35 Years on… Lebanon Still Fighting Schemes of Sectarian War!

By HUSSEIN ASSI

In Lebanon, history is written everyday…
The Lebanese calendar is full of dates and events to the degree that no day goes without embracing a symbol, story, lesson, or meaning.

Between wars, battles, assassinations, victories, festivals, elections, and other events, Lebanon has written its history the hard way.

Yet, one date still occupies a place in the Lebanese people’s minds; a black day that is.

April 13, 1975 is the day that marked the outbreak of the disastrous civil war that devastated the country for 15 long and painful years…
The Lebanese were split between Muslims and Christians and they were fighting each other. Each group was barricaded in its “region”; sometimes they shared a single “region” but were separated by the so called “green line.”

For thirty five years, the Lebanese have been remembering the notorious incident of the “Ain el Remmeneh bus” which ignited the war; amid hopes of full recovery from that black era.
Those who were boys and girls and made it alive have now become fathers and mothers, and they try to relay the ugly picture of war to Lebanon’s new generation; the same generation which during the past five years was a solid ground for renewed sectarian strife.

WHAT HAPPENED ON AND AFTER APRIL 13, 1975?

On April 13, 1975, Christian militiamen machine-gunned a bus carrying Palestinians through Ain al-Remmaneh (east of Beirut) killing 27 passengers, hours after assailants opened fire outside a nearby church killing a Christian Lebanese. As if everything was prepared: within hours, rival clans spread throughout the capital. Homes became garrisons and streets became battlefields and green lines were controlled by militias.

The nation was effectively divided, with southern Lebanon and the western half of Beirut becoming bases for the Palestine Liberation Organization and Muslim-based groups, while the Christians controlled west Beirut and parts of Mount Lebanon. The main confrontation line in divided Beirut was known as the Green line.

In June, 1976, then President Sleiman Franjieh called for Syrian intervention on the grounds that the port of Beirut was risking closure. Syrian troops, then called the deterrent force, succeeded in imposing order, giving Lebanon a brief respite from war.

In March 1978, the war entered a new phase; Israel invaded South Lebanon. Syria found itself face to face with Israeli invaders. The conflict intensified in April 1981, when Israel shot down two Syrian helicopters. Many observers feared a full-scale Syrian-Israeli war might erupt, prompting the United States to negotiate a cease-fire involving Israel, Syria, and the PLO. Israel withdrew in June but left a pro-Israel Christian militia in control of the area under the leadership of Lebanese Army Major Saad Haddad. The cease fire took effect but Israeli-Palestinian tension never stopped. In June 1982 Israel bombed PLO targets in Lebanon and inflicted heavy damage on the organization. Israel decided to invade Lebanon again "to crush the PLO once and for all." Eventually the PLO pulled out of Lebanon and the Palestinians lost their power factor.

With Israel’s support, Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the Christian Phalanges Party, was elected president in August, but three weeks later he was assassinated.

Israeli chief of staff Rafael Eitan and Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon bypassed the Israeli cabinet and sent Israeli troops into West Beirut. These troops helped transport approximately 200 Phalanges personnel to the Sabra and Chatila camps where they killed-massacre an estimated 3,000 unarmed Palestinian refugees. The massacre made headlines all over the world, and calls were heard for the international community to assume responsibility for stabilizing Lebanon.

As a result, a multinational force arrived in this small country. With US backing, Amine Gemayel succeeded his brother as President.

On May 17, 1983, Gemayel, Israel, and US signed an agreement text on Israeli withdrawal that was conditioned on the departure of Syrian troops. The agreement stated that "the state of war between Israel and Lebanon has been terminated and no longer exists." Thus, the agreement in effect amounted to a unilateral peace agreement with Israel, and was additionally seen by many Lebanese Muslims as an attempt for Israel to gain a permanent hold on the Lebanese South. Lebanon's left wing parties thwarted the agreement.

Between 1985 and 1989, sectarian conflict worsened as various efforts at national reconciliation failed. Then Prime Minister Rashid Karami who was the head of a national unity government, was assassinated on June 1, 1987, by orders from Lebanese Forces Chief Samir Geagea. President Gemayel's term of office expired in September 1988.

Before stepping down, he appointed another Maronite Christian, Lebanese Armed Forces Commanding General Michel Aoun as acting Prime Minister, contravening the National Pact. Fearing he might lose control of eastern Beirut, especially after getting rid of all his allies, namely the Nationalist Liberal Party and the forces of Elie Hobeika, Geagea got engaged with a war with the Lebanese Army under Aoun's command. It was called the "war of elimination."

On March 14, 1989, Aoun launched what he termed as "war of liberation" against Syrian forces. It was the last battle in the civil war era. At that time, the name "Taef Agreement" was becoming more familiar to the Lebanese.

The Agreement of 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the fighting. In January of that year, a committee appointed by the Arab League, chaired by Kuwait and included Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco, began to formulate solutions to the conflict. This led to a meeting of Lebanese parliamentarians in Taif, Saudi Arabia, where they agreed to the national reconciliation accord in October. The Agreement recognized that Christians no longer formed a majority of the population and stipulated that Christians and Muslims would have an equal number of seats in parliament, which were increased from 99 to 108 (and later to 128).

The agreement left the presidency as a Christian position. Because Muslims were critical of a Christian presidency, the Lebanese government that formed after the Agreement amended the constitution to lessen presidential authority. As a result, the president was required to consult the House Speaker (a Shia Muslim) as well as members of the National Assembly before naming a prime minister (a Sunni Muslim), and the president’s power to dismiss ministers was transferred to the cabinet. Aoun rejected these amendments and launched another rebellion in 1990. Syria, however, quickly suppressed his move, thus ending the civil war in October 1990, and set about rebuilding the Lebanese army and imposing political reform.

BETWEEN APRIL 13 AND FEBRUARY 14, DID WE LEARN LESSONS?

An estimated 130,000 to 200,000 Lebanese died in the war, hundreds of thousands others were injured and tens of thousands fled the country. The financial costs were staggering, draining Lebanon of an estimated $25 billion to $30 billion in lost property and revenues.

Did Lebanese learn the lessons?

The question is more than necessary in light of the developments in the country in the past five years, when the Lebanese felt again the threat of the civil war ghost.

February 14, 2005, was compared in this regard to April 13, 1975… The assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, described by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah as an earthquake, was the first step in the scheme of sedition in Lebanon; a scheme that’s end doesn’t seem close.

It was a sharp turn in Lebanon’s political life that gave birth to two main political blocs that differ in everything, even in defining partnership. The mentioned division even put Lebanon, once again, on the verge of abyss when an unconstitutional government, headed by Fouad Saniora, was formed without the representation of Shiite Muslims, symbolizing again the dangerous concept of monopolization in the diversified country.

May 7 is another symbolic day in this context, a glorious day in the history of the Resistance as announced by Sayyed Nasrallah given that, on this day, the Lebanese thwarted an attempt to ignite civil war.

“There had been a scheme to drag Beirut into sectarian strife that would last for weeks.

Consequently, they would call in foreign forces to help stop a sectarian war in Lebanon. The scheme of May 7 was set for execution,” Sayyed Nasrallah explained in a speech on May 15, 2009. “This is no longer a secret. That illegitimate government had taken a decision to put Lebanon in front of a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites.”

LAST WORD…

History has proven it…
History has spoken loud and clear: Civil war is the worst kind of wars nations can face. When the people of one nation fight each other, what is the cause, the motive, the aftermath, the effect on the next generation?

Everything that nourishes civil war is negative… Perhaps the only positive thing about it is learning lessons…and learning them to avoid war in the future.

But did the Lebanese really learn lessons?! Did they finally understand that national unity is their most important weapon in the face of all schemes and plots?! Did they understand that their unity is the most important weapon that guarantees their victory against their true and ultimate enemy, Israel?!

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian