BORMANN: It's a place synonymous with war, turbulence and deep division but the people I've met here will tell you, they're on the verge of something truly liberating. This is the story of a tiny country the rest of the world just can't keep out of and what happens next will change this place forever.
"Beirut, Beirut, glory from ashes for Beirut", Lebanon's national song bemoans a city that almost destroyed itself. From 1975 to 1990 the Lebanese people turned on each other. Now Lebanon's survivors are preparing for another dramatic turn in history. They want the removal of Syria's army, here for the last thirty years under the guise of keeping the peace.
GEBRAN TUENI: The Syrians are, you know, dealing like the old fashioned Soviet Union regimes. They, you know they rule the country imposing the reign of terror.
BORMANN: Newspaper editor and aspiring politician Gebran Tueni, is about to have one of the most extraordinary days of his life. Something rare for the Arab world is happening - an explosion of people power. This rally was unthinkable just a few weeks ago.
GEBRAN TUENI: When we talk about fighting for democracy, fighting for freedom, it isn't only words. We know what it is, we know the smell of blood the smell of dynamite - we know what the gun means, we know what threaten means. They only can kill you, and you know, we know that sometime we'll be assassinated.
BORMANN: During the civil war, Martyrs Square separated Muslim West Beirut from the Christian East. On this day, the followers of all religions have come together to rally against what they believe is a sinister force in Lebanese affairs.
GEBRAN TUENI: We are just witnessing the history of Lebanon.
BORMANN: No one will ever know exactly how many are here but perhaps one million have gathered to call for the end of Syrian control, the withdrawal of its troops and its reviled security police. They also want to see the end of the puppet government installed by Damascus. Parliamentary candidate, Gebran Tueni, is about to have his moment in the sun.
GEBRAN TUENI [SPEAKING TO CROWD]: We all want the truth. We want sovereignty, true sovereignty. We want independence, full independence - no secret service, no (Syrian) soldiers, no oppressive government.
BORMANN: These people have found new courage beneath a national flag that bears the noble cedar tree. They're emboldened by an event in February that shook this nation to its core.
Billionaire Rafik Hariri helped rebuild Beirut from the rubble. A man with formidable friends and powerful connections, Hariri played politics and big business with the Syrians, Saudis and others.
Prime Minister for the better part of a decade, his decision to stand down in protest against Syrian domination was to be a passage to martyrdom. He and 19 others were killed in a massive car bomb on the Beirut corniche.
It was an atrocity like no other. What happened here reverberated around the world. Most people here believe this was Syria's attempt to frighten and intimidate them and stop them from agitating. If that was the case, it was to be a monumental miscalculation.
LENA GHORAYEB [AT RALLY]: After the killing of Rafik Hariri, the anger inside the Lebanese show up and they cry liberation because before they were afraid but now they, they say think that they will not be afraid anymore because it's, it's full, they are full of Syria. They can't, they can't bury it anymore.
BORMANN: It seems everyone you meet here can tell a story about the Syrians and their presence goes back a long way.
LEAN GHORAYEB: I remember, I remember the voice of the Syrian coming to my village. I still hear them till now their voice.
BORMANN: Lena Ghorayeb was only a small child in the 1980s when Syrian troops arrived at her Maronite Christian village.
LENA GHORAYEB: They go into the house, the houses and kill all the families who was there. We run, we run away. A miracle that we weren't, we weren't killed.
BORMANN: It was the only chapter in fifteen years of civil war that saw Christians and Muslims fight each other and amongst themselves. Lebanon became a battleground also for foreign invaders who claimed they were peacekeepers, the Syrians, the Israelis and the Americans.
The Syrians never went home and Lena Ghorayeb was to encounter them again long after they killed her family.
LENA GHORAYEB: I was a student and I always criticised Syria and asked Syria to go out from Lebanon.
BORMANN: For agitating, Lena was arrested, detained, beaten and sexually assaulted. The prison was in Lebanon but the interrogators she says, were Syrians.
LENA GHORAYEB: They beat me. They beat us a lot. They start beating us and they took us, they put, they blind our eyes and they put, they put me in the car and my head between my legs and they took me to a place, I don't know where. I scratched them on his face. He beat me and he tell me he obliged me to take off my pants.
BORMANN: But there's more to this conflict than the flag frenzy in Beirut. I'm heading to the country with Syrian cabbie Hassan Nabulsi. Several times a day he makes the run from Beirut to Damascus. It's less than a two hour trip between the capitals of tiny Lebanon and big brother Syria next door.
HASSAN NABULSI: You can say that the Syrian and Lebanese people are one family and there are no differences between them. They have the same ways of life and the same traditions.
BORMANN: I'm on the way to the town of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley and what people here say about the Syrians goes well beyond the rally slogans.
MICHEL CHARBEL: The Syrians tell the Lebanese decision makers what to do and the Lebanese do accordingly.
BORMANN: Michel Charbel and his fellow towns people know the Syrians very well. In the early 1980s they shelled Zahle from these hills.
MICHEL CHARBEL: They had killed probably everybody who opposed them.
BORMANN: And they've been here ever since?
MICHEL CHARBEL: Ever since.
BORMANN: The people of Zahle know the real Syrian menace is unseen. This unobtrusive building houses the Lebanese Justice Ministry, the police station and an office of Syrian intelligence. A veritable one stop shop.
There's something else significant about this place. The Bekaa Valley is where thousands of Syrian troops have been redeployed. Others have gone all the way on the road to Damascus but most Lebanese people are cynical. They just don't believe that all Syrian troops will be out of their country before the coming election.
Syria's President has promised to withdraw his troops by the end of this month. In the meantime, Syrian soldiers await further orders in small camps near the border. There's nothing much to do but their presence here has been little more than symbolic for the last fifteen years.
The soldiers might have outlived their welcome but the people of the Bekaa Valley are putting other Syrians to work. A country of only four million, Lebanese supports another one million Syrian workers and their families. Many are labourers on wages Lebanese would refuse. It cuts both ways. Syrian workers like Abu Mohammed Al Wan are paid more here than at home.
ABU MOHAMMED AL WAN: The Syrian and Lebanese people have one single heart and one single body. The two peoples cannot be separated. Syria is for the Lebanese and Lebanon is for the Syrians. We're one family, and wouldn't like anything to interfere in our affairs - neither European French nor American.
BORMANN: The Bekaa Valley is where western kidnap victims were hidden during the civil war. It's still Lebanon's fruit bowl and its breadbasket. Practically every family has both Lebanese and Syrian members but the Syrian influence here is also measured in trade and business.
Naser Maaderani owns six farms and is head of his local co-op. Lebanese landowners have exported forty thousand tonnes of potatoes to Syria in the last few years and while Naser and his fellow farmers suffer from the flood of cheap imported produce from Syria, he says it's all fair trade.
NASER MAADERANI: Naturally we farmers need the Syrian workers and we need certain products and agricultural chemicals from Syria.
BORMANN: So when you watch the television at night and you see hundreds and thousands of people in Beirut saying "Syria out, Syria out" what do you think?
NASER MAADERANI: I was among the people who demonstrated on Monday. I took part in the demonstration because I had one single demand, and that is to know the truth about who killed Rafik Hariri.
BORMANN: It was a question I would take all the way to the Syrian capital. The Bekaa Valley soon gives way to the mountains of the anti Lebanon range and Damascus lies just beyond. It's a very easy border to cross if you're Syrian or Lebanese. It's Syria's way of saying there's nothing really much between us but seemingly a world away, this is the place ruled with an iron fist by President Bashar Assad.
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: I don't think the world is worried about Syrian troops in Lebanon.
BORMANN: The President's polished and urbane Minister for Expatriate Affairs is well versed in the biggest talking point of all.
So Syrian intelligence agents didn't kill Rafik Hariri?
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: Of course not. Or course not.
BORMANN: Well you know who did?
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: I don't know. I know who killed John Kennedy, you know, we don't know who killed J.F Kennedy until now. How could we know who killed Rafik Hariri but we are certainly most interested in knowing. It's very important. It's in the interests of Syria and of Lebanon to find out who killed Rafik Hariri. There's an international you know group that is looking at the issue and we're waiting for the results.
BORMANN: Syria still has many friends in Lebanon and this is where they live. Far from the plush café scene of central Beirut, the southern suburbs of a heartland for Shiite Muslims.
Syria is winning hearts and minds here by pouring millions of dollars into schools and hospitals. The streets are ruled by Hizbollah or "Party of God" and today its followers are heading to the American Embassy.
Gahlib Abu Zainab is a senior member of Hezbollah's political bureau.
GHALIB ABU ZAINAB: This rally called for an internal dialogue between the Lebanese and wanted to say thankyou to Syria for what you have done for Lebanon.
BORMANN: Although it maintains a well-armed and feared militia, there's not a gun in sight. They, like the anti Syrian demonstrators, wave the national flag. This has become a contest to see who is more Lebanese.
GHALIB ABU ZAINAB: Naturally Syria helped us, but not on the basis that they stay permanently in Lebanon. We have a fundamental issue here. We are very keen on the sovereignty and the free decision making of Lebanon and on the fact that all the Lebanese co-operate to govern their country.
BORMANN: With the likely departure of Syria's troops, Hezbollah too has vowed to help heal the wounds of bitter division and play its part in a new democratic Lebanon.
FATIMA BAZA: As much as Islamic resistance in Lebanon is here, we are all, we are all happy and we are not afraid for our future.
BORMANN: But there are so many different groups in this country aren't there?
FATIMA BAZA: Yeah.
BORMANN: Christians, Palestinians, Sunnis, Shi'a.
FATIMA BAZA: Yeah and Islamic resistance is not for a part. It's all because Lebanon is not for the Islam and not, it's for all the country and also it's for the Christians. It's not just for Islam.
BORMANN: If there's to be lasting peace in Lebanon, then it's vital there's reconciliation between Hezbollah and the dominant force - the Christians.
At this Maronite Church, Catholics pray for Rafik Hariri the slain Sunni former Prime Minister who's united old enemies and turned them against Syria. The spiritual leader of the Maronites is Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir. When he calls "Syria out" from the pulpit, he finds that powerful people want to listen.
GEORGE W BUSH WITH SFEIR [ARCHIVE VIDEO]: His Eminence and I discussed of course Lebanon and our deep desire for Lebanon to be a truly free country and I ensured his Eminence that the United States policy is to, to insist that Syria completely leave Lebanon.
BORMANN: Is there a risk that if Syria pulls out there'll be more instability here? Problems from Hezbollah and other groups?
NASRALLAH BUTROS SFEIR: No I don't know because there is no interest to anyone that, that will, there will be trouble in Lebanon and even Hezbollah, he has a great number of Lebanese in his ranks, in his ranks but I don't know. There is no interest for nobody to make trouble in Lebanon.
BORMANN: In Lebanon everyone has a past and most people have long memories. On this day the Patriarch is meeting with 23 year old Nadim Gemayel. He holds no public office yet but politics is in his blood. The family name is associated with martyrdom.
NADIM GEMAYEL: We resisted the Syrians for 22 years. They killed my father. They killed my sister and now we are still resisting.
OLD NEWS REPORT: Ambulances race through the streets of Ashrafiyya in East Beirut. The local headquarters of the Christian Phalange Party have been bombed and Lebanon's President Elect, Bashir Gemayel was inside the building.
BORMANN: In 1982 when Nadim was just four months old, his father Bashir Gemayel was assassinated just weeks after he was elected President.
NADIM GEMAYEL: We all understand that we cannot anymore live in, in a war, in a war situation. We all want now to live in peace. We all want to live in the freedom and we all want to, to decide for ourself our future.
BORMANN: For crusading newspaper publisher Gebran Tueni a future without Syria will almost certainly mean a seat in the new Parliament and the prospect of a much longer life.
GEBRAN TUENI: The newspaper has been bombed about four times. We've had also bombs and dynamite in the print plant three times. We have more than six journalists who have been killed, assassinated. I have been shot twice, kidnapped once and exiled once in 1990 for three years.
BORMANN: Gerbran Tueni like most Lebanese see the Syrians as brothers and sisters but their sibling relationship has become anything but neighbourly.
GEBRAN TUENI: Syria is using Lebanon, yes. Bleeding Lebanon. Syria does not want Lebanon to die because Syria thinks that as long as Lebanon can live but not really be strong enough to be completely independent, it's OK. They can use Lebanon.
BORMANN: But the Lebanese people say that they wont be happy until all of the troops are gone.
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: They will be. All the troops we will be back to Syria as soon as logistically possible.
BORMANN: Can you guarantee that?
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: Absolutely. The President guaranteed that. It's not just me. The President guaranteed that we will have all our troops back in Syria and our intelligence but the Syrian people and Lebanese people have much more in common than the troops. We're two Arab countries, two neighbourly countries and I think the Lebanese need Syria just as much as Syria needs Lebanon.
BORMANN: Lebanon's cedar revolution seems unstoppable. The elections next month amount to a referendum on the Syrian presence and influence in this country.
MALE MOURNER: His memory will stay in our hearts forever. From generation to generation we will remember Rafik Hariri who unified Lebanon unified the Lebanese people.
BORMANN: The man who reconstructed Lebanon after years of civil war has become an even more potent force in death than during his lifetime. The challenge for the people who revere him is to close this chapter of history and move on to a new era of nation building.
"Beirut, Beirut, glory from ashes for Beirut", Lebanon's national song bemoans a city that almost destroyed itself. From 1975 to 1990 the Lebanese people turned on each other. Now Lebanon's survivors are preparing for another dramatic turn in history. They want the removal of Syria's army, here for the last thirty years under the guise of keeping the peace.
GEBRAN TUENI: The Syrians are, you know, dealing like the old fashioned Soviet Union regimes. They, you know they rule the country imposing the reign of terror.
BORMANN: Newspaper editor and aspiring politician Gebran Tueni, is about to have one of the most extraordinary days of his life. Something rare for the Arab world is happening - an explosion of people power. This rally was unthinkable just a few weeks ago.
GEBRAN TUENI: When we talk about fighting for democracy, fighting for freedom, it isn't only words. We know what it is, we know the smell of blood the smell of dynamite - we know what the gun means, we know what threaten means. They only can kill you, and you know, we know that sometime we'll be assassinated.
BORMANN: During the civil war, Martyrs Square separated Muslim West Beirut from the Christian East. On this day, the followers of all religions have come together to rally against what they believe is a sinister force in Lebanese affairs.
GEBRAN TUENI: We are just witnessing the history of Lebanon.
BORMANN: No one will ever know exactly how many are here but perhaps one million have gathered to call for the end of Syrian control, the withdrawal of its troops and its reviled security police. They also want to see the end of the puppet government installed by Damascus. Parliamentary candidate, Gebran Tueni, is about to have his moment in the sun.
GEBRAN TUENI [SPEAKING TO CROWD]: We all want the truth. We want sovereignty, true sovereignty. We want independence, full independence - no secret service, no (Syrian) soldiers, no oppressive government.
BORMANN: These people have found new courage beneath a national flag that bears the noble cedar tree. They're emboldened by an event in February that shook this nation to its core.
Billionaire Rafik Hariri helped rebuild Beirut from the rubble. A man with formidable friends and powerful connections, Hariri played politics and big business with the Syrians, Saudis and others.
Prime Minister for the better part of a decade, his decision to stand down in protest against Syrian domination was to be a passage to martyrdom. He and 19 others were killed in a massive car bomb on the Beirut corniche.
It was an atrocity like no other. What happened here reverberated around the world. Most people here believe this was Syria's attempt to frighten and intimidate them and stop them from agitating. If that was the case, it was to be a monumental miscalculation.
LENA GHORAYEB [AT RALLY]: After the killing of Rafik Hariri, the anger inside the Lebanese show up and they cry liberation because before they were afraid but now they, they say think that they will not be afraid anymore because it's, it's full, they are full of Syria. They can't, they can't bury it anymore.
BORMANN: It seems everyone you meet here can tell a story about the Syrians and their presence goes back a long way.
LEAN GHORAYEB: I remember, I remember the voice of the Syrian coming to my village. I still hear them till now their voice.
BORMANN: Lena Ghorayeb was only a small child in the 1980s when Syrian troops arrived at her Maronite Christian village.
LENA GHORAYEB: They go into the house, the houses and kill all the families who was there. We run, we run away. A miracle that we weren't, we weren't killed.
BORMANN: It was the only chapter in fifteen years of civil war that saw Christians and Muslims fight each other and amongst themselves. Lebanon became a battleground also for foreign invaders who claimed they were peacekeepers, the Syrians, the Israelis and the Americans.
The Syrians never went home and Lena Ghorayeb was to encounter them again long after they killed her family.
LENA GHORAYEB: I was a student and I always criticised Syria and asked Syria to go out from Lebanon.
BORMANN: For agitating, Lena was arrested, detained, beaten and sexually assaulted. The prison was in Lebanon but the interrogators she says, were Syrians.
LENA GHORAYEB: They beat me. They beat us a lot. They start beating us and they took us, they put, they blind our eyes and they put, they put me in the car and my head between my legs and they took me to a place, I don't know where. I scratched them on his face. He beat me and he tell me he obliged me to take off my pants.
BORMANN: But there's more to this conflict than the flag frenzy in Beirut. I'm heading to the country with Syrian cabbie Hassan Nabulsi. Several times a day he makes the run from Beirut to Damascus. It's less than a two hour trip between the capitals of tiny Lebanon and big brother Syria next door.
HASSAN NABULSI: You can say that the Syrian and Lebanese people are one family and there are no differences between them. They have the same ways of life and the same traditions.
BORMANN: I'm on the way to the town of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley and what people here say about the Syrians goes well beyond the rally slogans.
MICHEL CHARBEL: The Syrians tell the Lebanese decision makers what to do and the Lebanese do accordingly.
BORMANN: Michel Charbel and his fellow towns people know the Syrians very well. In the early 1980s they shelled Zahle from these hills.
MICHEL CHARBEL: They had killed probably everybody who opposed them.
BORMANN: And they've been here ever since?
MICHEL CHARBEL: Ever since.
BORMANN: The people of Zahle know the real Syrian menace is unseen. This unobtrusive building houses the Lebanese Justice Ministry, the police station and an office of Syrian intelligence. A veritable one stop shop.
There's something else significant about this place. The Bekaa Valley is where thousands of Syrian troops have been redeployed. Others have gone all the way on the road to Damascus but most Lebanese people are cynical. They just don't believe that all Syrian troops will be out of their country before the coming election.
Syria's President has promised to withdraw his troops by the end of this month. In the meantime, Syrian soldiers await further orders in small camps near the border. There's nothing much to do but their presence here has been little more than symbolic for the last fifteen years.
The soldiers might have outlived their welcome but the people of the Bekaa Valley are putting other Syrians to work. A country of only four million, Lebanese supports another one million Syrian workers and their families. Many are labourers on wages Lebanese would refuse. It cuts both ways. Syrian workers like Abu Mohammed Al Wan are paid more here than at home.
ABU MOHAMMED AL WAN: The Syrian and Lebanese people have one single heart and one single body. The two peoples cannot be separated. Syria is for the Lebanese and Lebanon is for the Syrians. We're one family, and wouldn't like anything to interfere in our affairs - neither European French nor American.
BORMANN: The Bekaa Valley is where western kidnap victims were hidden during the civil war. It's still Lebanon's fruit bowl and its breadbasket. Practically every family has both Lebanese and Syrian members but the Syrian influence here is also measured in trade and business.
Naser Maaderani owns six farms and is head of his local co-op. Lebanese landowners have exported forty thousand tonnes of potatoes to Syria in the last few years and while Naser and his fellow farmers suffer from the flood of cheap imported produce from Syria, he says it's all fair trade.
NASER MAADERANI: Naturally we farmers need the Syrian workers and we need certain products and agricultural chemicals from Syria.
BORMANN: So when you watch the television at night and you see hundreds and thousands of people in Beirut saying "Syria out, Syria out" what do you think?
NASER MAADERANI: I was among the people who demonstrated on Monday. I took part in the demonstration because I had one single demand, and that is to know the truth about who killed Rafik Hariri.
BORMANN: It was a question I would take all the way to the Syrian capital. The Bekaa Valley soon gives way to the mountains of the anti Lebanon range and Damascus lies just beyond. It's a very easy border to cross if you're Syrian or Lebanese. It's Syria's way of saying there's nothing really much between us but seemingly a world away, this is the place ruled with an iron fist by President Bashar Assad.
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: I don't think the world is worried about Syrian troops in Lebanon.
BORMANN: The President's polished and urbane Minister for Expatriate Affairs is well versed in the biggest talking point of all.
So Syrian intelligence agents didn't kill Rafik Hariri?
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: Of course not. Or course not.
BORMANN: Well you know who did?
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: I don't know. I know who killed John Kennedy, you know, we don't know who killed J.F Kennedy until now. How could we know who killed Rafik Hariri but we are certainly most interested in knowing. It's very important. It's in the interests of Syria and of Lebanon to find out who killed Rafik Hariri. There's an international you know group that is looking at the issue and we're waiting for the results.
BORMANN: Syria still has many friends in Lebanon and this is where they live. Far from the plush café scene of central Beirut, the southern suburbs of a heartland for Shiite Muslims.
Syria is winning hearts and minds here by pouring millions of dollars into schools and hospitals. The streets are ruled by Hizbollah or "Party of God" and today its followers are heading to the American Embassy.
Gahlib Abu Zainab is a senior member of Hezbollah's political bureau.
GHALIB ABU ZAINAB: This rally called for an internal dialogue between the Lebanese and wanted to say thankyou to Syria for what you have done for Lebanon.
BORMANN: Although it maintains a well-armed and feared militia, there's not a gun in sight. They, like the anti Syrian demonstrators, wave the national flag. This has become a contest to see who is more Lebanese.
GHALIB ABU ZAINAB: Naturally Syria helped us, but not on the basis that they stay permanently in Lebanon. We have a fundamental issue here. We are very keen on the sovereignty and the free decision making of Lebanon and on the fact that all the Lebanese co-operate to govern their country.
BORMANN: With the likely departure of Syria's troops, Hezbollah too has vowed to help heal the wounds of bitter division and play its part in a new democratic Lebanon.
FATIMA BAZA: As much as Islamic resistance in Lebanon is here, we are all, we are all happy and we are not afraid for our future.
BORMANN: But there are so many different groups in this country aren't there?
FATIMA BAZA: Yeah.
BORMANN: Christians, Palestinians, Sunnis, Shi'a.
FATIMA BAZA: Yeah and Islamic resistance is not for a part. It's all because Lebanon is not for the Islam and not, it's for all the country and also it's for the Christians. It's not just for Islam.
BORMANN: If there's to be lasting peace in Lebanon, then it's vital there's reconciliation between Hezbollah and the dominant force - the Christians.
At this Maronite Church, Catholics pray for Rafik Hariri the slain Sunni former Prime Minister who's united old enemies and turned them against Syria. The spiritual leader of the Maronites is Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir. When he calls "Syria out" from the pulpit, he finds that powerful people want to listen.
GEORGE W BUSH WITH SFEIR [ARCHIVE VIDEO]: His Eminence and I discussed of course Lebanon and our deep desire for Lebanon to be a truly free country and I ensured his Eminence that the United States policy is to, to insist that Syria completely leave Lebanon.
BORMANN: Is there a risk that if Syria pulls out there'll be more instability here? Problems from Hezbollah and other groups?
NASRALLAH BUTROS SFEIR: No I don't know because there is no interest to anyone that, that will, there will be trouble in Lebanon and even Hezbollah, he has a great number of Lebanese in his ranks, in his ranks but I don't know. There is no interest for nobody to make trouble in Lebanon.
BORMANN: In Lebanon everyone has a past and most people have long memories. On this day the Patriarch is meeting with 23 year old Nadim Gemayel. He holds no public office yet but politics is in his blood. The family name is associated with martyrdom.
NADIM GEMAYEL: We resisted the Syrians for 22 years. They killed my father. They killed my sister and now we are still resisting.
OLD NEWS REPORT: Ambulances race through the streets of Ashrafiyya in East Beirut. The local headquarters of the Christian Phalange Party have been bombed and Lebanon's President Elect, Bashir Gemayel was inside the building.
BORMANN: In 1982 when Nadim was just four months old, his father Bashir Gemayel was assassinated just weeks after he was elected President.
NADIM GEMAYEL: We all understand that we cannot anymore live in, in a war, in a war situation. We all want now to live in peace. We all want to live in the freedom and we all want to, to decide for ourself our future.
BORMANN: For crusading newspaper publisher Gebran Tueni a future without Syria will almost certainly mean a seat in the new Parliament and the prospect of a much longer life.
GEBRAN TUENI: The newspaper has been bombed about four times. We've had also bombs and dynamite in the print plant three times. We have more than six journalists who have been killed, assassinated. I have been shot twice, kidnapped once and exiled once in 1990 for three years.
BORMANN: Gerbran Tueni like most Lebanese see the Syrians as brothers and sisters but their sibling relationship has become anything but neighbourly.
GEBRAN TUENI: Syria is using Lebanon, yes. Bleeding Lebanon. Syria does not want Lebanon to die because Syria thinks that as long as Lebanon can live but not really be strong enough to be completely independent, it's OK. They can use Lebanon.
BORMANN: But the Lebanese people say that they wont be happy until all of the troops are gone.
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: They will be. All the troops we will be back to Syria as soon as logistically possible.
BORMANN: Can you guarantee that?
DR BOUTHAINA SHAABAN: Absolutely. The President guaranteed that. It's not just me. The President guaranteed that we will have all our troops back in Syria and our intelligence but the Syrian people and Lebanese people have much more in common than the troops. We're two Arab countries, two neighbourly countries and I think the Lebanese need Syria just as much as Syria needs Lebanon.
BORMANN: Lebanon's cedar revolution seems unstoppable. The elections next month amount to a referendum on the Syrian presence and influence in this country.
MALE MOURNER: His memory will stay in our hearts forever. From generation to generation we will remember Rafik Hariri who unified Lebanon unified the Lebanese people.
BORMANN: The man who reconstructed Lebanon after years of civil war has become an even more potent force in death than during his lifetime. The challenge for the people who revere him is to close this chapter of history and move on to a new era of nation building.