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Personal Experiences and eye witness accounts of the civil war in Lebanon
I did not participate in this civil war. When it started in April 1975 I had left in June to the USA on a student visa for my first trip outside Lebanon to return in late 1979. I had planned to visit my family every year but the war disrupted all plans and schedules. Lebanon was enjoying in 1979 a relative calm that lasted for 2 years and people could travel to different de facto confessional cantons. I used to visit some friends in Western Beirut but was warned not to sleep overnight in order not to raise suspicions. Once, I was crossing the Barbir crossroad neighborhood in West Beirut with a physician cousin of mine when we were stopped by a Murabitun check point. We were led to an enclosed garden behind a building for questioning. My cousin Patrick later confessed that he thought it was his last living moments but we were released unharmed but shaking. Another time I witnessed a real war commotion in Mazraa between the Druze and the Shiaa Amal militias with armor trucks and even tank maneuvers but the confrontation did not last long and I could resume my leisurely walk to Hamra's street, a little disturbed and scared though.
Then, Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. They claimed to enter within 45 kilometers in our southern border in order to clean up pockets of Palestinian resistance there and "stop the katyoushas" falling in north Israel. Then, Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister, decided to push forward and entered our Capital Beirut forcing the Palestinians Resistance to leave Lebanon after 6 months of heavy bombardments and fighter plane raids.
At that time, a detachment of the Israeli forces camped at the entrance to our peaceful town in North Metn (Beit Chabab) but did not set up any check points; the Israeli soldiers just read relaxing under large trees and in their tents. In the few times I crossed their encampment in order to visit relatives in my hometown I used to see the soldiers leisurely reading and mostly laying down but it was a bitter reminder that we are under foreign occupation. A few girls used to chat with the Israeli soldiers, a curiosity and an opportunity for variety specimen; those girls were looked down by the town population and blamed for ever after.
When I left again to the USA in 1985, the worst civil war period broke out among the Christian militias themselves and my family had to live in the basement for months along with all the tenants in our building. I had to ask news of my family through the Red Cross.
My family suffered misery and total financial loss; my mother had to sell all her jewelry to survive and pay the monthly tribute to the local militias "Al Kataeb". My mother recounted a humiliating event; a hometown elder civilian responsible for collecting the monthly tribute visited my family and my father was out. My mother told the collector that she is not carrying any money with her. When my father came back he immediately borrowed the requisite money and drove to that tribute collector and handed him the money.
In 1976, every male was allocated a token night security shift in the neighborhood streets. My father was enlisted to stroll the street with three other elders carrying make shift guns; they joked and hided when vehicles passed by; they would not stop and check any vehicle or the passengers to confirm that the passengers were indeed from the area as their duties required. At these times, lories and trucks belonging to the Kataeb militia were carrying loots from the port of Beirut; they used to make several trips a day to the outskirts of my hometown.
Note 1: I feel that these eye witness accounts are strictly not true confessions of personal wrong doings but narratives of their lives during the civil war. It is sad that many who have had bad conscious of what they committed don't have the incentives or encouragements to download their heavy burdens and be able to go on living as normal people. The Lebanese government did its citizens a terrible disservice by absolving everyone without allowing them the opportunity to confess and relieve their burdened conscious. Let bygone be bygone should not be exercised on a mass scale before society is offered a credible historical account of the war events, testimonials gathered, serious analysis conducted and wrong doings acknowledged as was done in South Africa when the apartheid regime was defeated.
The newly elected President of Argentina in 1983 conducted his campaign under the slogan of "Not again after today" and went ahead and formed an investigative committee of the previous dictatorial period and brought to justice the perpetrators of mass killing and tortures. The same process as in Argentina occurred in Chili and the dictator Pinochet is still hounded by justice from Spain to Chili. There is an organization in Lebanon called "SOLID" who meets and demonstrates every 13th of the month under the slogan "So that we never forget" demanding the whereabouts of their missing loved ones. The missing persons could still be in prisons in Israel, Syria, or Lebanon or maybe dead or have immigrated and changed their names but their families need to have a closure which the various Lebanese governments failed to pursue the cases on a consistent basis. It seems the Lebanese governments wish to install a system that would erase memories from its citizen's conscious. "SOLID" claims 17,000 missing persons while the Lebanese governments insist on 2,312 missing citizens distributed as follow: 240 in Israeli jails, 277 in Syria and 179 captured by the various Lebanese militias.
The irony of the matter is while the authority registered all these persons as dead Syria released 54 supposed dead citizens from its jails in the year 2000 after the inauguration of Bashar Assad as the new President of Syria.
The Lebanese militias have buried their dead prisoners in mass graves in the forest of Beirut reserved for martyrs, in Mar Metr cemetery in Achrafieh, in the English cemetery in Tahweta and mostly dumped in the sea and in wells.
Actually, there is no official story of the causes for this civil war and each faction has his version that is transmitted from generation to generation with the same confessional mentality permeating the political discourse. It seems that 170 thousands died during the civil war, 80 thousands have transferred to other regions and double that number are permanently disabled and forgotten.
One of the advantages of prosecuting the criminals is that you can discriminate among the normal and mentally sick criminals. I believe that those who were involved in atrocities and still can go on without much remorse should be committed to asylums because they lack natural conscious and feelings and not responsible for their actions.
Note 2: These issues of "Al Balad" investigations contained sections of the mood of the population in Lebanon 30 years after the start of the civil war and how the political parties have split and reorganized. I found it appropriate to gather these excerpts under the heading "Thirty years after the start of the civil war."
Notes 3: The centers of concentration for the Syrian troops in Lebanon were located as follow: Mount Lebanon in Dahr Wahsh, Aley, Dhur Abadyeh, Bhamdun, Mdirej, Duwar, Ayrun, Dhur Shwir, Bologna, Mruj, Tarchish and Majdel Tarchish; North Lebanon in Madfun, Hamat, Tripoli, Deir Amar, Koleiat and Arida; Bekaa Valley in Sefry, Baalbak, Druss, Deir Ahmar, Riyak, Talya, Maksat and Keb Elias.
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