Mlita: When A Landmark Site Tells The Story of The Resistance!

by Hussein Assi – Wael Karaki Al Manar, 22/05/2010

With Mlita, the tenth anniversary of Resistance and Liberation has another meaning…
 
Mlita, a village in the heart of South Lebanon, was a launching point for many resistance operations during the Israeli enemy’s occupation of Lebanon since 1982.
 
Today, ten years after the Liberation, Mlita became a landmark tourism site, the first of its kind, telling the whole world the full story of the Resistance and its heroes, the story of the fighters’ life and struggle at the time of the occupation, the story of steadfastness, perseverance and sacrifice.
 
MLITA… FIRST INITIATIVE TO WRITE DOWN RESISTANCE’S HISTORY

Mlita is not only a museum displaying the Resistance’s heavy weapons and those left by the Israeli enemy, to mark the tenth anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon. It is not only “a modest initiative compared… to the sacrifices and historic victories that have been gained.” It is not only an to preserve the history of resistance through a museum built on the ground of Resistance.” Mlita is even more and more. It is the Resistance in itself.
 
“Today we are trying to make a modest step compared to the history of our country and our people as well as to the history of the resistance in terms of the sacrifices and the historic victories that have been achieved,” Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said about the project during a speech he held Friday afternoon as he officially inaugurated the resistance landmark site in the southern town of Mlita, as part of the efforts to enhance Jihadi toursim in Lebanon. “Mlita was chosen because it is one of the old posts of the Islamic Resistance that was founded in the Iqlim El-Toffah region to face the Israeli occupation army and their collaborators’ fortified outposts.”
 
“Let us write down the history of the resistance from its many perspectives. Until now, everything that has been achieved was based on individual efforts. There are reports, articles, books about the resistance and its leaders. We need to make every effort to write down the history of the resistance as it is,” Sayyed Nasrallah said, emphasizing the objectives behind the project.
  
ENGINEER SAMMOUR TO AL-MANAR WEBSITE: THIS IS THE NEW MIDDLE EAST WE’VE DREAMT OF!

Adnan Ibrahim Sammour, one of the engineers who were in charge of the project, backed Sayyed Nasrallah’s perspective.
 
In an exclusive interview with Al-Manar website at the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony, Sammour pointed out that the project is one modest step aimed at writing down the history of the Resistance, at safeguarding the Resistance’s memory to keep it alive and transfer it from one generation to another.
 
Sammour explained to Al-Manar website the various stages the site has passed through since the beginning. “The idea emerged since the first days following the Liberation in 2000. It wasn’t elaborated at the time but we decided at the time to do something to write down this shining history and to authenticate the achievement made by the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon and turn it to a heritage for the Arab and Islamic nations after Arabs failed to make any achievements or victories throughout more than sixty years,” he said.
 
According to the engineer, the reason behind the choice of the geographic location of the site was that Mlita was in itself a main title of the Resistance. “Mlita is full of sacrifices and memories that led to the achievement of the final victory,” he said, adding that the implementation of the project started two years ago “whereas the four previous months witnessed intensive work to end the project at the specified time.”
 
Sammour revealed to Al-Manar website a plan to transform Al-Khiam detention prison to another site for Jihad’s tourism and to emphasize religious tourism in many regions in the South as well. He expected that Mlita landmark site would be a light stand not only in Lebanon and it the region, mainly because all nations aspire to see an authenticating scene about the heroic job done by the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon.
 
“This is the new Middle East, the real new Middle East that we have always dreamt of,” Sammour said, concluding his interview with Al-Manar website, referring to former US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice’s famous “New Middle East.”
 
MLITA… FROM A MILITARY BASE TO A MUSEUM!

The site, which was a Hezbollah military base during Israel’s 1978-1990 occupation of south Lebanon and the 2006 war, will open to the public from May 25, the anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal or ‘escape’ from Lebanon.
 
The museum showcases the various military tactics the Resistance fighters used against Israeli occupation soldiers during the 22-year occupation of Lebanese territories, which ended in May 2000. It also shows caves where Hezbollah fighters used to hide and monitor Israeli troop movements inside the Lebanese territories during the times of war. The area around the museum witnessed daily fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli troops during the occupation.
 
Dozens of anti-tank and Katyusha rockets, “Raad 1” missiles, mortars and rocket launchers are on display in the complex that encompasses a mountain cave, wooded grounds and a newly built gallery. Israeli Merkava tanks are also on display.
 
Mlita is a first step in the long struggle of writing down the Resistance’s history, a shining history that cannot be summarized by words, pictures, or even experiences…