In Operation al-Redwan Memory: We Don´t Want Guarantees From Anyone Regarding Arms,Tribunal

Local Editor

Hizbullah held the first anniversary celebration of "Operation al-Redwan" on Friday afternoon, 17/07/2009, at "Shahed" High School hall - Airport Road, during which Hizbullah Secretary-General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech via a screen. The following is its text:

I seek refuge in God from Satan, the accursed. In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate; praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds; may the mercy and peace of God be upon our Lord and Prophet Mohammad and his good and chaste family members, righteous companions, and all the Apostles and messengers.

Peace, God's mercy and blessings be upon you all.

On this day, together we celebrate the first anniversary of "Operation al-Redwan", one of the victories of the resistance, a fruit of the sacrifices made by our people, families, resistance, national army, our nation and our fighters.

The days of the July month until the fourteenth of August, are special days for you and us, in its spirit and memories, in its stands, positions and challenges, difficulties and cruelty, in the scenes of devotion, selflessness and sacrifice, fortitude and resilience and dynamism, additional to the will and courage, gallantry, honor, pride, dignity and victory, that Operation al-Redwan gift came from God Almighty on the same days we were fighting a fierce battle against a cruel enemy, paying the price of resistance and the price of the resistance's nationalistic, moral, humanitarian and Jihadist committment.

Concerning these days in general, I will talk about the July war of aggression- "Lebanon's Second War" as the enemy calls it and about its consequences and current and future regional implications of this war on "Israel" on the 14 August Festival celebration, which we consider as a conclusion to the sacrifices made during that war, the conclusion for steadfastness and the beginning of a new phase in the conflict.

Rightly so, we consider it the divine victory, the victory God promised the believers, truthful Mujahideen, the honest faithful and sacrificing, as explained by the whole world each according to their own intellectual, ideological backgrounds and particular school. But allow us to insist on giving our interpretation from our own intellectual background and special school as well to say that what happened in July and on the August 14 was an obvious divine victory. Anyway, we leave this matter to the August 14.

Today, I would like to stick to the anniversary of Operation al-Redwan and to the prospects and climates of this case. When we talk about Operation al-Redwan, everyone remembers that we mean the prisoner-exchange, which led to the liberation of our fellow Lebanese prisoners in the "Israeli" prisons and in their forefront the mujahid brother the Dean of Prisoners, Samir Kintar, and the rest of the Mujahideen brothers of the Islamic resistance who were captured during the war at that time as well as the return of a large number of bodies and body remains of martyrs, Lebanese, Palestinians and Arabs. The remaining issue is brother Yahya Skaff and other issues, which I will talk about shortly.

Despite the fact that there are many topics one can talk about today, such as the subject of the July war, the regional situation, the developments in the so-called settlement process, the escalation in the "Israeli" position and the obvious American position, todayI will focus on the two topics I chose in the given time God Willing:

1- POW's
2- The internal subject of the Lebanese government.

Regarding the prisoners, the issue here is closely connected to the basis:
• How does anyone view what is called 'prisoners of war' (POW)?
• How did anyone used to view a POW?
• How is anyone supposed to view a POW now or in the future?

This background and basis, is what governs our conduct, stand, work, rhetoric and engagement with the POW file in the past and in the future. This is not about us, I am talking in general.
Based on this if we go back in the past to the definitions and descriptions of the facts, a prisoner is a citizen who belongs to some kind of people, for example a Lebanese prisoner means a Lebanese citizen, a Palestinian prisoner means a Palestinian citizen.

So a prisoner belongs to a certain people who have rights and a just cause, which are being taken away by an enemy. This citizen believes in his people and believed in the just cause of his people, he believes in the righteousness of his rights that were stolen away. So for this reason this citizen worked for his cause, he took his people's enemy as his, upheld his cause, and he did not just show faith, education and knowledge of the cause.

This citizen had the motive and incentive and also had the will and determination to work, to fight and to take part in a long struggle, a military, political, media and civil struggle... name it what you will... So this citizen goes into a long struggle to defend his people, the dignity of his people, and the justness of his cause to reclaim his stolen rights.
Hence, he is opposed by the enemy.

Some of these resistance combatants, revolutionaries or Mujahideen, again name them what you will, are confronted with bullets and thus they are killed, others are captured and put behind bars, thus this citizen becomes a 'Captive' or is then called a 'Captive'.

According to customary literary you can call him 'Prisoner', 'Detainee', 'Arrested' 'Captured' but this does not express the truth of the matter, the truth of the person and his stand.
Millions are imprisoned in the world on different backgrounds.

Some are prisoners for having unjustly killed, others because they stole, others still because they sold drugs, worked against the orders of their country, or due to their political opinions, some because they are in the opposition, others because they are resistance fighters; these prisoners are not equal.

So this prisoner who has been arrested, his real name is a 'Captive'...
Throughout history people have come to know this, so a captive or a detainee has had special rights and laws as far as the people and states throughout history. The captive has also had a specific unique moral, psychological and political situation when it comes to his relation with his state, people and his enemy.

Even enemies view prisoners or captives in a different way that they do prisoners held on criminal grounds, because of their resistance. So a 'Captive' or detainee regardless of which term we use to define it, when we talk about a captive, we know he was not imprisoned because of a personal conflict with another person, in a family conflict or personal revenge, a captive is imprisoned because of his national background, because of a motive to defend a humanitarian just and righteous cause.

When the prisoner is arrested for these reasons, we call him a captive, his responsibility is no longer the responsibility of his family only, the cause of Samir Kantar is not only the cause of the honorable Kantar family, and the issue of Sheikh Abed al-Kareem Obeid did not only concern the honorable Obeid family, nor did the issue of prisoner Dirani or any of the brothers who were in prisons or are still imprisoned, and again today the issue of the captive Yehya Skaff whose body has not been retrieved until now, it is not the concern of only the honorable Skaff family.

So any imprisoned captive is not only a cause concerning his family, but the cause of the Umma and the nation; it's a cause of a live conscience. Many times we heard arguments and questions, does the liberation of these captives deserve all these sacrifices and efforts? Does it deserve all this screaming and blood?

This question has been asked before.
But the issue is related to how we really view a captive?
If these people were arrested for personal reasons, it would not deserve such sacrifices, but if someone is arrested or left this world for certain cause, or entered in a struggle for the sake of a nation, it is a different case.

These people showed readiness to be martyrs, what is the difference between a martyr and a captive, when it comes to the motive and incentive, to be imprisoned on the battle front, while confronting guns, rockets, bombardment and death, both in the same stand, presence, trench, place and post, some resistance fighters pass away as martyrs, others may be injured or are captured...what is the difference between them?

Of Course some of them on the battle front are killed and some are arrested, so what is the difference?

That God chose one person to be a martyr and a different course for the other.
So these captives have in their hearts the spirit of sacrifice and martyrdom, and they practiced the act of giving for our sake, so that we all can be alive and feel alive, so that we can all be free, live in dignity, in order for our families to live side by side with us.
For these reasons they went to the field of battlefield, some ended up martyrs in graves others captives in jails.

As for the martyrs, congratulations to them on their place in the afterworld, we are not required to bring them back to this life and this world, and if they were given the choice to come back to this world they would only return to become martyrs again.

Now concerning the captives in prisons we have a responsibility towards these people, to liberate them as they wanted us to live freely and we have responsibilities towards their dignity as they wanted for us to live honorably. We are responsible towards their families as they wanted our families to be happy, this is the captives' right to live with their families in happiness and dignity.

This is the starting point and basis.
This in truth is a part of the resistance culture, this is the main issue these are the main reason for our approach and ideology concerning detainees; this is our approach of resistance.

Just like the expression 'Key to the elections' is often used during election times, this too is the key, this viewpoint, this background is the key, what I am saying now, this background is the key for all the other coming issues and causes.

In another expression, when you believe in the righteousness of this cause which deserves struggle, resistance and sacrifices, when we believe in this way, and of course sometimes we might be obliged to take up arms in confronting the occupation. This is what the people of the world did in confrontations against occupations throughout history so if this is our belief the battle becomes an honorable national battle, and not a circle of violence or a cycle of violence.

Now look in the media outlets, in the Arab world even the whole wider world in general, sometimes we criticize the rhetoric terms being used, we say how they can describe the martyrs of Gaza and Lebanon as 'dead', that's a shame they should call them 'martyrs'!
This are details, but the issue lies in the key, in the basis, the origin and the start, the main concern is the key, the general key, how do we view this battle?

If we view this battle as an honorable wholly humanitarian and a legitimate battle, the fighter in this battle becomes a resistance fighter, a struggler, a Mujahid-Mujahideen, even in the rhetoric, thought and moral standing and psychological view.

A dead person in such a battle is not viewed in the same way as other dead persons; he is viewed as a martyr, a martyr who sacrificed for the sake of his nation, the people and sanctities.
A wounded person is wounded is not viewed only as a wounded person, he is viewed as a person wounded in war, in resistance, who has sacrificed for the sake of his country and resistance.

Losses are also viewed as sacrifices, which lead to victory and not losses which we always speak about and remember with grief and sorrow for its loss.

What I am trying to say or explain is the background connected to the issued of prisoners and captives.
So anyone who gets engaged in such a battle becomes captive who very different from other prisoners of the world.

There are millions of prisoners in the world; some even say that these captives are like any other prisoners around the world...Certainly not!
In fact they are not like any of them; these are detainees who fought for their country, for their resistance, for their case and cause. The hopes, dreams, aims and goals of these detainees are different; they have different motives, incentives, aspirations and different ideological approach.

Therefore different responsibilities are to be held and accomplished by their families, people, and country.

Of course we do not only introduce these detainees in order to teach, explain or introduce the past, but also because we still have an open battle to face. In the "Israeli" prisons there are still thousands of Palestinian detainees and tens of Syrians and Jordanians in addition to missing Lebanese citizens and we do not know whether they are alive, detainees or martyrs.

From our perspective, we in Hizbullah in addition to all the other resistance groups in Lebanon believe in resistance, we are the ones who support resistance, and our approach is resistance, therefore, we see ourselves responsible and in charge of every resistance fighter that has been detained, whether he belongs to us or to any other resistance faction. We also consider ourselves responsible for all the missing people, whether Lebanese or Palestinian, those who went missing from the Lebanese territories. We are talking on the Lebanese and Arab world level concerning detainees who were trapped by the enemy, and we do have in fact signs that these detainees were indeed captured by the enemy.

On this basis, we acted on the basis of humanity, morality, patriotism, struggle and resistance. If anyone else had taken this responsibility we would not have done so.
We are not trying to compete with anyone, nor trying to be enemies with anyone or trying to replace anyone. Ever since the 1982 invasion and until now, we consider what we are doing as our duty, a duty which we must do, it is a religious duty. If any of our people, government or any other political faction has done this, we would not have had to do it

We might have participated and might not, some may have continued with their education or businesses, but since no other side played this role, we believe it becomes imposed upon us as a religious duty and role, we had to take this responsibility, in light of the circumstances which you are all familiar with.

Hence, we undertook this responsibility.

Thanks to God in the al-Redwan Operation the captives were returned, now what remains is the file of Yahya Skaff-(my tongue nearly slipped to say Samir Kintar after all the years of demanding for his release...he is now with us.)

Of course the findings delivered by the "Israelis", as I have indicated in a previous media conference, concerning Yahya Skaff are not convincing to his family, we told the family that the choice is theirs and Yahya Skaff's family told us they still believe Yahya is still alive in "Israeli" prisons, hence, we are committed to the family's decision.

To be fair to the truth of the matter, the facts or the findings given to us by the "Israelis" are not enough, whether legally or legitimately according to religious legitimacy, to qualify a decision regarding whether Yahya Skaff was martyred or not?

Based on legal, jurisprudence and religious legitimacy there is no sufficient evidence to presume he is dead, therefore according to this conclusion we must deal with his issue as if there is a live prisoner who remains in "Israeli" prisons, a live Lebanese captive whose name is Yahya Skaff.

Just as in other prisoner files or detainee files, whereby the detainees were freed, we must also continue with this file of Yahya Skaff the captive; we must take responsibility for his future as well.

There are still a number of martyrs' bodies and body remains; it is true that the "Israeli" enemy claimed in the Radwan prisoner swap operation to have no more bodies or body remains of martyrs left in their possession, but a previous claim made prior to the al-Redwan Operation, later exposed after the operation, talked about the existence of hundreds of martyrs' bodies.

We cannot concede to "Israeli" allegations and we will continue until we get back the rest of the bodies and remains of the martyrs.

The same goes for the missing people to reach a settlement regarding their fate, whether they be martyrs we want their remains and bodies, if alive we want these detainees back to freedom. Based on all the files we are following up in this process we emphasize that we are following up the missing persons, for whom there is evidence to have been captured or kidnapped by the "Israelis" or were handed over to the "Israelis" by militias collaborating with the "Zionists" at the time.

All these missing people's files form a single file we continue to follow up with the "Israelis".
In this same context, the case of the missing four Iranian diplomats remains alive not because they are Iranians but because they were diplomats who were kidnapped on Lebanese territory, accredited diplomats acknowledged and recognized by Lebanon, by the Lebanese government and people.

Thus we will continue to work on all these issues.

Of course regarding this type of issues some always used to ask us the question: "what is this got to do with you? Is this your business?"
Of course we don't want to go back into the past, but everyone does know how the state or the consecutive governments dealt with cases of detainees and missing people, they did not behave in an appropriate and suitable manner, to say the least in light of political calm phase we are all observing.

If we want to raise our tone a little we could say the consecutive governments behaved carelessly towards the detainees and missing citizens, without considering such files its responsibility.

Now the next government to be formed God willing, should it take responsibility for these files and issues, and begin to take serious and real steps towards addressing them, we in Hizbullah would be at the service of this government.

We certainly do not present ourselves as an alternative to the state or government, in this or in any other matter.
Today I even call on this next government, and I am not saying 'if ' the government takes responsibility but I call on the next government 'to' take responsibility, even plead to it to do so, and of course on this level we will be a helpful factor to such a next government with all our might.

Now again within the same context on this occasion I must salute the efforts made by the families of the detainees during the previous stages, their fathers, mothers, wives brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and different relatives.

We were witnessing responsible families, families who were concerned, who worked day and night, families who worked endlessly in the media, on the street, who made their case heard, who took the responsibility to remind us of the cause and during the past few years and the previous years we witnessed the efforts of these families which must continue.

We must also salute the efforts made by the factions and the public, the media outlets, politicians, also the efforts of certain culture and artistic personalities, in other words the efforts of all of the people who played a role in keeping this cause invigorated and alive.

Of course gratitude must also go to those who endlessly worked to liberate the prisoners or captives, to defend this cause, to give it its true standing in Lebanon and the Umma, and to provide cover for every act of Jihad aimed at liberating them, at the peak of these efforts was what happened during the July 2006 war.

Everyone's co-operation at the time, their presence in taking responsibility is what gave the prisoners issue after year 2000 the larger share of the resistance scene. Before year 2000, the prisoner issue was but one of all the parts of the resistance scene, after 2000 the prisoner file was the first, the strongest most important and prevailing file of the resistance.

Since we are in the context of giving thanks, and after thanking God first and foremost, we must give thanks to the muscle strength of the Mujahideen in the Islamic resistance, we must give thanks to their martyrs, captives, wounded, and to their leader the martyr Hajj Redwan-Hajj Imad Moghnieh, May peace be upon his soul and all the souls of the martyrs.

Now as long as we are still talking about the prisoner file on this very happy, dignified and joyous occasion, the commemoration of the liberation of the detainees, we must also remember, bring to mind and salute the thousands of the Palestinian detainees and the tens of Syrian and Jordanian detainees who are still now in "Israeli" jails and prisons. We salute their perseverance, patience, endurance and sacrifices and salute the families of these detainees, selflessly patient in steadfastness, for solidly standing and suffering the pain of living a very difficult situation.

Dear brothers and sisters,

I would like to tell you that this high number of detainees of Palestinian and Arab detainees remaining now in "Israeli" prisons is the same as al-Quds (Jerusalem) remaining under occupation, even harsher and more painful.

A person can put up with the occupation of his land, and can fight to liberate his land, but perseverance on the occupation of land is very different to the patience of the families, the mothers and fathers anxious to see their loved ones, the patience of the wives and sons to meet their loved ones, the extended family's patience for seeing the return of a relative, the friends waiting for the friend, comrades for their comrade, because here we speak about two humanitarian polarities within the same issue, because when the prisoner file is mentioned two parts are intrinsic in the prisoner file:

1- The prisoners themselves

2- The struggles and pains of these prisoners and their families, the important part which is a most painful part I believe.

I do not know how people in the Arab world react, as people, governments, political factions or media, but as for me I do confess that on personal level I am a sympathetic person, which is not a weak point it is a good point anyway... anyway I am one of those people who used to cry when I met these sons or children of the detainees, I used to feel so much sorrow even more than when I used to meet martyrs' orphans, because the martyrs' orphans know that their fathers or parents have been martyred who are now with the higher companion in eternal life, they do not live, the day and night, hoping to meet with their parents or with their loved ones.

We all know the meaning of the pain of waiting.

Now, today I feel the same feelings when I see the children, daughters and sons of the Palestinian and Arab detainees on TV screens, we as an Umma how do we respond to this?

I think the most painful issue is the captives remaining in jails, and what is the most humiliating and the biggest insult is for these people to stay in these jails. This is the most humiliating insult for the entire Ummah, the world wide Umma of hundreds of millions of Arabs and the Umma of one and a half billion Muslims.

The scene of the detainees or captives in "Israeli" prisons is a mark of humiliation and disgrace in the face of this Umma and we are a part of this Umma and we feel this humiliation and disgrace.

Look my dear brothers and sisters,

The whole world sympathized with "Israel's" military assault on Lebanon in July 2006 for 33 days, in which it destroyed and killed people in the thousands, wounded many others, and displaced more than one million human beings, yet the G8, the industrial nations, the Security Council and the whole world sympathized with "Israel", why?

If the reason was really about freeing the two "Israeli" soldiers, why then does "Israel" have the right to destroy Lebanon just because of two prisoners Hizbullah took claiming it is "Against International Law" according to their own opinion, hence allowing "Israel" to do all that.

Again, when the Palestinian resistance captured Gilad Shalit ("Israeli" Occupation soldier), "Israel" then further tightened the siege on one and a half million people in Gaza, again everyone in the whole world expressed understanding instead of pressuring "Israel" to lift the siege!
They pressured Hamas and the Palestinians to free Schalit or to make concessions in their conditions to free Schalit.

This is how the world is behaving, "Israel" is a racist state, a state which was invented, placed in the heart of our region, its position is adopted and respected by the whole world, and the whole world sympathizes with its brutality and crimes that killed thousands for the sake of one soldier but we as an Umma the whole world does not respect us at a time where thousands not only of our people and youngsters, but our women, Arab women are in "Israeli" jails!!

Where is the Arab honor?
Where is the Arab dignity?
Show me where is this Arab dignity?

Yes, this Umma needs these martyrs, who worked on the path to sacrifice their souls, not for the sake of liberating detainees, but for the sake of proving the dignity of this Umma, which cannot accept humiliation or disgrace.

This Umma-nation needs Imad Moghnieh, needs people who set such examples Jihad and leadership, we saw such examples these examples that were set here in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Iraq and in many other places of resistance.

Today on the anniversary of the Redwan Operation of the prisoner swap, I wanted to raise this voice.
I, as any Lebanese, Arab or Muslim person with these feelings and experiencing this humiliation, wanted to ask myself and others the question: where is our dignity?

Before I move on to the last section of this talk, to speak about the local internal situation- not a large part- and on the occasion of the title of the captives file, I want to point out to matters related according to their nature, although they have nothing to do with the "Israeli" subject.

We here in Lebanon, during the time when we think about our detainees in enemy prisons, whether we are in government, parliament house, among political forces, in the community or in civil society, we also need to look at a very harsh issue of extreme cruelty that recently came up.

What is the subject of a captive in enemy jails about; it is about being victim of injustice, in its humanitarian essence it is about unjust treatment of a human being.

While we view the captives in "Israeli" jails, let us also see the situation of those in Lebanese jails; are there any who are unjustly treated?

If not, we are certainly in support of the punishment of assaulters, murderers, thieves, corrupters and spies, but it is with concern we ask ourselves if some are being wronged there in the Lebanese prisons. What made me raise this point is the issue of the Palestinian brother Mr. Yusef Shaaban who was released from prison just a few days ago after a special amnesty was given to him by the Lebanese President and on the occasion I like to thank His Excellency the president of the republic for this special amnesty he granted Yusef Shaaban and on this fair and proper stand.

And I declare that, in my meeting with the PM-designate before he was appointed I did say to him we do not want guarantees for the resistance weapons, and I announce in front of the whole world we do not want any guarantees from the government or anyone else, nor from anyone in this universe, we do not want any guarantees in connection with the resistance weapons. This is something we were clear about, it is a closed issue and behind us now, because we both agreed that the discussion of this subject is on the dialogue table, and this table of dialogue discusses the subject of the arms of the resistance in the context of a national defense strategy. So we are not raising the issue of the arms of the resistance when we meet the PM-designate or any of the other political leaders concerned with the forming of the cabinet one way or another.
This is one point.