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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
To many Lebanese, the complex 1975 Civil War can be summarized
in only a few words. These words are place-names, such as Ad Damur
or Karantina, which evoke traumatic memories of massacres and
atrocities and need no further explanation. A narrative of the
Civil War is therefore more a translation of this vocabulary of
suffering and pain than a chronology of campaigns.
The Sarajevo of the Lebanese Civil War occurred on April 13,
1975, when unidentified gunmen opened fire at a congregation
outside a Maronite church in Ayn ar Rummanaha, Christian suburb of
Beirut
(see
fig. 9). In apparent retaliation, members of the
Christian
Phalange Party (see Glossary)
ambushed a bus filled with
Palestinians and shot the passengers. These events initiated the
escalating cycle of retaliation and revenge that came to
characterize Lebanon for the next decade.
The first six months of combat were desultory by subsequent
Lebanese standards, with Phalangist and Palestinian forces
exchanging small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire from their
respective strongholds of Al Ashrafiyah and Tall Zatar. The
Phalangist strategy was predicated on forcing the army to intervene
on its side. Although over 1,000 people were killed in the early
fighting, many Lebanese still viewed the nascent Civil War as a
transitory phenomenon that would soon abate, like past security
crises. Therefore, when well-organized Muslim militias attacked the
downtown Qantari district in late October 1975, causing heavy loss
of life and massive property damage, many inhabitants of Beirut
realized for the first time that the war was a serious affair. The
Muslim side eventually took Qantari and occupied the forty-story
Murr Tower, the highest building in Beirut.
On December 6, 1975, "Black Saturday," Phalangists set up
roadblocks on city streets, seized an estimated 350 Muslims, and
murdered them. Muslims had been easily identifiable because
Lebanese identification cards indicated religious affiliation. This
was the first major massacre of civilians in the Civil War and
started a vicious cycle of revenge and retaliation. From this point
on, after combatants of each faction conquered territory from their
rivals, they routinely killed civilians.
In late 1975 and early 1976, fierce fighting engulfed Beirut's
high-rise hotel district. The hotels changed hands several times,
with the Muslims ultimately securing control of the area. The
expanded scope and intensity of the combat increased casualties
greatly, with over 1,000 killed in the first weeks of the new year.
It was at this juncture that the Army Lebanese disintegrated
completely. On January 16, 1976, Minister of Defense Shamun called
in the mostly Christian-manned Lebanese Air Force to bomb leftist
positions in Ad Damur. In response, Muslim troops rallied to the
side of Lieutenant Ahmad Khatib, who split off and declared the
creation of the Lebanese Arab Army
(see Appendix B).
In
desperation, Beirut garrison commander Brigadier Aziz Ahdab seized
Beirut's radio and television stations on March 11 and announced
that the Lebanese Army was stepping in to take over the government
and restore order. But Ahdab's move came too late, and he was
derisively nicknamed "General Television" by militia leaders, who
commanded far more men.
Karantina, a slum district named after the old immigration
quarantine area, was the site of the next major episode in the war.
Situated so that it controlled Christian access over the Beirut
River bridge to the strategic port area, it became a military
target. Karantina was populated primarily by poor Kurds and
Armenians but was controlled by a PLO detachment. On January 18,
1976, Christian forces conquered Karantina and massacred up to
1,000 civilians.
Two days later, revenge-seeking Palestinians and leftist
Muslims attacked the Christian city of Ad Damur, located about 20
kilometers south of Beirut, and murdered between 200 and 500
Christians. The two consecutive massacres induced Muslims residing
in Christian-dominated areas to flee to Muslim-held areas, and vice
versa. Whereas most Lebanese towns and neighborhoods previously had
been integrated, for the first time large-scale population
transfers began to divide the country into segregated zones, the
first step toward de facto partition.
The Christians were losing the Civil War as the Muslim-leftist
side forced them to retreat farther into East Beirut. The
Christians felt it imperative to retain control of Beirut's port
district and constructed an elaborate barricade defense at Allenby
Street. In May 1976, as the Christians tried to stave off the
Muslim assault on the port district, the Lebanese Army finally
entered the fray. Christian officers and enlisted men from the Al
Fayadiyyah barracks outside Beirut came to the aid of their
beleaguered coreligionists, bringing armored cars and heavy
artillery. The Muslim advance was stopped, and the front at Allenby
Street evolved into a no-man's-land, dividing Christian East Beirut
from Muslim West Beirut. Vegetation that eventually grew in this
abandoned area inspired the name
Green Line (see Glossary),
and in 1987 it still cut the city in two.
Data as of December 1987
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