TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/041789/04178900.034

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 4KB | 68 lines

WORLD, Page 36

LEBANON

Nearing the Point of No Return

A nightmarish monthlong bombardment reduces Beirut to chaos


    The terror arrives with the sound of rolling thunder and the
flash of perpetual lightning. Hour after hour, petrified families
huddle in basements and stairwells as booming howitzers rain shells
over the city. For the 1.2 million residents of Beirut, the past
month has been a living hell. Rival militias have relentlessly
pounded the Muslim and Christian halves of Beirut, with shells
tearing into houses, apartment buildings, schools and even
hospitals. Ambulances careen through deserted streets scooping up
bodies sliced by shrapnel. During early-morning lulls, men scurry
out to buy increasingly scarce bread and bottled water. Then they
stop at pharmacies to stock up on tranquilizers to help them get
through the next barrage.

    Lebanon (pop. 3 million), once a lovely oasis of fine beaches,
snowcapped mountains and cosmopolitan culture, may be in its death
throes. Its brutal civil war, which began 14 years ago this week,
shows no sign of ending. Since March 8 the heaviest bombardments
in four years have killed 177 and wounded 591. Equally devastating,
men, women and children are suffering mental breakdowns from the
protracted, indiscriminate terror.

    Few understand anymore what is being fought for. The country
is rent into sectarian fiefdoms ruled by quarreling Christian,
Muslim and Druse warlords. The once thriving economy has all but
collapsed. With nine Americans and five other foreigners still held
hostage by Muslim gangs, few Westerners any longer dare set foot
in the country.

    What makes Lebanon's current predicament more hopeless than
ever is the disintegration of the presidency. Somehow the office
had survived previous crises nominally intact as the main symbol
of Lebanese nationhood. But when President Amin Gemayel's six-year
term expired in September, factional disputes prevented parliament
from electing a successor. As his final act, Gemayel named General
Michel Aoun, 53, commander of the mainly Christian Lebanese Army,
to head an interim government. Muslim groups rejected Aoun and set
up their own government headed by Gemayel's last Prime Minister,
Selim Hoss.

    Aoun's bold moves to assert his authority triggered the new
fighting. In March, Aoun's 20,000-man army took on the Muslims,
imposing a sea blockade of five of their illegal ports, used mainly
for smuggling drugs and guns. Druse warlord Walid Jumblatt's
militia and 40,000 Syrian troops responded with continuous
bombardments of Christian neighborhoods. Aoun's forces hit back in
kind.

    Aoun claims a larger aim -- "a war of liberation" against
Syria's occupation army. While some Lebanese laud his moves as
patriotic, his tactics risk locking the Christians in a perilous
confrontation. Syrian President Hafez Assad adamantly refuses to
withdraw, insisting his troops are necessary to maintain at least
a semblance of order. Making the situation more ominous, the
Christians are getting substantial military support from Assad's
archenemy, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who seeks to avenge
Assad's support of Iran in the gulf war.

    But Lebanon's real trouble goes back to a 1943 unwritten
"national pact" giving a dominant share of power to the Christian
community. It has battled to hold on against the Muslims, who today
are in the majority and are demanding a larger role in governing
the country. Now, without even a figurehead President to sustain
the fading dream of national reconciliation, and with the big guns
drowning out all appeals for peace, Lebanon's chaos may have
reached the point of no return.