A peaceful stroll through Beirut

Press, 23 April 1984, Page 6

A peaceful stroll through Beirut

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Two gendarmes strolled casually down the middle of Beirut’s front line seemingly oblivious to' debris underfoot and well-armed rival factions to their right and left.

Their deployment at the week-end, as part of a 1500man armed buffer force, has so far gone surprisingly smoothly, although divisions and hatred are deeply rooted. The two gendarmes were walking in Beirut’s southern suburbs on the barely recognisable old Sidon road next to Mar Mikhail Church, bombarded

during clashes between the Army and the Shi’ite Muslim Amal militia in February.

On one corner Muslim Hezbollah (Party of God) militiamen have planted an Iranian flag in front of a collapsed building. On other corners are the crescent flags of Islam and another Muslim militia.

Muslim militias had now abandoned the intersection and a 100-metre stretch of destroyed buildings as part of a plan to separate hostile forces, a local official for a mainly Druse Muslim mili-

tia said. A gendarme pointed about 200 metres to the east to positions of the Army and the “Lebanese Forces” Christian militia behind a sand barricade, adorned with a large picture of the President, Mr Amin Gemayel. He said that they had also pulled back 100 metres. Two retired Army

officers in white helmets, now serving in a 200-man unarmed observer force, chatted as they passed by. Another gendarme said, “No-one’s going to shoot at us. Everyone’s very

pleased.” Back from the front line, an unarmed Amal militiaman holding a pink carnation joked with his friends as he walked past gutted buildings, and 2km north at the line’s only crossingpoint, a soldier had a carnation in the barrel of his Ml 6 rifle. On Saturday a few Amal militiamen embraced their Christian opponents in front of photographers.

But the gendarmes generally kept militiamen and citizens well away from the line. Overturned railway waggons, dirt barricades,

and unexploded shells underlined how divided the city remains.

On the other side of a barricade hung with a portrait of Mr Gemayel, a fivegun Army artillery battery still aims at the west. In the middle of a main thoroughfare of west Beirut, a decrepit tank cannon points east.

A “Lebanese Forces” soldier said that on some parts of the confrontation line militiamen had not pulled back.

“All that separates the two sides is the road,” he said.