Clck here for Full ssue of ER Volume 17, Number 44, November 16, 1990 Tll Feature t was Kssnger who destroyed the naton of Lebanon by Bassam El Hashem Bassam El Hashem s a professor at the Socal Scence nsttute at the Lebanese Unversty n Berut. He has been lvng n France snce July 1989, and has wrtten a book on the Lebanese crss, whch wll be publshed n early 1991 by the French Natonal Center for Scentfc Research (CNRS). He has been servng as an unoffcal spokesman for the Lebanese patrotc movement of Gen. Mchel Aoun n France and elsewhere n Europe. The followng ls an edted and somewhat condensed transcrpt of a speech gven by Mr. El Hashem to the Schller nsttute n Leesburg, Vrgna on Oct. 24, less than two weeks after the surrender of General Aoun' s forces to the Syran-backed puppet r gme of Elas Hraw. 'm gong to gve you a small dea of the poltcal systems that were, and stll are, n place n the Mddle East-except for Lebanon, whch has now, for 10 days, been wped off the map of the world. But n the other countres, the regmes have been the same snce the end of the 1960s-except for ran, whose regme was replaced n 1979, after the fall of the Shah and the nstallaton of the revolutonary regme, whch s a Sh'te one, the slamc Republc.. Let us start wth Lebanon. Lebanon has 17 communtes, half of the populaton beng Chrstan, and the other half, Muslms and Druses. [See the accompanyng artcle for a fuller dscusson of the demographc features of the Mddle Easted.] f you want to compare the dfferent regmes whch were n place n the area, the frst characterstc of the Lebanese regme was that t was typcally a regme of power sharng---:-whatever les have been spread about Lebanon all these years. t was the only country of the Mddle East, ncludng srael, where all the communtes were guaranteed a certan part n the government; and that formula seems to have worked well enough, n order to brng about prosperty to the country. Lebanon was perhaps the most prosperous country n, the Mddle East n the frst half of the 1970s. n order to prove that, let us remember that the Lebanese pound 26 Feature ER November 16, 1990 1990 ER News Servce nc. All Rghts Reserved. Reproducton n whole or n part wthout permsson strctly prohbted.
[BAND EVE Gen. Mchel Aoun sought to rally both Chrstans and Muslms n defense of Lebanon's natonal unty and soveregnty, but was btterly betrayed by the Unted States, andfnally defeated n October of ths year. Shown here s a demonstraton by Lebanese-Amercans n support of Aoun at Lafayette Park near the Whte House, on Nov. 29, 1989. was then one of the fve strongest currences of the worldthe equvalent of half a dollar at that tme. (Of course now, you need 1,200 Lebanese pounds to make a dollar.) f ths Lebanese poltcal system ddn't work, and ddn't ensure real cooperaton among all the communtes, one couldn't explan ths prosperty that Lebanon enjoyed at that tme. The srael system had always been the opposte. Whle the Lebanese system was a multrelgous and multcultural system, relyng on a peaceful coexstence among 17 communtes, the srael regme had always been stressng the fact that t s, and wll forever be, a monorelgous and a monoracal state. That's very mportant to be noted, because we wll see how ths affected the destny of Lebanon later on. The bloody rse of Hafez a-assad f we go to Syra, we fnd that n 1963, a coup d'etat occurred, led by what was called the Mltary Commttee. The Mltary Commttee was formed of some offcers who all were descendants of the mnorty Alawte communty, and among whom was Hafez a-assad. He was a member of ths Alawte mltary communty, but when they led ther coup d'etat, they ddn't put themselves forward as beng Alawte Mltary Commttee, but rather, n the name of the Ba'ath Party. The deology of the Ba'ath Party s a pan-arabst deology, pretendng to favor the reunfcaton of the Arab naton for the constructon of a socalst socety, and a free socetyand, of course, an deology to fght n favor of the lberaton of Arab rghts and terrtores whch had been usurped by srael. That was the deology. But what was gong on underground, was totally dfferent. n the begnnng, the Alawtes managed to convnce some fgures of ths balanced party, some Chrstan and some Sunn fgures, and especally the founder of the Ba'ath Party, who was a Chrstan named Mchel Aflak, the man fgure of the Ba'ath deology. The Alawtes managed to convnce hr to get nvolved wth them. But ths ddn't last long, because n 1965, all these fgures, Sunn and Chrstans, werej swept out, and the only ones left were Alawtes. But 1965 wasn't the fnal round among the dfferent factons wthn ths mltary offce, because they all wanted to be the supreme master of the game. n 1967 another coup d'etat happened; n 1968 another cdup d'etat happened; and the fnal one happened n 1970, when Hafez a-assad, who had been before that, durng the 1967 war between the Arabs and srael, the mnster of defens of Syra-the one who lost the war. So he came up wth a eoup d'etat that he called el-haraq ad-tachhyya-a movement of rectfcaton. He wanted to correct what was gong!wrong--even though he had been mnster of defense durng the war. Snce then, never has ths regme known any 6ther coup d'etat, or any other trouble. But that's only on the surface. PJmong the dfferent domnant factons, no more problems &:curred snce then. But what was gong on underground w s totally dfferent: a war ER November 16, 1990 Feature 27
The Mddle East today EGYPT Caro 0 NEUTRAL ZONE SAUD ARABA o Ryadh o Teheran RAN... -"'\.,/,...-- '.... J /AFGHANSTAN "' 'l.. f..._---- _. '" PAKSTAN '" SUDAN between ths regme and the Syran populaton, a real war. The Syrans were always resstng the regme, but the only way that ths regme faced the opposton was by kllng the opposton: cleanng up the admnstraton, the mltary forces, the educatonal system, everythng! They just elmnated all the prevous staff and replaced them by Alawtes. Snce the begnnng of the 1970s-that s, snce Hafez a-assad took power n Syra-from 1970 to 1980, 70% of all the scholarshps that were awarded to Syran students for studes abroad, were gven to Alawte students. Now, all the key fgures of the Syran government are Alawtes. They control the Army, the Defense Brgades-t's a sort of Securtate, f you remember the Ceausescu system, and they bult the Syran system accordng to the system of Ceausescu, who used to be a great frend of Hafez a-assad. n 1982, the latest confrontaton occurred between the regme and the cvlan resstance. Hafez a-assad sent n hs brother, because these Defense Brgades were, snce 1970, commanded by Rfaat a-assad. n order to face the cvlan opposton n 1982, Hafez al Assad sent hs troops, ths Defense Brgade, the elte of the Syran forces, to Hama, n the north of Syra, because that's where the stronghold of the resstance was. Wthn three days, they klled 20-30,000 Syrans, and destroyed 20-100% of the cty. That's only to gve you regme. Of course, when he Ullllllllllt;U all these crmes, nobody knew anythng, everythng s under control n Syra-the meda,. Only a few months later on, we started to fnd out t. Maybe Le Monde, the French newspaper, was the frst to publsh anythng about t. Mchel Seurat, the French, was kdnaped and then klled n Berut. Do you why he was klled? Hs wfe was Syran, and because that, he was allowed to get nto the real Syra-what was y gong on. He wrote a lot of thngs about the real of the Syran regme. He revealed ts real nature as a an regme, a mnorty regme keepng a whole country control by represson, by terror. So, he lost hs lfe he told ths. We all know that Mchel Seurat, other thngs were sad at that tme, was klled after he was kdnaped. More coups: raq and Let's go to the raq '. The team that s now n power n raq, took control n 1 You notce, that all ths occurred after the 1967 war, be(:am.e ths war provoked a collapse of the credblty of the pre-establshed Arab regmes. They were all vctory and glory to the 28 Feature November 16, 1990
Arabs, and they were beaten. So all the ambtous factons who wanted to seze power n the dfferent countres, sezed the opportunty, and overthrew all the pre-establshed regmes, and took control of ther countres. The new team n 1968, whch took power n raq, was led by three key fgures. Frst was Ahmad Hassan al-bakr. Second was Saddam Hussen, who was the second man. (n fact he was the key man; but as usual, as Hafez al-assad had done n Syra, they put all ther rvals up front, and then start to reduce ther power. And when everybody s smashed, the real hero appears later on.) Thrd was Hardan al-takrt. He was klled two years later. Nobody knows who klled hm, but we only know that he was klled n a helcopter crash. Whether t was an accdent or a plot, nobody knows. Later on, Ahmad Hassan al-bakr was put away, and Saddam Hussen became the master of Baghdad. Ths happened n 1978, just one year before the war broke out between raq and ran. Who s Saddam Hussen? He s nether a Sh'te nor a Kurd, but an Arab Sunn. That means that he descends from a mnorty n raq. t's not as much of a mnorty as the Alawtes n Syra, because the Arab Sunns n raq are around ' 20%-but at the same tme, there s another source of confuson n raq, because they have the ethnc problem between the Arabs and the Kurds. f the power went to a Sh'te, the Kurds would absolutely rse up aganst hm. So, the Arab Sunns could always play on ths opposton between Kurds and Arabs, to ther own beneft. Whle the Syran regme pretends to be a Ba'ath regme, the raq regme clams to belong to the same deology. That s, they both belong to the Ba'ath Party, the Ba'ath deology; they both are fghtng for the unty of the Arab world, of the "Arab naton," as they say; but snce they came to power, they have been enemes. Let's go to ran. Snce 1975, the Shah's regme n ran had been relyng on a very strong army. More and more, the Shah became a real regonal power. n the begnnng, he was under Amercan protecton. But n the mddle of the 1970s, he started to seek a role for hmself; he wanted to become the polceman of the Gulf, and he showed some dstance regardng the Amercan hegemony n the regon. He was thrown out two or three years later by the Ayatollah, who nstalled an slamc republc-that's what t's called, but n realty t's a Sh'te republc. Ths s very mportant to understand. Now let us return to the Lebanese problem. There was no Lebanese 'cvl war' Usually t s sad that n Lebanon there was a cvl war, or more precsely a relgous war, a war between Chrstans and Muslms. What want to show now, s that never dd Lebanon have a cvl war; that war, even f some Lebanese factons took part n t, could not be understood as a war between Chrstans md Muslms, because what was really gong on was a war totally orchestrated/rom outsde. Occuped Lebanon Occuped by srael Enclave under control of Samr Geagea's Lebanese Forces Occuped by Syra UNFL postons, PLO, varous Syran and ranan alles SRAEl ) ( t DEAD SEA //. \,""\,.... \ /" \. ( / \.. _---. SYRA Damascus t was Henry Kssnger who or he!;trated ths war, and wll tell you why. The war was accomplsh three targets: to gve n order to to srael; to gve satsfacton to the Alawte regme Syra; and to serve the Amercan strategy n the Mddle determned from the begnnng of snce the Arab-srael war of 1 tme, Kssnger was Presdent 's natonal securty advser. What was the nterest of ths, one has to know that after 1 after the Black September for the Palestnans-the llla,, a"l n Jordan whch led to a resstance from Jordan-Lebanon the only stronghold of the PLO n the whole area. and the Gulf, as t was 1970s and specfcally by Kssnger. At that n order to understand of the Palestnans of all the Palestnan ER November 16, 1990 Feature 29
Prof. Bassam E Hashem, speakng at the Natonal Press Club n Washngton, Oct. 19, 1990. After the 1967 war, whch led to the downfall of many Arab regmes, the Palestnans decded for the frst tme not to count any more on any Arab promses, because they had been countng on Arab promses snce 1948, but the regmes had lost three wars: n 1948, n 1956, and n 1967. Then the Palestnans decded to take ther destny nto ther own hands after 1967-that's when a Palestnan armed resstance grew up. So when Lebanon became the only stronghold of the Palestnan resstance, and ths resstance started really to represent a strategc threat to srael, srael wanted to destroy the PLO once and for all. srael s stll refusng now to recognze any rght for the Palestnans; her dea at that tme was that by elmnatng the PLO, the Palestnan cause would be bured once and for all on Lebanese sol. But that was only one target. Another target was the Lebanese system tself, snce srael stresses ts nature as a monorelgous and monoracal state and refuses any sort of dealng wth any knd of multplcty or coexstence wth Arabs. The PLO had proposed n 1968 and, n 1973, the Arab League sent the Lebanese Presdent of the Republc, Suleman Franjeh, to the Unted Natons, to offer Lebanon as a model for a future compromse between the Palestnans and srael, n such a way that n the future, the soluton. would come from a compromse whereby the Jews and the Arabs-the Arabs beng Chrstans as well as Muslms-would lve n peace, as they had lved n Lebanon. Because of ths, srael wanted to destroy the Lebanese pattern. srael wanted to destroy ts Lebanese antthess. Only by ths, could srael have demonstrated that she s rght, because as long as the Lebanese pattern was able to survve, that would always be an argument aganst the srael state. Secondly, the war of 1973 came along. t was a war launched by the Arab regmes ndeed, for the frst tme, the Arabs ddn't lose-they ddn t really realze a vctory, but they ddn't lose ether. That meant that from then on, a certan balance between srael and the Arabs had been acheved. srael realzed that maybe n t e future, Arab unty would be strong enough to beat the sradl entty. Ths wasn't only a produc of the stuaton prevalng n 1973. t became evdent what had been the polcy of srael's founders even from the early 1940s, from the foundaton of the srael state. Accordng to he memors of Moshe Sharet, who had been prme mnster d srael at the begnnng of the 1950s (he ded at the end of the decade, and hs son managed to publsh, aganst the wll of! the present leaders of srael, hs memors n 1976 or 1977), from the begnnng, Ben Gunon and all the founders of srael were always hopng that they would be able to create atound them monoconfessonal states n order to homogenze srael's very nature wth the envronment. n 1973, ths became very relevant to srael, because f Arab unty represents a strate c threat for srael, the only way to fght ths was to try to convert the common hostlty of the Arabs aganst srael nto rostlty among the Arabs, by provokng the Arabs one aganst the others, across the lnes separatng the dfferent relgous communtes. They wanted to start wth Lebanon, by usng the weak- nesses of Lebanon, because of the PLO presence n Lebanon, wth a very heavy presence of Palestnan refugees-they represented at that tme more than 20% of the populaton; that's huge, tremendous. srael wanted not only to destroy Lebanon, the antthess of srad, but n ts place they wanted to create three mcroscopc mnstates-sh'te, Druse, and Chrstan-fghtng aganst e1ch other, hopng that ths would be able to be generalzbd all over the Mddle East. That would allow us to understand why srael supported ran after the war broke out betwee ran and raq. We wll come back to ths pont. srael wanted always to elmnate the PLO, to destroy the Lebanese pattern of peaceful oexstence among dfferent communtes, to buld up, n tne place of ths pattern, rval and hostle confessonal mn-stlates, to balkanze the regon. There was another reason hat srael wanted to destroy Lebanon: the south of Lebano. What s the property of the south of Lebanon? Palestne s or n water, and the south of Lebanon s extremely rch n water. n the south, we have three rvers: the Ltan Rver, whch has ts source n the central Bekaa Valley and goes to the Medterranean along the town of Tyre n the south. 11 us, the rver only crculates nsde the Lebanese boundares. The two other rvers are the Hasban and the Wazzan, the ources of the Jordan Rver, whch rrgates the Palestnan t rrtores. Ths s somethng that sra 1 1 always wanted to control, even from the early begnnngs, wth that famous Balfour promse from Hs Majesty that they would have a homeland n Palestne. n 19 19, the Zonkt leaders came to the peace 30 Feature ER November 16, 1990
conference n Versalles seekng to be allowed to annex the south of Lebanon, statng that ths would be the only way for them to rrgate the srael terrtores for agrculture and to allow srael to have water for tself. Snce then, ths goal had never changed, and when the war broke out, srael wanted to acheve ths purpose. Syran desgns upon Lebanon As far as the Syran regme s concerned, as you already know, t managed to keep n power only by elmnatng, by terror and volence, any and all opposton. But Hafez al Assad and hs assstants knew that ths would not be able to last forever. n order to ensure what was needed for the long-range survval of the Syran regme, somethng had to be done on a structural level. Frst of all, ths regme pretended to be fghtng for the unty of the Arab world, the lberaton of the Arab terrtores---everythng you can magne as extremst slogans. But at the same tme, the PLO was representng a real revolutonary force, threatenng all the Arab regmes that were n power. And the PLO s, from the Alawte standpont, a Sunn force, because the Palestnans are about 90% Sunns and 10% Chrstans. But of course the leadng force was Sunn-Arafat s a Sunn. So, n order to ensure the safety of the regme, they always wanted to elmnate the PLO. That's one common goal ofsrael and the Syran regme: They both wanted to elmnate the PLO-from srael's pont of vew, for the securty of the state, and from the Alawte pont of vew, for the securty of the regme. But that wasn't the whole story of the Syran regme. Whle everythng s controlled n Syra, Lebanon used to be the only democratc country n the regon, wth a very free press. That was absolutely dangerous for such a regme as the Syran one. So Assad needed to destroy that freedom n Lebanon, and that meant that Lebanon became the frst target. But there was another goal of the Syran regme, and ths one s essentally a demographc one. Of course, n order to counterbalance the Sunn majorty of 72%, Hafez a-assad could have converted people-but nowadays t's not common to convert people to a relgon by force--or could elaborate another strategy, whch would acheve such stablty for the regme. What he decded was to elaborate a strategy of gatherng a certan number of mnorty communtes-and when talk about mnortes 'm talkng on the general level of the whole Arab world, and not on the level of each country alone. Ths strategy conssted of gatherng together a certan number of mnortes, whch would have been able, by ther demographc weght and cultural, economc, and poltcal nfluence, to counterbalance the weght of the Sunns. Of course, n Syra alone, all the mnortes added up to only 28% of the populaton. So, the only thng was to annex Lebanon, because n Lebanon, the equaton between mnortes and the Sunn s just the opposte of what t s n Syraand of course the resdent populaton of Lebanon was at that tme 2.5 mllon, whle all around the world the mmgrants were mllons and mllons. That :was what was needed to stablze the regme. So the Alawte regme of Syra and srael turned out to be both objectvely seekng, eyen wthout any prevous agreement between them, to dest(oy the PLO frst, and to destroy the Lebanese state. Of course, they dd not want to destroy the Lebanese state for the same purpose: srael wanted to annex frst the south, and then to dvde up the country among three mcroscopc mn-states, whle Syra wanted to ntegrate the whole lot. Let's go now to the Amercan strategy. The U.S. polcy n 1973, the war that led to a certan balance between the Arabs and srael, also led to an ol embargo, whch was mposed by the Gulf ol producers /lganst the Western countres. Why? Because the Unted States had always been uncondtonally supportng srael aganst the Arab cause. They mposed the embargo n order to force the Unted States, and all the West, to fnally be a lttle bt more just. You all know the recesson that the embargo led to n the dfferent ndustralzed socetes. On the Amercan sde, Kssnger realzed that t was becomng urgent to confront ths ncreasng threat, the nstablty on the Medterranean sde of the Mddle East. What dd he decde to do, to control all ths, and to recoup the losses of the Anglo-Amercan fnancal mleu whch he always represented? Snce the Mddle East s the closest neghbor of the Sovet Unon, and at the same tme, the closest neghbor of Western Europe, the strategc poston of the regon always took a prvleged place n Amercan strategy. Ths strategy always sought to keep Sovet nfluence away from the regon, and, at the same tme, to control the regon n such a way as to control the dfferent European coultres. How? By keepng the ol under U.S. domnaton. How dd they usually manage to keep the ol under ther control? That was very easy. The stronger srael was, the more t was capable of threatenng the Arab countres, and the more the Arab countres were n need of somebody to protect them. Who was the "protector" who blackmaled them? The Amercan admnstraton. That's what always happened snce at least 1956, whch was the last tme that the Amercan admnstraton decded to ntervene n a just way. n 1956, srael, France, and England went nto an expedton n the Suez Canal, and Esenhower forced them out. That was really the end-the only tme that the Amercans decded to really play a far game. So, n 1973, when the embargo occurred, that was a very bg problem. ER November 16, 1990 Feature 31
Refugees flee from ther destroyed home n southern Lebanon durng the "cvl war" n 1978. n fact; t was no cvl war. but a conflct mposed from the outsde. from whch the local warrng partes found they could not escape. What dd Kssnger's strategy consst of? Frst of all, he knew that as long as the srael-arab problem was not solved, nsecurty and the nstablty would be permanent n the regon. So, one had to fnd a solutonwhatever the soluton. When say "soluton," 'm not talkng necessarly about justce. The strategy elaborated by Kssnger was complex. He wanted to brng about peace between the Arabs and srael, but of course, f all the Arabs were allowed to dscuss peace wth srael together, that would weaken srael's dplomatc and poltcal poston. That's why Kssnger decded to promote a separate peace process, "step by step"; that's why after the war of 1973, the frst step was the dsengagement that occurred on the Sna, and then on the Golan Heghts. After ths dsengagement, he engaged n a separate peace process between srael and Egypt. That reached a happy end, thanks to Sadat and all hs strength-really-to- force the srael leaders to an agreement That reached an end n 1978. A second step was to penalze every sngle Arab leader who even dared to threaten Amerca. Who dared at that tme? Kng Fasal of Saud Araba. What was the prce he pad? He was klled n 1975. That turned out to be dssuasve enough to prevent anybody after hm from ever darng to proceed wth any other embargo. Thrd: As the Shah became more and more conscous o{ hs own strength, Mr. Kssnger decded that because the Shah was no longer a loyal clent, but was clamng ambtons for hmself, he would not be sutable from now on,.and should be removed. So begnnng n 1975, they started to destablze hs regme by the relgous factons. Why dd they use the relgous tacqolls, despte the fact that n ran there were democratc aganst the regme? Because they thought t was the way that allowed Amerca to keep the communst' out of the regon, and at the same tme helped to destablze regon, n order to be able to control t better. Because when the regon s unstable, could t be controlled. Fourth: The only Arab whch kept out of Amerca's control was, untl then, regme of Saddam Hussen. Hs regme was the only one reject all the nternatonal resolutons that stressed the ""1'-""""-1 of a compromse, a. negotated soluton for the problem. So they wanted to dmnsh the of ths regme, to humlate ths regme. The next step would be Qn: the war between raq and ran that would begn at of 1979., But before all ths, the war Lebanon was already orchestrated. Kssnger's strategy n Lell>allOn What dd Mr. Kssnger n Lebanon? The ultmate purpose was to prepare for a Syran-srael conclaton or compromse. But a-assad and hs frends could never, for the sake of own credblty, just leave the Golan,Heghts, whch had QCcuped,by- srael snce.. 1967.' So Kssnger thought that a could be reached, by proposng to Syra colmpem,atlo(l whch would be helpful n order to realze two goals: frst all, to get land n place of 32 Feature November 16, 1990
the Golan Heghts, and second, to gve the Syran regme the demographc weght needed to counterbalance the Sunns. That's why the nvason of Lebanon by Syra was so sutable for Hafez a-assad. Mr. Kssnger wanted to lead Syra and srael to a compromse. What was the ground on whch they were supposed to compromse? Frst of all, that's why the Lebanese war was orchestrated. The frst goal of ths war was to elmnate the PLO; the second, to elmnate the Lebanese state; the thrd, to allow srael to keep the south of Lebanon, for the sake of ts water needs; and the fourth, to gve all the rest to Syra, and promote, at ths prce, a compromse between Syra and srael, at the expense of Lebanon and the PLO. All that has happened from 1975 to the present was, would say, ndefatgably governed by these goals. Never dd the Amercan polcy n the Mddle East change by an nch. You tell me that n 1982, Reagan sent Amercan Marnes to Lebanon, and the French sent n troops of ther own wthn the multnatonal force. Yes, they dd ndeed; but what was the purpose of ths multnatonal force? t wasn't sent n order to restablze Lebanon. t was only sent n order to allow the PLO, the remanng ressters, a way out n dgnty, because of all the pressures that were put on the Unted States from the dfferent Arab so-called alles-slaves, n fact, vassals. That was the only purpose for whch the multnatonal force was sent to Lebanon n 1982, after the srael nvason of Lebanon. Ths was covered, of course, by slogans, deologcal justfcatons. Hafez al-assad, n order to get hs troops nto Lebanon, pretended to be there n order to brng peace, to help the Lebanese to reconcle among themselves. Syra sent ts troops offcally n 1976, but unoffcally, n a speech on July 20, 1976, n Damascus, Presdent Hafez al-assad revealed that he had already sent troops nto Lebanon, behnd the back of the Lebanese authortes, n 1973. That s two years before the war! How could he send troops wthout ts beng known? Nothng could have been smpler, because the Palestnans n Lebanon were enjoyng an accord wth the state, the Caro Accord, whch was sgned n 1969, accordng to whch they had the rght to crculate freely wth arms n Lebanon, and even to brng weapons from Syra. As long as ths Caro Accord exsted, nothng was easer for Syra than to send guns and troops to Lebanon. Syran troops only had to wear Palestnan unforms! That was the frst tme. And accordng to the same speech of Hafez a-assad, the second tme the Syran troops were sent to Lebanon, before they were sent offcally, occurred at the end of 1975-that means, a few months after the war broke out. When were they sent? When, for the frst tme snce the begnnng of the war n Lebanon, the nhabtants of the Chrstan town of Damour, halfway from Berut to Sdon, were to be pushed out of ther town and massacred. Three to four hundred people were klled, and the others were forced to move out. A 'cvl war' run from outsde All these years, you've been told that there was a cvl war n Lebanon. Nothng s easer than to create a cvl war, when there s a foregn force such as the PLO wthn the country. Ths foregn presence s uf)ually a factor to polarze all the radcal factons aganst each other. t was enough for Lebanon that Perre Gemayel was ready to fght, and on the opposte sde, Kamal Jumblatt, wth hs alles, to create a socalled cvl war. But as soon as ths happened, of course, n order to pretend that they were the only representatves of the Chrstans, the Falangsts of Perre Gemayel elmnated a great number of Chrstans who were opposed to them. would have been mmedately klled f had not left the country n 1976. went back later on, but n 1976, was oblged, wth many thousands of Lebanese Chrstans, to leave the country, because we were threatened wth beng klled by the Kataeb Party, the Falangsts. But there were far more mportant leaders than the Falangsts, wth huge followngs, such as Raymond Edde, who snce the end of 1976, has been n voluntary exle n France. He s now 78. He was forced out after several unsuccessful attempts aganst hs lfe. The former Presdent of the Republc, Suleman Franjeh, was also threatened by the Kataeb and ther fghters, and n 1978, they klled hs son, Tony Franjeh. That's how they managed to appear to represent all the Chrstans: by elmnatng ther opponents by force-the same way that Hafez a-assad kept control over the Syran socety. They all dd the same: the Kataeb among the Chrstans, Jumblatt and hs alles among the Muslms, n order to clam to be a complete representaton among the communtes. They elmnated the opposton, whether by forcng them to leave the country, or by kllng them. But even those who agreed, n the begnnng, to try the adventure, to engage n hostltes, dscovered mmedately what t was-that they were beng drven by foregn forces. At the begnnng, Kamal Jumblatt thought that he would be able to provoke a shft n the power n the country n hs own favor; and Perre Gemayel was hopng the same thng. But once they got nto the war, they dscovered that they were beng drven nto t, aganst ther ther own wll, aganst ther own nterest, by Syra, srael, the Unted States, and all the other foregn forces nvolved. So, they wanted to dsengage. And what happened? They all--all! all!-were systematcally klled: Jumblatt n 1977, mam Mussa Sadr n 1978, Tony Franjeh n 1978, Bashr Gemayel n 1982, Muft Hasan Khald n 1989, Prme Mnster Rashd Karam n 1987, and many, many, many others. When a poltcal party, or when a force, or a mlta loses ts leader by an assassnaton, what happens to the successor? ER November 16, 1990 Feature 33
Ether he contnues to obey, or he wll be klled just lke hs predecessor. That's how the dfferent mltas became nstrumentalzed by Syra and srael. The so-called Lebanese Forces of Samr Geagea now are the srael nstrument n Lebanon, whle the so-called Druse mlta of Wald lumblatt (the son of Kamal lumblatt who was klled n 1977) and the Amal mlta (led now by Nabh Berr, as a successor of the mam Mussa Sadr, who was elmnated n 1978 n Lbya)-both are nstruments of Syran polcy n Lebanon. Wald lumblatt-he's a funny one, because he could change hs mnd so quckly. He could gve a declaraton, and two hours later, the opposte one, as easly as you take off your jacket and put t on. A few months ago, he was n the Sovet Unon, and he gave a declaraton to Novost n whch he sad, "As dfferent Lebanese factons, we have no control whatsoever on the ground; we all are dependent on foregn powers." That's what he sad, n essence. f you want to know what ths "cvl war" was all about, can only tell you, that the cvl war-even f, n the begnnng, t nvolved certan radcal factons wantng to ncrease ther own power-after just a short whle became only a Lebanese cover for a multnatonal war, usng the Lebanese, aganst ther own wll, forbddng them to meet wth each other, to dscuss wth each other, because that was the only way for the foregn powers to keep controllng the ground. f the Lebanese sat down to negotate wth each other, what would be the reason for Syra to stay n Lebanon, or for srael? As long as srael s n the south, Syra wll not wthdraw; srael says, as long as the cvl war s gong on, and, Syra s stayng n, we wll not wthdraw. And that's how each of them uses the other as. an excuse not to wthdraw. But n the meantme, one has to record that snce 1978, the U.N. Securty Councl, after the frst srael nvason of the country, passed Resoluton 425, callng for an uncondtonal and mmedate wthdrawal of srael from Lebanon. And after the second nvasonof 1982, three other resolutons were passed, n the same drecton. But never, never, has anythng been done to force srael to respect these resolutons. As far as Syra s concerned, the Unted States admnstraton has never wanted to pont out ts responsblty n the Lebanese tragedy. General Aoun becomes prme mnster Then n 1988, General Aoun, who had been before that the commander-n-chef of the Army, was promoted to the status of prme mnster. Lebanon's Mltary Councl s headed by the commander-n-chef, and he recruts fve other generals, representng the fve other man communtes of the country--one Sunn, one Sh'te, one Druse, one Greek Catholc, and one Greek Orth o dox. n 1988, Lebanon was an occuped country by more than 80% of ts terrtory: 10-11 % by srael n the south, and the rest under Syran control, except for that small regon that s called from outsde the Chrstan regon, whch was the only Mchel Aoun: a personal profle Asked to descrbe Lebanon' s Gen. Mchel Aoun personally, Professor El Hashem repled: Mchel Aoun s a son of the people, comng from a poor famly. Hs father and mother were small farmers--don't magne people ownng a very bg ranch; t's a small farm, wth a few cows, and so on. He lved and grew up on the farm. He went to a publc school, whch s a multconfessonal school, because the area where he used to lve was nhabted by Chrstans, Sh'te Muslms, Sunn, etc. By growng up under these condtons, one learns to be tolerant, and to know the others., too, went to a multconfessonal school, where met wth dfferent people, and from my early chldhood learned to love my country's people. General Aoun doesn't belong, by any means, to the establshment that ran Lebanon snce ndependence n 1943, and even before. When he got hs Lebanese baccalaureate, he passed hs test to get nto the mltary academy. Accordng to all hs professors at the mltary academy, he was a brllant student. After ths, he was sent to France and to Amerca, for specalzaton n artllery. He was a brllant artllery man, accordng to hs superors. 'm not only gvng hm labels; 'm only tellng the truth. Brllant people start by beng brllant from the begnnng. Before that, durng hs studes n the mltary academy, every tme he went on vacaton, you know what he used to do? Go and help hs father and hs mother on the farm. Usually, n the mltary educaton, people learned to be very proud, and to look down on such thngs. But he used to go to the farm. n 196 1, there was an attempted coup d'etat n Lebanon, led by the Syran Socal Natonalst Party. The coup d'etat faled, and all the members of ths party were caught, put nto jal, and tortured. Accordng to the top leader of the coup d'etat, whom knew, and who wrote about what happened there-wrtng durng the war of 34 Feature ER November 16, 1990
remanng area of the country free of foregn occupaton. Ths area was under a certan form of coexstence between the operatonal brgades of the Lebanese Army, on one sde, and the Lebanese Forces-actually, the "srael Forces n Lebanon" would be a much more sutable name---of Samr Geagea on the other sde. So, on Sept. 23, 1988, the mandate of the last Presdent, Amn Gemayel, was due to come to an end, accordng to the Consttuton. Ten days before, also accordng to the Consttuton, a new Presdent should have been elected, n order to be ready to take offce on the 23rd. Syra dd everythng to forbd the Lebanese Parlament to meet and elect a new Presdent. Seven days before the end of the term, Rchard Murphy was sent by the Amercan admnstraton, wth the explct msson, to fnd an agreement to unblock the stuaton n Lebanon. So, he went to Syra, where he spent four days, after whch he came out alone to Lebanon, and met wth offcals there-the Commander-n-Chef of the Army General Aoun, the Presdent of the Republc, Samr Geagea, and other personaltes-and he told them that after very hard, very tough dscussons n Syra, Syra s ready to allow the electon of a new Presdent; but under the condton that the Parlament vote only for Mr. Mchel Daher. No other canddate s allowed. and f you don't accept ths proposal, then you'll have to face the chaos alone. That was the proposal of Mr. Murphy, the representatve of the bggest "democracy" n the world. The Lebanese offcals sad to Hm, "Well, durng the Ottoman Empre, even when the Su tans wanted to send us a new governor or somethng, they were a bt more polte. Before they sent us one, they used tol send somebody to say, 'We ntend, we feel, that ths man 's rght for the job. We hope that you have no obj cton f we send you ths one. ' But, wthout any onsultaton, you can't appont us a dctator. We have to refuse t; we are gong to face chaos, f that s the only a:lternatve that you leave us." 1 And that's how the country was eft wthout a Presdent. On the last day of Amn Gemayel's mandate, the Presdent, accordng to Artcles No. 53 and f2 of the Consttuton, transformed the Mltary Councl, fhch was formed n a balanced way on the nterconfessona).level, nto a transtonal government. Accordng to the ConSttuton, when the presdency s vacant for any reason, a franstonal government takes ts place and assumes the funct ns of both the Presdent of the Republc and the cabnet, uhtl a new Presdent s elected. That's how the perfectly consttutonal government of Mchel Aoun came about. Of course, Syra s always dong everythng to destroy the state. What Syra dd, frst of all, to contest the legtmacy of Aoun's government, was to get thb prevous government, that of Selm al-hoss, to reman n that hs was the only legtmate one., de facto, clamng what consttutonal provson? None. Only by the.. And secondly, they put pressure on the Muslm of the Aoun comb- lberaton last year, from West Berut, and that means under the Syran control-he gave a testmony, sayng that there were at that tme very few Lebanese offcers who refused to partcpate n the torture. One of them was Mchel Aoun. When the war broke out n 1975, Mchel Aoun was always on the front to defend legtmate nsttutons. Never dd he partcpate n any fght between factons. He only took P.art n the fg tng between the Palestnans and the Lebanese, because he thought that the Palestnans were abusng and volatng Lebanese soveregnty. After the war, when the Palestnans stopped, he never partcpated n any fghtng between Chrstans and Muslms, whatsoever. n 1983, after the redeployment toward the south of the srael Army, the Syrans tred to get back nto Berut, because they had been pushed out of Berut by the srael Army. Never dd the Syran Army face srael! Why do they pretend to be there to fght aganst srael, when they have never faced srael? So, when Syra was tryng, at the end of the summer of 1983, to get back nto Berut, and the famous battles occurred on the Souk-al-Gharb front, who was the commandern-chef of ths stronghold? t was Mchel Aoun. Two or three months later, the hostltes settled down, and a so-called conference for natonal reconclaton was held. That was a bg joke, because the Syrans wanted to show the whole world that the Leba- Mchel Aoun nese weren't able to reach an among themselves. How could they have been to reach an agreement n the presence of Mr. nau(!llam, the Syran vce presdent? That wouldn't be VVO'''lVl After ths conference, a new O()'JPl'1nmf'nt was formed,. a so-called government of unty, gatherng, of course, Muslms and Chrstans. guess who sad that Mchel Aoun ShOllld become the of the Army? Amn Gemayel, the Vrp,,\(j,pnt No. Nor any of the Chrstan U1UU". 1 Muslm mnsters. ElK November 16, r990 Feature 35
A rally n support of Aoun n Washngton, D. C. Four hundred thousand people-both Muslm and Chrstan-camped out around the Lebanese presdental palace at Baabda, to defend the naton's consttutonal government. naton, to prevent them from jonng the government. They ddn't dsmss; they only sent ther excuses. The government survved by ts Chrstan half, but that's not because they were fanatcs, but because they were the only Lebanese who were free to say yes or no, because the others were under Syran control, threatened wth ther lves. So, facng an almost entrely occuped country, and a state whch s undermned by the mltas, the government had ether to accept all ths, and to coexst wth t, or to refuse t, and to call for the restoraton of soveregnty by the wthdrawal of the foregn forces, and for the dsarmament of the dfferent mltas. What Aoun and hs government chose, was the second opton, of course. He fought aganst the mltas, he fought aganst Syra, and vrtually aganst srael, because he demanded the wthdrawal of all the foregn forces. He was betrayed, very, very mmorally betrayed, by the Amercan admnstraton. We now know that n the begnnng, he was ercouraged by Amercan offcals, and when the war of lberaton broke out between hmself and Syra, the Amercan offcals went to deal wth Syra, aganst hm. They used hm, they used the war that he was fghtng aganst Syra, as a pressure pont, n order to reach agreements wth Syra, at the expense of Lebanon. Betrayal at Taf The Taf Accord was one of the conclusons of that war of lberaton. t commtted Lebanon, before any Syran wthdrawal, to elaborate treates wth Syra, coverng all the df- ferent aspects of natonal lfe n order to llustrate the socalled specal lnks between the two countres. Well, beg you to tell me, what knd of treates could be concluded between an elephant and a fl under hs feet? Ths was due to happen wthn two years, rfter whch the Syran troops were supposed to redeploy, t@. get out of Berut, and to be redeployed to the north of the eountry and the Bekaa Valley. That means around 35% of th country! Ths so-called agreement s an mposton, because f you compare the ntal text that as put forward as a platform apparently by the Saud government, but really, as we all know, by the Amercans, you rll fnd that t was an accord wth a koufea [Arab headdress]. So, there s no change. My frend Raymond Edde told me that when Mr. Harr-w o s a Lebanese naturalzed Saud, the wealth-keeper of Kng Fahd of Saud Arabacame up to address the nvta on to Edde n Pars, he told hm, "Oh, yes, Amd ["Lead r"], but you know, ths text should not be modfed." Edd9 asked, "f no modfcaton s allowed, why do you want me to go to Saud Araba? 'm not gong." He dd not go. That's why General Aoun refused ths agreement. But the Bush admnstraton was t e frst to recognze the Taf agreement and the puppet government whch resulted from ths so-called agreement. Behnd the Amercan admnstraton, all the alles, all over theworld, recognzed the agreement and what resulted from t-the government of Rene Muawad and then Hraw after uawad was klled. The Arab states, except for raq and the PLO, and n the begnnng Egypt (and now, they're alle wth all the others), all gave ther recognton, aganst the consttutonal facts of Lebanon, to ths accord mposed from thoutsde. You couldn't beleve t, ho everythng has been, for the last 16 years, an mposton fom outsde, and especally. from the Kssnger polcy of ATerca. So, we refused ths. They threatened us, to force General Aoun out, by usng the Syran rmy. mmedately after the frst threats were formulated, 00,000 Lebanese people Muslm and Chrstan alke-\\jent up to the presdental palace at Baabda and camped for three months around Baabda, n order to say, "f you want to force General Aoun out, you'd better start by kllng us.' Do you know what 400,000 people means? That's proporttonally the equvalent of 60 mllon Amercans around the! Whte House. Despte ths fact, the legtmate governme t was consdered to be the Hraw one, whch was mposetl from outsde, and the one that the people were ready to defend, wthout weapons, wth ther own bodes, was not consdered legtmate--<espte the fact that ths one was nomnat+ accordng to the Consttuton, whle everythng that was done from Taf to the electons that came later, was absolttely unconsttutonal. That's how the reforms, n tl e "democratc" way of Saud Araba and Syra, occurred n ths regon. magne Saud Araba proposng democratc re orms for Lebanon! 36 Feature ER November 16, 1990