As the Militias Withdraw, Lebanese Pray It's For Good

By Marilyn Raschka

The bumper sticker read: I like your approach, now I'd like to see your departure. The car, one of hundreds crossing the old Green Line last October, was carrying a Lebanese family from east to west Beirut. The sentiment behind the sticker was well suited to the time and place. President Elias Hrawi had just announced his 10-day plan to unify and expand Beirut and, most importantly, make it militia-free.

For 15-1/2 years, Beirut's Green Line symbolized the dominant role the militias played in the civil war. Once fully backed by the sects from which they had sprung, their original approach was to protect their own kind against "the others." Now, after all the years of meaningless suffering, Lebanese people of all kinds were demanding their departure.

Although the Lebanese conflict continues to be called one between Christian and Muslim, the last four years of battles—the fiercest since the onset of the war—were within rather than between sects. These conflicts were labeled "struggles to gain control over the country's 1.4 million Shi'ites, " or "one million Christians." More than 2,500 people were killed. So much for protecting your own kind.

Civilians caught in the fighting were often quoted as saying: "We don't want either one [militia]. We just want the fighting to stop." Too bad someone didn't put their words on a bumper sticker.

In mid-November 1990, a cease-fire was signed by the two Shi'i militias, Amal and Hezbollah. When the Shi'i families who had fled to Beirut to escape the three-year conflict in southern Lebanon returned home, many found little to retrieve. Along with the tears came the curses.

Earlier in the spring of 1990, there had been the same pained cries, but they were addressed to the Virgin Mary and Christ. And those who lived in the Christian areas cursed their oppressors, Samir Geagea and General Michel Aoun-rival Maronites whose quest to rule the Christian community all but devastated it.

Hrawi began his reunification program of Beirut and the Lebanese Army by ousting General Michel Aoun, whom he fired from the position of army commander in November 1989. Aoun refused to recognize the Syrian-backed president or to vacate the presidential palace and the nearby ministry of defense. He also showed little interest in returning state funds or merging his US-trained battalion with the main body of the army. In short, Aoun had become public enemy number one for the Lebanese government. On Oct. 13, in a Syrian-led blitz, General Aoun was forced to flee Baabda Palace and seek asylum in the French Embassy.

Although Aoun's removal was an end in itself, it also served as a warning to the militias. It is widely believed by the Lebanese that the US gave Hrawi and his Syrian allies the green light to use military force against the general. Militia leaders had to ask themselves: If the US agreed to using force against a once-legitimate general, would the US have any objection to military action against them?

Furthermore, the unclaimed and unsolved cold-blooded murder of Maronite clan leader Dany Chamoun, his wife and two young sons left Lebanon's militia leaders feeling weak in the knees. (See Background Brief on page 87.)

The high sign for the Druze Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and Shi'i Amal to withdraw from Beirut was given by Damascus—a simple whisper in Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri's ears. Both leaders "understand" the Syrian dialect very well.

The long shadow of the Gulf crisis provided Syria and Iran with the incentive and opportunity to close the Amal-Hezbollah file in Lebanon. Iranian President Hasherni Rafsanjani's tightening grip on the remnants of the Khomeini fanatics who support Hezbollah convinced the militias to heed the call to withdraw.

Three Down, One to Go

With three of the big four militias out of Beirut, Hrawi was left with the Christian "Lebanese Forces" (LF) to deal with. As predicted, it took some time. The LF differs from the other groups in more than religion. For 12 years it waged an open media war against Damascus which intensified when Samir Geagea took over the LF command in 1986. In March 1989 the militia joined, although reluctantly, General Aoun's "war of liberation" against Syrian military presence in Lebanon.

A September 1989 cease-fire led to the Syrian-backed, Saudi-brokered Taif peace plan which Geagea, unlike Aoun, ultimately accepted. Having distanced himself from Aoun, Geagea found himself within earshot of Damascus. The Syrians had plenty to say.

Additionally, the LF for years has had the backing of Israel, whose military advisers travel freely to Jounieh, the LF port and "capital" some 10 miles north of Beirut. But after Saddam Hussain's bellicose anti-Israel statements, the Jewish state had more to worry about than the fortunes of a Christian militia in Lebanon.

Like all the other militias, the LF had worn out its welcome. A source close to Geagea admitted that "the 'forces' learned during their war against Aoun [in spring 19901 that people don't like them. " They too had gotten the "approach and departure" message.

The militias levied taxes on hotels, restaurants, land sales and transportation. Customs were charged on goods passing the boundaries of their territories or entering the country through their ports. The LF required non-Lebanese to apply and even pay for transit "visas" at their "Department of Foreign Affairs. "

With the exception of Iran-financed Hezbollah, militias became self-supporting at the citizens' expense. As a result, outwitting the tax collectors became a national pastime, and success stories grew into legends.

Militia withdrawal from Beirut is good news for the capital. As the militiamen converge on their traditional sectarian strongholds, however, they will be looking for ways to collect revenues from their own kind. The Lebanese in these areas, in turn, will be hoping against hope that their Druze, Maronite and Shi'i political leaders, like George Bush, will tell the militias: "Read my lips. No new taxes."

Marilyn Raschka is an American faculty member at the American University of Beirut and an editor of the Americans for Justice in the Middle East newsletter.