BEIRUT: Officials tasked with following up on the matter of the hostages will not meet until Wednesday or Thursday to discuss a list of demands issued Saturday by the Nusra Front, ministerial sources told The Daily Star Monday.
Relatives of the 27 kidnapped servicemen hope their imminent meeting with the head of the Higher Relief Committee will provide a window into the secret negotiations between the Lebanese government and the jihadist captors.
The families were supposed to meet Maj. Gen. Mohammad Khair Monday afternoon but the meeting was adjourned for unknown reasons, the relatives said.
After months of protesting, blocking roads and sleeping in tents, the soldiers’ families appear to have lost all faith in the government, but remain hopeful that Nusra’s prisoner swap proposal might be considered to end the crisis.
“We understood that all they care about is their private interests, and that the lives of our sons do not have any value to them,” said Jawdat Jaber, father of kidnapped Lance Cpl. Maymoun Jaber.
Several other family members gathered around Jaber near his blue tent in Downtown Beirut’s Riad al-Solh Square where they have been camping out through rainstorms over the past several weeks to remind the government they cannot be ignored.
Pointing at the Grand Serail, which is protected from the angry citizens by barbed wire and barricades, Jaber made a call to the politicians he insisted were failing to carry out their duties.
“Accept the demands, and let us have our sons back. Enough playing with our nerves, and enough making a huge deal out of it. Make a decision,” he urged as others nodded their heads in agreement.
Nusra Front militants, who along with ISIS are holding 27 servicemen hostage in Arsal’s outskirts, announced Saturday their new demands for releasing them.
The government was given three choices: either to release 10 Islamist detainees from prison for each captive; to release seven detainees and ask the Syrian government to release 30 women from its prisons for each captive; or to release five men from Lebanon and 50 women from Syria for each captive.
Jaber said that representatives of the families were waiting to meet with Khair, hoping to receive new information about the government’s internal discussions.
As for the crisis cell, which is a small committee responsible for the negotiations on behalf of the government, its next meeting will take place Wednesday, the soldiers’ parents were told.
But ministerial sources told The Daily Star the meeting might take place Thursday, as Prime Minister Tammam Salam returns to Beirut from abroad Wednesday afternoon.
The Cabinet Thursday will have its weekly meeting, during which the ministers may make a decision over the hostage crisis.
Jaber and those standing around him could not hide the anger and frustration accumulated over the past three months, powerless to help their children as they fed off bits of often contradicting information.
Jaber explained that their anger is being exacerbated by their awareness that the Islamists in Roumieh’s prison were enjoying better lives than their sons, while the government hesitates to make any real decision.
“If they believe that keeping the Islamist detainees in prison is more important than getting back our sons, then see what I’ll do [to the Roumieh prisoners] if the captors injure my son,” he warned.
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