VZCZCXRO2807
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 
-------- 
 
¶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