The Arab world is witnessing popular uprisings against rulers who have suppressed, stolen and killed, and arrested their own people. Popular tribunals have resulted, overturning or rising up against and resisting these regimes.

In fact, Lebanon was fearful of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to try those involved in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, and its consequences for Lebanon. Various people who expected civil strife because of the STL never once expected that popular tribunals in the countries of the region would overtake this international court. No one is now talking about the STL and its consequences because the popular tribunals have moved faster than international justice. Arab peoples are resisting murder, assassination, corruption, oppression and the lack of freedom, because they have matured and are dissatisfied with the same old, stone age policies in an age of modern communications, the internet, the spread of information and the openness of Arab peoples to this modernity.

A portion of the Lebanese people have been fearful of the possibility of the outbreak of civil strife because of the consequences of the STL, which is looking into the assassination of Rafiq Hariri and his comrades, and the other assassinations that targeted a series of martyrs, because they fought for liberty, sovereignty and free expression. The popular tribunals in several states have arisen to stop these practices. The popular uprisings in Arab states are continuing, and magistrate Daniel Bellemare is continuing to study the results of his investigations with a team of judges. He believes that the revolutionary fervor has outpaced the civil strife that some Lebanese promised would result from his investigations. Do these people, who talked about the politicization of the STL, the investigations, and the results, believe that the popular tribunals now underway in several countries are all politicized, and that they are all of foreign design, and all represent conspiracies? Do they believe that the uprisings in Libya, Tahrir Square in Cairo, and in Tunisia, and elsewhere, are all foreign conspiracies that were the work of “rats,” as Moammar Qaddafi put it? Or, were the “rats” actually the regimes in these states, which murdered, oppressed, stole, imprisoned and clung to power, disregarding the will of the people, who were silent for decades and then woke up, because they had their fill of oppression, killing and corruption?

Today, after the popular tribunals have outpaced the STL, the consequences of this court have yet to arise. However, the issue of the STL remains central, because it is accompanying the popular tribunals that have outpaced it. The uprisings of today have led people to ignore the campaigns against the STL, but the tribunal is nonetheless very meaningful, with everything taking place around it in the Arab world. The regimes cannot continue to kill, assassinate, dominate, oppress and intimidate. Those who organized the bombing of civilian aircraft, like Qaddafi and his clique, and were then forgiven by the West, which wanted to do business with him, will sooner or later see themselves brought to justice.

There are many other people responsible for killing innocent people, and they will be tried, sooner or later. The Israeli regime commits crimes against the Palestinian people on a daily basis, and if it does not wake up and see what is going on around it, and if it continues in its policies of oppression and assassination, it will also see its turn come, because the world has changed!