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.

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.

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.

Picard dates this round to 28 November 1988, Hanf to early December.

Hanf: Syria, isolated among Arab states, reluctantly accepted the Lebanon commission the Arab League's Council of Ministers set up on 12 January under Kuwait's foreign minister. Iraq launched it to check Syria.

In January 1989 Walid Jumblatt made his strongest appeal yet for displaced Christians to return to the Chouf and Aley. Dany Chamoun attended the conference Jumblatt held; Samir Geagea did not. According to Hanf, few displaced people returned.

The dates differ: Hanf says Amal and Hezbollah suspended their war on 25 January, and also writes that the Syrian-Iranian ceasefire took until the spring. De Clerck and Malsagne date the ceasefire to February 1989. Picard names Syria and Iran as sponsors. Death tolls depend on the source and the period: some sources put civilian deaths at about 2,000 for 1988-1990 (de Clerck and Malsagne); an al-Nahar-based count gives 635 dead across 147 incidents between 1985 and 1991; Georges Corm estimated 2,000 dead for 1988-1989.

Hanf: Aoun told the Tunis meeting he could settle Lebanese differences himself once Syria withdrew; Hoss and Husseini put reform first.

Hanf cites estimates of 15,000 troops under Aoun and 10,000 militiamen, both sides heavily armed by Iraq, and dates the outbreak of heavy army-Lebanese Forces fighting to 10 February, Aoun accusing the militia of plotting a coup. De Clerck and Malsagne date the first clash to 14 February.

De Clerck and Malsagne date the first army-LF clash to 14 February: after 18 hours of fighting the army had the upper hand. Hanf dates the start to 10 February.

De Clerck and Malsagne have a truce under the Maronite Patriarch's patronage from 17 February. Hanf says Aoun accepted a ceasefire once the militia agreed to hand over Dock Five of the port and the Bourbara checkpoint.

Hanf reports that within a week the dollar dropped from LL502 to LL450 and that state customs income rose quickly, though the Lebanese Forces honoured their February 1989 undertaking only in part. The army received Dock Five, the country's main customs post, and the Barbara checkpoint (Hanf spells it 'Bourbara').

According to Hanf and Fisk, the embassy closed after demonstrations by Aoun's supporters. A first youth protest at the embassy, against Western 'silence', took place in April 1989.

Hanf says Kadri had lobbied deputies to press for Syria's withdrawal from the Bekaa before Taif. He groups the killing with those of Bashir Gemayel, Kamal Jumblatt, Hassan Khaled and Mohammed Shukair, all of which, in his view, plainly benefited Syria.

The dates differ: Picard ends the 'war of liberation' on 22 September; de Clerck and Malsagne say the ceasefire took effect on 23 September. Hanf dates the troika's new plan to 13 September (de Clerck and Malsagne say 17 September). Aoun accepted it, urging the deputies to insist on a timetable for Syrian withdrawal.

The meeting date of 30 September was already part of the troika's 13 September proposals (Hanf). De Clerck and Malsagne say 63 of the 73 surviving deputies gathered in Taif on 30 September. Hanf dates the formal opening to 1 October.

Hanf dates Aoun's dissolution, by Decree 420, to 4 November, with elections set for January 1990; Traboulsi places it in September 1989. Raymond Eddé held the decree constitutional; Georges Vedel, the French jurist consulted by Speaker Husseini, found that an interim government could not dissolve parliament.

On 5 November, Hanf says, 58 deputies met at the Qlayaat air base, seven kilometres from the Syrian border, 25 of them flown from Paris on Rafic Hariri's private plane. They returned Hussein Husseini as speaker, voted on Taif and chose René Moawad as president: 35 votes on the first ballot, 52 with 6 abstentions on the second. That evening demonstrators broke into the Bkerke patriarchate and made Patriarch Sfeir kiss a portrait of Aoun.

Aoun, Hanf writes, warned that any Christian deputy joining a Moawad-Hoss government would lose the right to live in the 'free areas'. When bombs hit the homes of many Christian deputies after the election, his condemnation was half-hearted: he voiced 'understanding for the anger of the people'.

Moawad had been president for seventeen days. Hanf puts the dead at fourteen, including the president; de Clerck and Malsagne say he died with 23 other people. Fisk describes a remote-controlled charge of 250 kg of explosives concealed in a disused shop, and watched bulldozers clear the rubble within hours.

Hanf: Elias Hrawi, the only candidate, won on the second ballot with 47 votes of the 53 deputies present, 5 abstaining, under Syrian protection; at the same sitting parliament gave itself four more years. Speaker Husseini had gone to Damascus on the night of 22 November. Traboulsi's chronology places the election on 22 November.