Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 4.2% (FY96/97)
Transnational Issues Laos
Disputes - international: demarcation of boundaries with Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam is nearing completion, but with Thailand, several areas including Mekong River islets, remain in dispute; ongoing disputes with Thailand and Vietnam over squatters
Illicit drugs: world's third-largest illicit opium producer (estimated cultivation in 2001 - 22,000 hectares, a 5% decrease over 2000; estimated potential production in 2001 - 200 metric tons, about the same as in 2000); potential heroin producer; transshipment point for heroin and methamphetamine produced in Burma; illicit producer of cannabis; growing methamphetamine abuse problem
This page was last updated on 1 January 2002
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Lebanon
Introduction
Lebanon
Background: Lebanon has made progress toward rebuilding its political institutions since 1991 and the end of the devastating 16-year civil war. Under the Ta'if Accord - the blueprint for national reconciliation - the Lebanese have established a more equitable political system, particularly by giving Muslims a greater say in the political process while institutionalizing sectarian divisions in the government. Since the end of the war, the Lebanese have conducted several successful elections, most of the militias have been weakened or disbanded, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have extended central government authority over about two-thirds of the country. Hizballah, the radical Shi'a party, retains its weapons. Syria maintains about 20,000 troops in Lebanon based mainly in Beirut, North Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley. Syria's troop deployment was legitimized by the Arab League during Lebanon's civil war and in the Ta'if Accord. Damascus justifies its continued military presence in Lebanon by citing Beirut's requests and the failure of the Lebanese Government to implement all of the constitutional reforms in the Ta'if Accord. Israel's withdrawal from its security zone in southern Lebanon in May of 2000, however, has emboldened some Lebanese Christians and Druze to demand that Syria withdraw its forces as well.