The recent abduction of seven Estonian tourists on a cycling holiday has revived memories of darker times and stirred fears that the unrest sweeping the Arab world may be spilling into Lebanon. Neighboring Syria is experiencing its most serious bout of internal unrest in decades, spurring a violent crackdown by the authorities who blame the anti-regime protests on “foreign conspirators.” The abduction of the Estonian tourists has left many Lebanese gloomily predicting that Lebanon cannot avoid being sucked into the vortex of its influential neighbor’s domestic crisis.
A previously unknown group called Harakat al-Nahda wal-Islah last week belatedly claimed responsibility for the March 23 kidnapping and sent copies of ID cards for three of the Estonians to a Lebanese internet news site. But despite an intensive manhunt mounted by the Lebanese security forces, no ransom demands have been made and the whereabouts and fate of the Estonians remains unknown.
In the strife-torn 1980s, Lebanon was synonymous with kidnappings when over 100 foreigners were abducted. Some were held for several years. But since the end of the 16-year civil war in 1990, Lebanon has worked hard to shed its one-time image as a Hobbesian world of sectarian bloodletting, suicide bomb spectaculars and kidnappings. Today, a younger generation of foreign tourists treats Lebanon as an edgy holiday experience, where snow-capped mountains, golden beaches and extravagant nightlife collide with periodic car bombings, armed troops on the streets and the pervasive presence of the militant Shi’ite Hizballah. “The last thing Lebanon needs, after much good press in the world’s media, is to be relabeled a bad place,” wrote Michael Karam, a Lebanese business columnist, in Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper.
The Estonians flew into Beirut on March 15 and cycled north crossing into Syria three days later. Their exact route in Syria is unclear, but they re-entered Lebanon on the afternoon of March 23 via the Masnaa border crossing which lies on the Beirut-Damascus highway. Soon afterwards, they were intercepted by two white vans and a dark Mercedes on a back road near the Christian town of Zahle in the Bekaa Valley. Armed men bundled them into the vehicles, leaving the bicycles and their bags on the side of the road. Eyewitnesses saw the vehicles head south, skirting several Lebanese army checkpoints and vanishing in the direction of a cluster of Sunni-populated villages. One of the Estonians apparently was able to make a quick call on his mobile phone before it was taken away. Investigators later traced the call to somewhere near the Sunni town of Barr Elias.
