After the war, 1991

by year · by dates · timeline · 1991–2005

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

21 entries, 15 days.

a day with an entry

January

February

March

91120

April

May

151522

June

July

August

2629

September

October

November

December

Wednesday, 9 January 1991

From the books

Parliament votes confidence in Omar Karami's cabinet of former warlords.
Karami's thirty-minister cabinet, formed on 24 December 1990, won thirty-four votes of the forty deputies attending. Its policy statement took up the whole Taif agenda: militias dissolved, Syrian treaties, the displaced home, rebuilding. Seven militia leaders, Berri, Jumblatt, Geagea and Hobeika included, were ministers of state.

Wednesday, 6 February 1991

From the books

An army brigade is sent south to silence all guns.
Palestinian units split over a Lebanese ultimatum after an army brigade was sent south on 6 February 'to silence all guns', in Defence Minister Michel Murr's words.

Saturday, 9 March 1991

From the books

The army occupies the Beirut headquarters of the main militias.
Soldiers took over the Amal, Hezbollah, PSP and Lebanese Forces headquarters and seized weapons stockpiles in East and West Beirut.

Monday, 11 March 1991

From the books

The army takes over the militias' illegal ports.
Soldiers took over the militia harbours of Khalde, Ouzai, Dbayeh and Beirut's Dock Five; within four days Beirut port traded normally.

Wednesday, 20 March 1991

From the books

The cabinet sets the end of April as the deadline for dissolving all militias.
Except for Hezbollah and the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army, militias had a month under a 20 March cabinet decision to surrender their arms to the army and wind up their intelligence services; 'the brotherly Syrian army' could enforce it.

Sources differ: Three dates: 20 March cabinet decision (Hanf, Picard 2002), 23 March vote in parliament (Picard 2016), 28 March ministerial declaration (Picard 2002). They may be successive steps of the same process.

Saturday, 20 April 1991

From the books

Lebanese soldiers detain Palestinian guerrillas on a raid in the south.
Soldiers stopped a Popular Front commando, one of a series of clashes as the government refused the PLO any new agreement on armed status.

Wednesday, 1 May 1991

From the books

The army takes over the main militia strongholds; militia rule comes to an end.
On 1 May the army took Jbeil, Kisrawan, the Chouf and the last militia ports unopposed, alone but on terms set with the Syrian army, after Zghorta, Koura and Batroun in late April. Light weapons went uncollected.

Sunday, 5 May 1991

From the books

The government plans to find state jobs for 20,000 ex-militiamen.
The government planned to absorb former Christian and Muslim militiamen gradually into the army, security forces and administration. Only one intake followed: 6,000 men and some dozens of officers, announced in October 1993, and about 2,000 civil servants.

Sources differ: Hanf speaks of 20,000 to be trained; the integration actually carried out was 6,000.

Wednesday, 15 May 1991

From the books

The cabinet approves the treaty with Syria; the Patriarch objects.
The Lebanese Forces and Kataeb ministers abstained. Patriarch Sfeir objected that, the partners being unequal, the treaty would mean domination by the stronger.

Wednesday, 22 May 1991

From the books

Lebanon and Syria sign the Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination.
Hrawi and Assad signed it in Damascus. Lebanon pledged not to serve as a base or transit route for forces threatening Syria; it created a Higher Council and joint committees, leaving Syrian redeployment to the two governments. Assad spoke of one people in two states.

Friday, 7 June 1991

From the books

The government appoints forty new deputies to parliament.
Among the forty were thirteen ministers; Elie Hobeika took Pierre Gemayel's old seat. Nine seats were new, thirty-one vacated by deaths since 1972. Picard says they were picked for compliance with Damascus or militia power.

Monday, 1 July 1991

From the books range

The army drives the PLO out of its positions around Sidon.
The Palestinians announced on 4 July that they would hand over their heavy and medium weapons, and the Tyre camps followed a few days later. The army had attacked on 2 July, after artillery exchanges the day before, and taken every Palestinian position outside the camps in twelve hours.

Monday, 26 August 1991

From the books

The general amnesty law 84/91 is promulgated.
Law 84/91 pardoned political and state-security offences committed before 28 March 1991, except killings of, or attempts on, religious and political figures and diplomats. Critics called this 'no victor, no vanquished' measure a self-amnesty that kept the warlords in power and hid the truth about the war.

Sources differ: Picard (2002) calls it the Amnesty Law of March 1991, probably from its March 1991 cut-off; de Clerck and Abou Zaki give 26 August 1991.

Art and memory

film The state censor banned Randa Chahal Sabbag's Civilisées (1999), a savage comedy about 'the war of the Lebanese'.
film Only one Lebanese paper wrote about Harb Lubnan, Omar Issawi's fifteen-part al-Jazeera history, yet it became the region's most widely seen account of the war.

Thursday, 29 August 1991

From the books

General Aoun is spirited out of the French embassy into exile in France.
Aoun, sheltering in the French embassy since 13 October 1990, was removed ten months later in the secret 'Hortensia' operation, run by General Philippe Rondot with French gendarmes and RAID police. He remained in exile until 2005.

Sources differ: Quéméner's calendar places the exfiltration under 1990.

Sunday, 1 September 1991

From the books

Lebanon and Syria sign a defence and security agreement.
The pact tied the two countries' security services together; according to Traboulsi it even treated press freedom as a security matter.

1991: day not established

mid January 1991

From the books

The army is sent against the militiamen still in Greater Beirut.
From mid-January 1991 the army moved on militiamen still in greater Beirut, the LF protesting most. Militia offices and suspect sites were searched and armed men, now 'gunmen', arrested; arms and uniforms were banned.

late January 1991

From the books

The PLO fires rockets from the south to open a 'second front' for Iraq.
PLO units in the south fired Grad and Katyusha rockets at the Israeli-held zone and northern Israel when the Gulf War offensive began, drawing retaliatory shelling and helicopter raids.

late April 1991

From the books

The militias hand over their heavy weapons, some of them to Syria.
Having agreed in mid-April to disband, most militias had by 30 April surrendered their heavy arms and closed their bases. The Lebanese Forces returned weapons seized from the army but sent others abroad; Jumblatt gave his only to Syria's army.

early May 1991

From the books

A constitutional amendment sets parliament at 108 seats, shared equally between Christians and Muslims.
The amendment created nine new Muslim seats, including the first two Alawite seats, in line with the Taif Agreement.

Sources differ: See the entry for 21 September 1991 (Traboulsi's date for the constitutional law).

early June 1991

From the books

Camps open to retrain former militiamen for the army and police.
Under Law 88, ex-fighters who applied before the end of June were to enter the reorganised army and internal security forces under General Emile Lahoud.

October 1991

From the books

Lebanon joins the Madrid peace conference.
Lebanon attended on the basis of Resolution 425; its direct talks with Israel, guided from Damascus, amounted to only a few meetings near Washington in 1991–1992.