements Embassy Beirut's Public
Diplomacy program - Teaching Women English. End Note.)
Hayyabina aims to help non-aligned and independent Lebanese
Shi'a figures build a common platform regarding political
reform and have a real voice in their community, to find an
alternative to Hizballah and Amal, the traditional, allied
Shia political parties. Hayyabina Founder, Lokman Slim,
Project Manager, Inga Shei, moderate Shi'a cleric, Sheikh
Mohammed Ali al-Hajj, and progressive Shi'a political
activist Malek Mrowa briefed DAS Spirnak on IRI's support for
Hayyabina's Leadership Academy for moderate Shi'a Sheikhs.
Mrowa noted that the leadership academy is located in the
heart of the Hizballah-controlled Dahiyeh (southern suburbs
of Beirut),and that Hizballah has not been able to discredit
the academy as it has discredited other political projects
seeking to challenge its dominance over the Shi'a community.



8. (C) Shei said Hayyabina is providing space for moderate,
non-aligned clerics, to disseminate their teachings and hold
bimonthly workshops on networking. Hayyabina, in
coordination with IRI, accepted 30 Sheikhs to participate in
the six-month program. In the future, Shei said the group
wants to open a women's leadership academy and a dormitory
for students from remote areas who want to attend the
leadership school. Hayyabina also plans to take participants
on religious pilgrimages outside Lebanon, especially to Iraq.


YOUTH SHADOW GOVERNMENT
PROMOTES POLITICAL REFORM
--------------


9. (SBU) DAS Spirnak also met with the "Youth Shadow
Government," a project that provides thirty Lebanese youth
aged 20 to 25, including students from public and private
universities and technical institutes, with training and
practical opportunities to experience the Lebanese democratic
political process in action. Acting as a "Shadow
Government," participants monitor political developments
occurring at the national level and act as a
watchdog over the actual government's performance. The
"Shadow Ministers'" work entails monitoring each ministry,
explaining to their university colleagues and the public at
large the government's performance, and debating alternatives
to the decisions that were made by the government.


10. (SBU) The Shadow Minister of Energy said she was working
on making light bulbs in Lebanon more energy efficient (and
banning non-efficient bulbs from import, an action we

BEIRUT 00000417 003 OF 003


cautioned against) and on possibly finding an international
donor who could fund the opening of a waste water facility in
the district of Koura. The Shadow Minister of Health is
working on a project to create a Lebanese equivalent to the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Shadow
Ministers have gotten a lot of publicity, according to
Project Manager Ayad Wakim, who said Ministers appeared on
numerous TV shows highlighting the work of the Shadow
Government, and have also met with President Michel Sleiman.


11. (SBU) On the margins of a reception hosted by the
Ambassador, DAS Spirnak also met with many alumni of
MEPI-funded programs and the Lebanon MEPI Alumni Network
Steering Committee. Members of that committee stressed the
positive effects MEPI experiences had on their lives and
explained their strong desire to "give back" through projects
linking some of the networks that had been developed by MEPI,
e.g., women's legal network -- to work with the women's
business network and women in technology to help women set up
their own small businesses. They thanked MEPI for the
continued support of the MEPI Alumni Network, which they
viewed as contributing greatly to MEPI's success in Lebanon.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND USAID
PROGRAMS HIGHLIGHT USG ASSISTANCE
--------------


12. (SBU) DAS Spirnak and the Ambassador visited a U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) project in the
Chouf on Tuesday, March 31. They visited a USAID-funded
Lebanon Education Assistance for Development (LEAD) School in
Baakline Secondary School. The LEAD program features
physical repair works to schools, provision of school
equipment, science and computer laboratories, implementation
of awareness programs on various subjects and provision of
extracurricular activities.


13. (SBU) In the Chouf, DAS Spirnak and the Ambassador also
visited several PD programs. They spoke to a group of high
school students about the U.S. at the Baakline American
Corner and visited an English ACCESS Microscholarship cluster
school in Muktara (Chouf). ACCESS provides English language
and civic education instruction to a wide audience of under
served high school students. The impact of these modest
scholarships significantly affects the recipients and
increases their understanding of the U.S. The ACCESS
program, provides participants with English language skills,
instills important democratic principles and provides the
basis for them to participate in other USG-funded programs,
e.g. those funded by MEPI.


14. (SBU) Finally, DAS Spirnak met with representatives from
the NGO Teach For Lebanon (TFL),a program modeled after
Teach for America, to discuss education reform initiatives.
TFL staff said they are moving ahead with the creation of the
program, though they have run into financing difficulties, as
it is hard for non-partisan groups in Lebanon to fundraise
The group seeks to recruit up to 40 volunteers to teach in 12
to 13 schools throughout Lebanon in poor and underdeveloped
regions for a two-year period. After completing the program,
volunteers will be offered a number of incentives including
full scholarships to the American University of Beirut (AUB)
for their master degree studies and guaranteed job interviews
with fortune 500 companies.


15. (U) Acting DAS Spirnak has cleared this cable.
SISON