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December 19, 1986friday
Violent combats opposed in Tripoli the Syrian Army to Islamist militiamen. The fights made 12 dead and 35 injuries. The Syrian Army launched an Islamists hunting at the end of which one of the major leaders of the Islamic Unification Movement was arrested.
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Picard puts the toll of the December 1986 Syrian bombardment of Tripoli at more than 100 dead.
December 24, 1986wednesday
Aurel Cornea, one of the Antenne 2 journalists kidnapped on June 21, was released by the Organization of Revolutionary Justice.
\_this day in full the books also date it 8 March 1986 \_on this day
\_what the books add
The Antenne 2 crew was kidnapped on 8 March 1986 (de Clerck and Malsagne), not on 21 June.
December 26, 1986friday
The dollar crossed the 80 Lebanese Pounds threshold. It continued its rise to reach the fateful three digit numbers. According to statistics, consumer products had increased by 204% in a year and the Lebanese Pound had depreciated by 365%.
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Historians give lower figures for 1986: retail inflation of 162 per cent (Hanf, after the central bank) or a 95 per cent rise in Beirut consumer prices, and a 134 per cent devaluation of the pound (de Clerck and Malsagne).
February 1, 1987sunday
The MEA suspended its flights therefore causing a de facto closing of the Beirut International Airport, while the few companies that were still flying into the airport (Soviet, Czech, and Bulgarian) decided to cancel their flights.
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February 6, 1987friday
The Lebanese Pound recorded a historic decline compared to the dollar which had almost reached the 100 LBP threshold. This fall worried the population.
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De Clerck and Malsagne call 1987's currency crisis the gravest since independence, the pound losing up to 90 percent of its value; on Banque du Liban figures (Hanf), it fell from about 35 to the dollar in 1986 to some 520.
February 7, 1987saturday
The confrontations intensified around the Palestinian camps of Chatila and Bourj Brajneh. The risk of escalation intensified.
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By late 1986, say de Clerck and Malsagne, Chatila was 90 percent destroyed, yet 500 to 1,000 Palestinians held out inside. In the winter of 1987, Picard writes, many Palestinians in the besieged Beirut camps died of hunger.
February 12, 1987thursday
While the Lebanese Pound continued to fall, the chief of State Amine Gemayel, arrived in Bruxelles to request a social and economic help from the European countries.
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February 15, 1987sunday
A vast military confrontation between Amal and the PSP erupted in West Beirut. It was a prelude to the entrance of 12,000 Syrian soldiers in this region. However, they didn't deploy in the Southern suburbs.
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Hanf has the PSP and its leftist allies overrunning Amal's Murr Tower headquarters and taking Hamra after five days of what he calls West Beirut's worst fighting, its destruction on the scale of the 1982 siege. The size of the Syrian force differs by source: 12,000 soldiers plus Special Forces (de Clerck and Malsagne), 8,000 (Quéméner), two brigades (Hanf), the re-formed 85th Brigade (Fisk). The troops entered on 22 February according to most sources (see addition 1987-02-22).
September 1, 1987tuesday
President Gemayel arrives in Quebec to request, in front of the Francophony Summit, the creapour demander, the creation of Special Support Funds in Lebanon.
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September 5, 1987saturday
September 20, 1987sunday
700 PSP combattants PSP and about 100 activists from the Communist Party get ready to go to Lybia in order to fight with the Lybians against the Army of Tchad.
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The numbers differ: about 800 PSP fighters (de Clerck and Malsagne, after the Washington Post of 21 September 1987) or about 1,000 Druze militiamen and 300 fighters of leftist organisations (Hanf). Hanf adds that the parties received a share of their pay and sees the episode as a sign of resignation after the Syrian return.
September 23, 1987wednesday
As the Minister of Education, Selim Hoss asks universities to organize admission competotion and exams since the Baccalaureat exams couldn't be presented.
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September 24, 1987thursday
Father Andre Masse is assassinated close to Saida. He was head of the USJ (Saint-Joseph University) section in South-Lebanon.
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Not long before he was killed, Masse remarked that the foreign press passed over much of Lebanon's cultural, economic and political life; Picard quotes him.
November 5, 1987thursday
The CGTL announces an open general strike, followed a few days later by a mass demonstration in Beirut and in other Lebanese regions.
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Hanf: the union-backed peace movement peaked in November 1987. Police estimated 60,000 people from East and West Beirut at the Museum crossing, its largest rally; others took place in Tripoli, Jbeil, Sidon and Tyre (see addition 1987-11-museum-demonstration).
November 11, 1987wednesday
November 14, 1987saturday
The attempt against the American Hospital is a first in the annals of terrorism. Tjis is the first time hospitals are attacked. It killed 6 ersons and wounded 37.
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The statement that hospitals had never before been attacked needs qualifying: Fisk records Israeli artillery hitting Beirut's main hospitals, the American University Hospital among them, in the 1982 siege, and Hanf reports pro-Iranian groups attacking vehicles bound for the American University and its clinic.
November 16, 1987monday
Saida city went through a day of combats and bombing, killing according to a first toll, 6 people and injuring fourty. The confrontation was between Palestinian combatants and the Nasserian Popular Organization's militiamen.
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November 27, 1987friday
November seems to end with a sign of hope for the hostages in Lebanon. Jean-Louis Normandin, kidnapped in March 86, and Roger Auque, kidnapped in January 87, are set free.
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December 2, 1987wednesday
While credits are unblocked to buy fuel and service stations are reopened, Victor Cassir, Minister of Industry and Oil, authorizes private companies to import fuel subject to a previous authorization by the Ministry of Oil.
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December 8, 1987tuesday
The storm is raging in the country. Floods provoke important damages and kill 5 persons. On the other hand, electric power becomes rare.
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December 28, 1987monday
Charles Malek dies at the age of 82 ans following a long period of illness. The news of the death of the former Council's Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Affairs saddens the political, as well as the academic and intellectual sets. The American President Ronald Reagan addresses an emotional tribute to the memory of the academic, the philosopher and the politician.
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February 2, 1988tuesday
Jacques Merrin, a Frenchman working for the DGSE, is killed by unknown persons in the neighborhood of the Palace of Justice.
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February 3, 1988wednesday
February 4, 1988thursday
The emissary of President Amine Gemayel, Elie Salem, meets with the Secretary of State George Schultz in Washington in the presence of the Sub-Secretary for the Middle East Affairs, Richard Murphy.
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February 12, 1988friday
An explosive charge of 880 grs of TNT is found and diffused in the airplane that has to transport President Gemayel to Sanaa.
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September 8, 1988thursday
September 13, 1988tuesday
Fire exchanges between units of the Lebanese army and the Lebanese Forces in Sin-el-Fil and Mkalles killed one militiaman and injured another one.
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September 18, 1988sunday
Mikhael Daher, deputy from the North, 'was designated' candidate at the presidential elections in accordance with a Syrian-American agreement. This designation did not please everyone.
\_this day in full the books also date it 15 September 1988 \_on this day
\_what the books add
Hanf (pp. 569-570): the joint US-Syrian proposal came out of three days of talks in Damascus from 15 September, after which Murphy warned the Maronite Patriarch that the alternative to Daher was chaos.
September 20, 1988tuesday
September 22, 1988thursday
A few minutes before the expiration of his mandate, President Amine Gemayel named the Maronite commander of the army, general Michel Aoun, Prime Minister of a military government. According to the constitution, the ministers' council takes over the executive power in case of a vacancy of the presidency. However, the three Muslim Ministers withdraw immediately.
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Hanf (p. 570) says Gemayel signed the decrees at 23.45, after an ultimatum from Aoun and Geagea, and that the cabinet had six officers from six communities. Traboulsi's postscript dates the end of the term to October 1988, and Picard (p. 155) and Quéméner to August 1988; the other sources agree on 22 September.
September 23, 1988friday
General Aoun and Selim Hoss were fighting for the international recognition. The country was from now on divided in two regions run respectively in the 'East' by general Aoun and in the 'West' by Selim Hoss.
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November 7, 1988monday
General Antoine Lahd, Chief of the 'Army of Southern Lebanon', escapes an assassination attempt by a communist militant, Souha Bechara. She is arrested.
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De Clerck (p. 104) says Soha Bechara was then tortured and jailed for ten years at Khiam. Hanf (p. 321) dates the attempt to December 1988.
November 9, 1988wednesday
Adel Osseirane names General Sami Khatib, former Chief of the Arab Strike Force, Chief Commander of the Army.
\_this day in full the books also date it 10 November 1988 \_on this day
\_what the books add
De Clerck (p. 283) dates the appointment to 10 November and says Hoss made it; Hanf (p. 571) says early November. On 12 November Aoun's cabinet referred al-Khatib to the military court.
November 25, 1988friday
West Beirut was the stage of a fresh outbreak of combats between Amal militiamen and the Hezbollah, despite the Syrian army presence.
\_this day in full the books also date it 28 November 1988 \_on this day
\_what the books add
Picard dates this round to 28 November 1988, Hanf to early December.
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