A delegation of American hydraulics experts conducted a preliminary field survey Monday, September 16, at the South Lebanese site of the region’s latest water conflict. A fact-finding mission, headed by US State Department's emissary Richard Larsen, is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon Wednesday, in an attempt to mediate between Israel and Lebanon.
The team visited the Wazzani River, which feeds the Hasbani river flowing into Israel, and examined the construction works carried out by the Council of the South aimed at diverting the waters to feed some 60 villages in south Lebanon.
Even with the planned new uptake from the Wazzani, Lebanon would be taking less than 10 million cubic meters a year from the watercourses of the Jordan basin, Lebanese officials asserted. “We are taking a much lesser amount from what we are entitled to take,” Hashem Haidar, director general of Lebanon's Council of the South, told DPA.
The team will then head to Beirut, where it will attempt to mediate in the dispute, which broke out last week between Lebanon and its southern neighbor Israel. "If there is conflict, it should be settled within the framework of the United Nations in line with international conventions," a US Embassy official accompanying the team told Reuters.
Work on the project is continuing and Lebanon has asked permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to persuade Israel to stop making war threats over the water diversion project.
Dozens of locals rallied Sunday near the Wazzani site where engineers were laying a pipeline in support of the government's plan to pump water. Yellow Hezbollah flags were flying at the site. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
