Lebanon's ex-warlords
take struggle to politics
by Rouba KabbaraBEIRUT
- Many of the warlords who led militias in Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war have now taken
their struggle to the political arena as they manoeuvre to control their country's destiny
at a critical juncture.
Today, as Lebanon enters a new era with the imminent exit of Syrian troops and
intelligence agents after a 29-year stay, those warlords who still survive are split
between the pro- and anti-Syrian camps.
Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader of the Progressive Socialist Party's now disbanded militia,
is a key anti-Syrian leader after he buried the hatchet with former Christian militias,
while parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri heads the Shiite movement Amal, also a former
militia, at the vanguard of the pro-Syrian Ain Tine group.
Only Samir Geagea, the former head of the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) militia, has been
languishing in prison for the last 11 years. His predecessor, Elie Hobeika, was
assassinated in 2002 and his killers remain at
large.
Hobeika had transformed himself to occupy several ministerial posts in post-war pro-Syrian
governments.
Shortly before his death, he said he was prepared to testify about the role of current
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then defence minister in massacres at the
Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila during the
1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
LF founder Bashir Gemayel was elected Lebanese president during the Israeli invasion but
was assassinated before taking up the post in September 1982.
Meanwhile, general Michel Aoun who headed a Christian military government from 1988-1990
has lived in exile in France for the last 15 years after being chased out of the country
by a Syrian offensive.
While not strictly a warlord, Aoun commanded the Lebanese army and led it into fighting
the LF as well as leftist and Muslim militias and Syria after declaring "a war of
liberation against Syria".
Within the clan-based semi-feudal Lebanese system, young warlords often inherited their
mantles from their fathers.
Walid Jumblatt succeeded his father Kamal, who headed the Palestinian-allied Lebanese
left, when he was assassinated in 1977 after coming into conLFict with Damascus.
Bashir Gemayel was also heir to his father, Pierre, who founded the Christian phalangist
Kataeb party. Bashir founded the LF after liquidating the militia of Christian rivals the
National Liberal Party (NPL), known as "the Tigers".
Fratricidal fighting also erupted in the Muslim camp, with inter-Shiite conflicts as well
as those between Amal and fighters loyal to Palestine Liberation Organisation leader
Yasser Arafat whom Damascus wanted out.
The elimination of the Palestinian factor left Syria room to manoeuvre, which they duly
did by sending troops into Beirut in 1987 and setting up a patchwork of militias which it
controlled, even going so far as to take on Shiite group Hezbollah.
Once in control, the Syrian army helped restructure the Lebanese armed forces after the
1989 Taef Accord, which paved the way for an end to Lebanon's factional strife a year
later.
Syria dissolved all militias, with the exception of Hezbollah's armed wing which went on
to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. |
