I flew into Beirut on January 1st for a short visit, the first time I’d been back since 2006. I lived there for 6 years starting in 2000, was evacuated during the July 2006 war, and haven’t been back since. Time for a short trip, to take care of some stuff. Only when I get to the passport control in Beirut, they seem confused because I have an entry stamp dated July 11th (I was returning to Beirut from a conference), but no subsequent exit visa. “Well,” I explain, “the war started on the 12th, and I was evacuated through the US embassy about 10 days later. I didn’t get an exit stamp; nobody did.” This explanation should satisfy them, I think. I am left to cool my heels, and then taken to the immigration police office to be interviewed by a General Security officer. I am mildly alarmed, and ask if there is any trouble. They assure me that there is not, but that we just need to go to the General Security office in town and get this issue about my exit stamp straightened out. No problem, they say. I and a couple of officers load my stuff into one of their cars, and we head into town. The officers are quite genial, and I am put at ease.
We get to the General Security office. Everyone is very friendly, and I am cautiously optimistic about a timely resolution of my problem until they start inventorying my possessions. I look down the hall beyond the GS officers and see cells, and realize that I am being thrown in jail. I have led a sheltered life, and this is very shocking to me. Still, I try to keep a stiff upper lip and, jokingly, say to the GS captain, “Ahlan w’sahlan fi Libnan!” (Welcome to Lebanon!) He is not amused (although the trusties find this very funny). Note to self: do not piss of the person who is imprisoning you. Returning to my senses, I ask to call the US embassy. He says no. He starts to put me in the cell. I ask again. Again, no. In I go.
The cell is as you might imagine a cell in a Lebanese jail to be. To wit: a shithole. There are 8 people (soon to be 9) in a roughly 12x15 cell. Each person has a thin, bare mattress which is spread on the concrete floor, and a thin blanket. The jail, I now realize, is a converted parking garage, with the lines and numbers still painted on the floor. There are no lights in the cell, just outside, so the cell is in a perpetual state of twilight—just dark enough to be gloomy, but not dark enough for you to really get to sleep. There is no heat, as far as I can tell, but the place is like a cave, maintaining a constant temperature (maybe 60F) day and night.
The (relative) old-timers in the cell, who seem to have been here for a while (days, if not weeks), display a rough camaraderie of a type you might expect to find at a seedier summer camp. Their activities alternate among playing cards, engaging in desultory chitchat, and narrowly averting fistfights between various members of their group.
My stiff upper lip is not maintained. I am in jail in a country where rule of law can be tenuous. Nobody in the world knows I am in jail—not my wife, not the US embassy. I have no access to a phone, or a lawyer. Frankly, I am scared half-witless. I keep thinking back to the General Security office in the airport—there, the officer interviewing me kept referring to a list of names, and the list had my name and my wife’s. I was on some kind of immigration/GS watch list. At the airport, I (uneasily) accepted that it was just a list of people for whom General Security had no recorded exit. It could be a simple matter of having no recorded exit from Lebanon, but in situations like these, your mind cannot simply rest with this explanation. It perversely seeks out more sinister explanations, and insists on examining all of the dire consequences of the possible truth of these explanations.
One of my cellmates is a Frenchman who has lived in Lebanon for several years; he has been in the cell for about 5 days. He says one of the trusties might be able to make some calls for me. Inexplicably, though the captain took my phone and my belt, he left me my wallet and money (although he told me to be very careful with them, and not let them get stolen). I give the trusty $20 and my wife’s phone # in Qatar. If he calls her, and can explain to her what happened, she will help. I tell him to tell her not to come to Lebanon, as she will be arrested, too.
In the night, I am in a fever of uncertainty. It’s the uncertainty that’s the killer. How long will I be here? Why am I really here? What the hell was that list? Did the trusty call my wife? I don’t know if he’s reliable or not. Did I even give him the right number? Her number is on speed dial in my cell phone (which was confiscated), so I never dial it; I’m not sure I gave him the right number. I still don’t know if anyone knows where I am, and I’m worried my wife is freaking out because I never checked in with her after arriving.
The night passes agonizingly slowly. Morning arrives. Names are called over the loudspeaker. My name is called. I exit the cell, am handcuffed. I am led to a room where I am questioned by another officer about my status in 2006. Then, I am uncuffed and led to the Major’s office. “This is promising”, I think. The boss of the operation wouldn’t care about me unless someone was making noise. Sure enough, he says that Captain X (who, trust me, is a good person to know) of the American University of Beirut (where I used to work) is going to call the Major, then my wife, and I will get on conference call with them. Oh, and the US Embassy consul is coming in, too. Major says, “Of course, we know you were evacuated from Lebanon in 2006, but we don’t have a record of your exit. Naturally, if I had been involved, I would not have detained you, but when GS called the attorney general from airport and asked what to do with you, the attorney general said to detain you. What can we do?” he adds, with the half smile and shrug that characterizes the Lebanese fatalism my wife and I so often poke fun at. Anyhow, Captain X calls; I get on the phone. Wife explains that she did get a call from the trusty, who sounded furtive and scared. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to call her or the embassy, but she didn’t like it, and immediately called the US embassies in Qatar and Beirut, and also a friend in Beirut who suggested we call Captain X. Captain X has been putting in good work, and I should be released within 30 minutes. (It turns out to be more like a couple of hours, but no matter; they let me wait in the major’s office instead of going back to the cell.)
In the meanwhile, the consul from the embassy shows up. When the Major said the consul was coming, I assumed some embassy flunky or lower-level staffer. I mean, it’s not like he’s the ambassador or anything, but it seems like kind of an important guy to send 45 minutes from Awkar into Beirut. (The US embassy isn’t actually in Beirut any more, for painful reasons.) I don’t know for sure why he, specifically, came. He says, “It’s all part of the service.” By this time, the Major has apparently already signed my release, so it’s all over but the shouting. Then follows some bureaucratic Kabuki theater in which the Major says to the consul, “If you send us a list of all the evacuees from 2006, we can update our databases, and these inconveniences can be avoided in the future.” The consul points out (what the Major surely already knows) that the US evacuated some 15,000 citizens in July 2006. (Unsaid, but clear to me, is that GS doesn’t have the manpower or facilities to coordinate its databases with a list this long, and the Major is trying to feign concern while deflecting blame.) Also, the consul says, these lists are considered by the Vienna conventions (or treaty or something) consular documents and are confidential. More discussion follows (boring details elided). Handshakes all around. I collect my stuff, making sure none of it has vanished.
We exit the building onto a fairly quiet street. The consul says he wouldn’t feel right just setting me free on the streets to flag down a taxi, and can give me a ride to my hotel. I could probably get a taxi in 5 or 10 minutes, and God knows I rode enough taxis all over Beirut in the 6 years I lived there. But who turns down a free ride? I scrunch into the back seat of their Crown Vic (I guess they ditched the big black Suburbans with tinted windows they used to drive around Beirut, whose only purpose as far as I could tell was to telegraph to all and sundry, “Shoot here!”). I notice that the driver and the bodyguard in the front seat each have an M-16 leaning down from the seat into the floorboard. I can see the driver’s has a small nametag taped to the stock, sort of like a kid’s nametag sewn into his underwear. Only not like that at all, I guess. Both of them are Lebanese, as is the consul’s assistant. I’ve always found it interesting that the embassy uses pretty much excusively Lebanese for its security. I’m told that Lebanese who do embassy security for a certain number of years get US citizenship, but I don’t know if this is true.
They take me to the formerly notable but now somewhat down at the heels Mayflower Hotel in Hamra, where I have my reservation. They stick around to see if the hotel kept my reservation even though I didn’t show up the previous day (the hotel did). I thank the consul. He says again that it’s part of the service. Off they go. My room is not ready, so I can’t call my wife, but she calls the front desk, and I take the call in a room off the lobby. Isn’t it nice to have someone who will work their ass off on your behalf and do what it takes to make sure you are okay? I go to my room. Crisp white sheets and a hot shower. Nothing better.
That night I walked up to Hamra Street and went to a Roadside Diner for a burger and fries. (Hey; I’ve lived in the Middle East for most of the past 8 years; at some point, eating Middle Eastern food all the time just becomes an affectation.) Since I’m alone and it’s crowded, I wind up at the bar. The guy next to me (gratuitously) informs me that he is the Lebanese Thai boxing champion, and (even more gratuitously) shows me on his cell phone a picture of him in which he is posing shirtless and flexing his muscles. I go back to my hotel room and reflect on what I often tell my wife: you can say many things about Lebanon, but you cannot exactly say that it is boring.
glad you got out OK.