The leaving of the Levant

The withdrawal will mean tighter borders between Lebanon and Syria with the closing of a special access road long used by the military, Lebanese and Syrian dignitaries and well-connected smugglers to avoid the customs outpost. It will also mean import taxes on some goods moving between the two countries and a far larger responsibility for Lebanon’s military in controlling this broad valley where hashish and opium crops flourished before Syria’s arrival. Lebanese army troops, transport trucks and armored-personnel carriers massed at several key intersections around the Bekaa Valley Monday, and filled posts recently vacated by Syrian soldiers. But mutual defence pacts remain in place; the leaders of both countries see Israel as a common foe. Hezbollah has so far declined to give up its formidable arsenal.

In a sign of sympathy, Hezbollah party activists placed party banners and posters on top of a pedestal that until recently held a statue of the late Syrian president Hafez Assad at the entrance to the hillside town of Baalbek.

‘‘This was a brother army, and no body ever complained about it,’’ Elias Farhat, the Lebanese army general who heads its media operation, said as he watched over the parade ground alive with high-stepping Syrian troops, military bands and ranks of Lebanese soldiers practicing for the farewell ceremony. ‘‘The complaints came over the politics. But our cooperation will continue to go on.’’ Farhat, 53, was a young lieutenant in 1976 when Lebanon’s Christian-led government sought Syrian help in corralling fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization, who had attained military and political power in large parts of the country. The time was far different than today, Farhat said as a light breeze rustled stands of cedars and pines around the post. The Syrian troops were welcome. In 1982, Israeli forces poured across Lebanon’s southern border to end PLO attacks on northern Israeli settlements from the Lebanese side of the frontier. Their march subsequently brought them up against Syrian forces in the Bekaa. Lebanese officers said most of the Syrian soldiers who died here were killed in the subsequent fighting. ‘‘Those were days of war,’’ Farhat said. ‘‘At the time, people here were very happy with their arrival. But times change, people change, alliances change.’’ —LATWP