Aid-ships quandary

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 8

Aid-ships quandary

NZPA-Reuter Paris y France, in a quandary over how tq deliver emergency relief to Lebanon without starting further bloodshed, is not yet ready to give up on the delicate mission. “The State Secretary for Humanitarian Aid is on the spot and responsible for organising distribution. He must bring it to its proper conclusion,” the Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas, said in a television interview from Washington. A top French aid official, Bernard Kouchner, is in charge of arranging for two aid ships, due shortly off the Lebanese coast, to dock without incident. The Syrian-backed Administration in Muslim west Beirut has said that Muslims will not accept the aid until

France gives assurances of neutrality in the conflict between Beirut’s Christian and Muslim communities. A French Government envoy to Lebanon last week accused Syria of wanting to see Lebanon split into factions and backed the Christian military chief, Michel Aoun, sparking angry reactions from the Syrians and Muslims. Muslim militias have issued veiled threats to shell the ships if they berth at a Christian militia-held port. Mr Dumas stressed that the aid was meant for both communities. Unable to withdraw the ships without humiliation and afraid of docking them, France’s decision to send aid to the country it administered between two World Wars appears to have left it in an impasse.