Adonis Diaries

Testimonials 30 years after a civil war

The issue May 9, 2005 of daily Al Balad

 A girl testified that she did not hear of the General Aoun Movement (Tayyar Taghyir wa Islah)until her last High School year. When the authority cancelled a live interview with the General on channel MTV the school bus passed by the Science University, and she picked up a few leaflets denouncing the authorities. Her teacher complained to the head master who questioned her. 

She watched a demonstration of the General Aoun Movement supporters in front of the MTV headquarter; that was the first time she was exposed to a demonstration. In the faculty of natural sciences, she participated in handing out leaflets, especially on the eve of Independence Days, November 21.

A few times, students were confronted by intelligence agents and booked overnight.  The students applied as candidates for the student council, simply to be present during the counting of the ballot.

The General’s freedom movement supporters performed dangerous activities such as distributing leaflets at night.  The faculty was shut down and barbed wires were erected around the faculty to prevent the movement’s political celebrations or gatherings.

The girl’s first action was to participate in a gathering reclaiming the setting free of the student Walid Ashkar.  She was at the Museum demonstration of April 2000 where dozens of students were beaten up and sent to prisons.  The coded honking of the Tayayr was heard from the encircled demonstrators, while she kept running away from the mayhem.

The students knew the intelligence agents in their faculty by name, and they used to tambourine on their desks during their presence and shouting “Out Fassido”.

The students marched on March 14, 2000 toward the Syrian army headquarter in Fanar and she did not feel any sort of exhaustion.  Citizens threw rice on the marchers in support and the Lebanese soldiers were uncomfortable of their duty of keeping the peace.  Fear vanished from her life after she was incarcerated, and she paid no attention to her relatives’ admonitions such as “What can you realize?  Girl, why do you have to act like that?”