Who will pick up the pieces in Lebanon

Press, 21 July 1982, Page 20

Who will pick up the pieces in Lebanon

From “The Economist,” London

Israel wants a ’ strong and unified’’ government in Lebanon. The obvious candidate to lead this is the Phalange party of the Maronite Christian community, led by Bechir Gemayel, the son of the party’s founder.

Mr Gemayel goes even further than Mr Begin in his desire to rid Lebanon of the Palestinians; a few weeks ago he told a European group that all 500.000 Palestinians in Lebanon should leave, perhaps to Saudi Arabia where “they could live in tents like Bedouin.” Yet there are demographic and political — and personal — difficulties to Mr Gemavel’s candidature.

Mr Gemayel’s Maronites are only the main group within Lebanon’s religious minority. In the heyday of the French mandate in Lebanon, a census was fudged in 1932 to show that the Christian communities made up 55 per cent of the population, with the largest single community being the Maronites. France gave Lebanon a presidential-type constitution on the understanding that the president should always be a Maronite. This political straitjacket

was one large cause of the Lebanese civil wars in 1958 and 1975, because it no longer conforms (if it ever did) to Lebanese demographic realities. Today the Muslim communities together are estimated to constitute more than 60 per cent of the population with the Shias as the largest single community, at 25 per cent of the whole. The Maronites are now only about 20 per cent of the total.

When the civil war more or less ended in November 1976, after the entry of the Syrians into the country, the Phalange had no military presence, anywhere in Lebanon south of the Beirut-Damascus highway. Now under Isreal’s protection. the Phalangist militia is being installed in positions of control in the hilly Chouf area, hitherto under the control of the Druzes (of Muslim origin) and members of the Greek Orthodox community, and in the coastal strip, which until now has been a Sunni Muslim preserve. The Druzes, at least, are resisting this. As Maronite control spreads south-wards, the Israelis have at the same time, encouraged the northward expansion of the

strip of southernmost Lebanon controlled by Major Saad Haddad, a Maronite, who, under Israel’s auspices, commands a mixed militia of Maronites, and Shia Muslim. ■ The Maronites are therefore moving into a position of dominance in the whole of Lebanon south’ of the Damascus highway, as well as their original area north from Beirut The Israeli expectation is that this will be reflected politically in that “strong central government.” Mr Begin has said that he hopes that Major Haddad will be a member of this government. Mr Gemayel, has formally announced that he is standing for election as the next president of Lebanon. The president has to be chosen by September by the elderly Lebanese Parliament which has become rather unrepresentative since its election in 1972.

In 1976 the Syrian army imposed President Sarkis on the Parliament even rounding up reluctant members from their homes and frog-marching them to Parliament to vote as they were bidden. Will there be a repeat performance in three months’ time with the frog-marching being done by the Phalangist

militia? Not impossible, but much more difficult because Mr Gemayel is a very different candidate from Mr Sarkis.

President Sarkis was a politically colourless senior civil servant, known for his industry and incorruptibility. Mr Gameyel is a warlord.’Consider his bloody feuds to defeat the non-Phalangist Maronite factions.

In June, 1978, his militia stormed the house of former President Franjieh’s son and killed him, his wife and child. There have been two retaliatory attempts on Mr Gemayal’s life, in one of which his infant daughter was killed. Then in July, 1980, the Phalangist militia crushed the militia of former President Chamoun by slaughtering dozens of its members and scores of its civilian supporters. The Palestinians and the Lebanese Muslims of west Beirut are understandably nervous about placing their safety in the hands of the Phalangist militia. They even have their doubts about the Lebanese army, which is still largely officered by Maronites and which from September, could be taking its orders from Mr Gemayel (though Mr

Gemayel was informed last week by the Arab League foreign ministers in Saudi Arabia that, while a Maronite may be acceptable as a future Lebanese president, he person-

ally was not). This is one reason why they have been asking for an international force to police Beirut during the P.L.O.’s evacuation and after it has gone.