Posts Tagged ‘Testimonials of a civil war’
Testimonials of a civil war: Support movement for General Michel Aoun
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 22, 2008
Testimonials of a civil war: Support movement for General Michel Aoun
The issue of the daily Al Balab, May 9, 2005
This is the story of a girl who was 13 years old when the movement of General Aoun started after being appointed Prime Minister in interim. She used to participate in the demonstrations in support of his liberation stand against the occupation of the Syrian forces, and joined her schoolmates visiting the Presidential Palace in Baabda. She also drove there accompanied by her aunt and grand dad.
The Dekwani area where she lived was under the control of the “Lebanese Forces”, which was at the time still allied with the Lebanese army. She once wrote a poem to General Michel Aoun and drew the Statue of Liberty replacing the territory of Lebanon where the torch stands.
Later, when the Lebanese army faced the trespasses of the “Lebanese Forces”, people were forced to taking refuge in basements. The children were separated from adults who needed silence to listen to the radios. The trapped citizens would go three days without food. The main ingredient was lemon because it killed the appetite and boxes of Panadol for headaches. The girl’s grand dad cooked on a blue alcohol flame which took forever for the cooked food to be ready.
General Aoun gave up the fight as the Syrian air force bombed the presidential Palace on October 13, 1990. The citizens heard the General voice on the radio telling them the situation so that ”we save and keep whatever is left in Lebanon”. People wept and started burning the General’s cassettes and pictures for fear that the Syrian might indict them.
After October 13, the girl resumed her studies at the all girl school in Fanar where the Syrian troops installed one of their headquarters. The girls would not go out to play, especially when rumors spread of mass graves in Beit Mery and Deir Kalaa.
The Syrian soldiers used to walk the playgrounds while the students kept to their classes and they celebrated the remembrance of the independence at Independence Day. The students began throwing leaflets opposing the Syrian occupation from school buses windows when passing Syrian check points; the consequence was shutting all school buses windows during the whole trip home. The supporters of the General had a code car honking and poster were plastered stating “The General will return” from exile.
Testimonials of a civil war: Fatema recalls events in 1988
Civil war in lebanon 1975-1991
The issue of daily Al Balad, May 4, 2005
Fatema Rida was nine years old when the Taef Agreement (a revised Constitution for Lebanon) put an end to the war, which was signed on March 28, 1990. Fatema thought that her memory did not register anything from the war period, until the conflagration of the thousand kilo of dynamite detonated in the vicinity of the St. George hotel and killed former Prime Minister Hariri and twenty other people.
Fatema then started to recall events. In 1988, a shell fell in her kitchen injuring her and her brother. In the hospital they cried hard but tried to sooth one another that they are not suffering. Her mother relocated them from Zkak Blat in West Beirut to her grand father’s in South Lebanon.
Fatema’s mother worked in Beirut and visited her children every two Saturdays because the trip used to take 6 hours instead of the regular one hour-trip. Fatema also lost her best blond girl-doll because the girls in the new location kept emptying the stuffing from the burned area of the toy. A newly purchased Barbie doll never replaced her former doll love.
Fatema’s father was killed by a militia faction when she was nine months old and the leader of this militia is in power now. At twenty one, her uncle gave her a cassette of her father talking about the family and she sometimes used to laugh because she realized that he had trouble pronouncing the R.
She recently met Issam, a member of the militia that killed her father, and who was in charge of keeping the security at the door of her school Batriarkyeh. When Issam was sitting in guard, the school could resume as usual. When Issam was standing then the school prepared to close immediately, and students went home under a rain of bullets.
Testimonials of a civil war: A tale of destruction since 1975
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 22, 2008
Testimonials of a civil war
The issue of daily Al Balad, May 1, 2005
Hajj Mahmoud Kaleet is 71 years old from Bent Jbile in the South. He has 10 children. Mahmoud had relocated to Nabaa in East Beirut before 1975 because of the Israeli retaliations against the Palestinian resistance in the Southern borders sent the Lebanese fleeing toward Beirut.
When the Phalangist militias devastated Nabaa and destroyed his house and all his belonging, he headed toward Soufar in the Aley disctrict. He then worked as a taxi driver in Syria for a while and settled in Dahieh-Bear Abed (currently a stronghold of Hezbollah).
An Israeli shell destroyed his house in April 1982 and killed two of his children: a son and a daughters. A second daughter suffered permanent disfiguration. The family relocated again in Aley until Beshir Gemmayel was elected President of the Republic with Israel backing.
The fifth relocation took the family back to Ghazieh and then to Bear Abed. Hajj Mahmoud never took arm or any of his children: they were busy surviving and staying away from any kind of militias. He nevertheless participated in Mosques sit-in against the attempted peace treaty with Israel.
Once, his car was hit by shrapnel during his trip to Hay Selum and thus he fled to Burj Barajneh before reaching his home.
Testimonials of a civil war: The story of a Communist Action member
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 22, 2008
Testimonials of a civil war: The story of a Communist Action member
The issue of daily Al Balad, April 30, 2005
Mahmoud Wehbe is from south Lebanon and was a member of the Organization of the Communist Action, a splinter of the Communist Trotsky Party. One of his militia officers asked him whether military training in the army involved some artillery duties, especially the use of Hawn 82 caliber. Mahmoud replied that his military knowledge did not go beyond generalities.
Thus, Mahmoud was attached to an artillery unit in Aley as an artillery assistant. It turned out that the artillery man was a Syrian Communist with no artillery training whatsoever, with no maps, no compass and no pointer man to guide targeting. Even after three trials, the shells fell one kilometer from target.
Many civilians were killed because of this targeting inefficiency. Mahmoud was ordered to join a local party headquarter as a cook. He chastised the leaders who smoked Havana cigars, ate varied course meals, and lived the high life while the fighting comrades barely had one dry sandwich a day in the trenches.
The leaders temporized with him claiming that this local headquarter is a place to meet with other parties’ heads and dignitaries. Fighters were utterly bored and tended to shoot all day long for no reason or specific targets.
When Mahmoud returned to his home town for a short leave, he was welcomed as a hero. The real fighting he engaged in was in the hills of Zaarour in the Metn region of Mount Lebanon against Lebanese army units commanded by General Barakat.
Mahmoud soon realized that they were fighting against the Syrian forces as well and had to retreat. It was down hill to this Marxist militia from then on and widespread depression and defeatism set on.
By this time, the Shiaa Amal militia was gaining territory in the South, the Bekaa and Beirut. The Christian “Lebanese Forces” were consolidating their hold on the “Christian” area conquered.
Testimonials of a civil war: ” Security-Political” factions?
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 22, 2008
Testimonials of a civil war: ” Security-Political” ; civil war in Lebanon 1975-1991
The issue of daily Al Balad, April 28, 2005
An anonymous Lebanese man wrote a book of his recollections of the early Palestinian Resistance activities in Lebanon. This resistance from Lebanon to Israel occupation of lands started in 1969 when this man was still in secondary school. The book is titled:” Security-Political”. The man was first contacted by the responsible of the “Fateh” student organization in his school.
The job was to get information, and better yet, to infiltrate an organization calling itself the “Arab Fedayyins” with headquarter close to where he lived in Mazraa Avenue in Beirut. One of his school mates introduced him to the leader of this new organization by the name Ahmed Rifaat.
Ahmed asked him to collect contributions to the “Arab Fedayyins”organization. The Fateh student leader bought the entire contribution book for LL 100 (a large sum at the time) so that he could prove to Ahmed that he is a diligent member of the organization.
Then Ahmed disappeared to reemerge in 1980 as a security chief to Yasser Arafat. In the mean time, the anonymous author had discovered that Ahmed was, at a previous period, a lieutenant in the Palestinian Brigade located in Iraq and thus, was an Iraqi Baath party informer.
Another member of this non existent “Arab Fedayyins” was Abi Abdullah, who turned out to be a captain in the Palestinian Brigade located in Syria.
Thus, the Syrian regime sent a spy to infiltrate the Iraqi regime organization. Later on, this Abi Abdullah was eliminated by the Fateh security forces or Unit 17 (as the Syrian regime tried to totally control Fateh), and the posters claimed that he died as a martyr for the Palestinian cause.
Testimonials of a civil war: “Free Tigers” militia?
From The issue of the daily Al Balad, April 27, 2005
John Eid was twenty years old when the civil war started. He was and still is a member of the political party of late President Camille Chamoun because his father, a soldier in the Lebanese army, was also a member.
John vacated with his family from Ain Rumany, a Christian Beirut suburb, and joined the “Free Tigers” militia or the military wing of this party.
John claims that his militia did not have any military training or arms when the war started and that he was obeying orders from his superiors during the war.
He joined 20 of the members in a training camp and still believes that the war was not confessional but national against the Palestinians who wanted to rule Lebanon.
John believes that there is no Lebanon without the presence of its Christian citizens.
The “Free Tigers” participated heavily with the Syrian forces to encircle, reduce to famine, and invade a Palestinian camp in Tell Al Zaatar in East Beirut.
This militia slaughtered thousands of civilian Palestinians after the camp fell.
Later, the “Free Tigers” militia capitulated to the Phalanges Party and formed the Maronite Christian “Lebanese Forces” and he remained an integral part of this force during most of the war.
In 1988, John joined the forces of General Michel Aoun when the Lebanese army engaged the Syrian forces and the “Lebanese Forces” of Samir Geajaa a few months later.
Once, John entered a decrepit building in fire, and the stairwell was destroyed to the upper floors in order that everyone up there would perish in the fire, famine, or throwing themselves down to their death.
He entered rooms and found entire families, kids, mothers and elder people, individually killed sitting around tables for dinner.
When coming down the stairs he heard screams of women and little babies coming from the basement; they would not open the door for him fearing that the militia would slaughter them anyway.
John had a Christian friend who was shot at a road block by another Christian militia fighter, simply because his name was not to his liking.
John witnessed Christian militias destroying the insides of churches, ruining the tabernacles and defaming the pictures of the Virgin Mary and all the other Saints.
Testimonials of a civil war: Communist party member
The issue of daily Al Balad, April 26, 2005
Samir Al Ocda was barely 12 years old when the civil war started. His father was a dedicated Communist party member and hided a Kalashnikov in his house located in Ras Nabaa.
Samir’s father was strict in never allowing any one in the family to touch the Kalashnikov, or missing a school day for demonstrating, or to hanging out in centers where political meetings were taking place.
Once, as Samir was 10 years old, his father and a few of his comrades parked the jeep in the neighborhood. His father lifted the kid Samir and placed him behind the Doshka machine gun mounted on the jeep. That was the first great impression for power and glory.
Samir political awareness began in 1980 when he was in middle school: He read the daily newspaper “Al Watan” (the nation) distributed at the school door. He badly desired to wear the green vest called “field” that was donned by the communist fighters.
When the bombing intensified, he stood at the school door and harangued the students not to enter and to join the demonstrations. The school principal remonstrated them and they replied by throwing rocks at him.
In Ras Nabaa stood a house called “Nadi Ruwad” (the patrons club) which hosted Russian delegates and various sports activities. In this house, Samir got indoctrinated and started reading ideological books and participating in discussions.
In 1981, Samir was already 15 years old and joined a training camp for the Communist in Kfar Matta under the direction of a comrade called “Stalin”. He had told his family that he was going out on a scout camp.
The taller the comrade the closer to the front row was the regulation and thus, short Samir was always standing in the back wearing oversized Cuban military garments.
Abu Anis, the war code name for the head of the Communist Party George Hawi, sent immediately these fresh graduating recruits to manning the barricades in St. Theresa, in the Dahia neighborhood in order to face-off the offensives of the “Amal” militias also called the disinherited Shiaas.
Samir was restless from then on and barely visited his family.
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and entered Beirut.
Samir helped his comrades recover the military vehicles and hardware buried in the “Sport City” compound and distributed the vehicles to various corners in West Beirut, and mainly around the “Cola” neighborhood.
By dawn, the inhabitants got the fright seeing that amount of military vehicles and chars and started vacating to more peaceful areas in coincidence with the admonishments of the Israeli flyers for the people to empty the surroundings and so Samir’s folks did too.
Samir collected 250 house keys that the tenants left with him for safe keep.
While guarding barricades, Samir used to finger his guitar and a photo was published of him with the legend stating “The break time of a fighter at “Mat-haf” (National Museum area)”, followed by the slogans “Down with guns; Long life to guitars!”
His last battle was at “Mathaf” where he faced the Israeli soldiers and managed to earn the scare of his life before successfully retreating.
Samir still believes that he fought for a just cause, but the circumstances and new facts are leaving him to wonder whether this civil war was worth the damage and death.
Since the Taef agreement in 1990, which stopped the war, and the parliament proclaiming that “All has been forgiven and all involved have been pardoned”, Samir has experienced deep depression periods and witnessed a half-peace and lack of opportunities to earn a living.
An eye witness confessed to seeing a bunch of kids playing soccer on a sandy field to discover that the ball was indeed a human skull.
Rami, now 33 years old, used to gather insects in bundles and burn them just to hear the crackling sounds in the fire.
Testimonials of a civil war: Joseph from town of Hilalieh in East Sidon
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 22, 2008
Testimonials of a civil war: Joseph of Hilalieh in East Sidon
Note: civil war in Lebanon 1975-1991
The issue of the daily Al Balad, April 19, 2005
Joseph is from a predominantly Christian village of Hilalieh in East Sidon. During the first two years of the civil war, no major calamities happened in that region . The situation deteriorated after the preemptive Israelis invasion in 1982.
All hell opened loose since then, especially,after Israel withdrawal from Sidon in February 1985. Israel troops remained in South Lebanon till the year 2000.
In April 28, 1985, the conflagration took place among the different factions in and around Sidon. In one side were the Christian factions of Phalanges, Lebanese Forces, and General Lahd Army allied to Israel, and on the other side the Naserites, Islamists, and Communist forces.
Joseph was attending the “Maximus Hakim” school when the battle raged. The Christian Orthodox monks provided lunch to the students until the parents were able to come later and pick them up. Joseph went with his father to his hometown, while his mother and grand mother left the village of Kyaha around Jezzine.
The exodus started in these regions; the Christians in Kiyaha, Kenneya, Sharhabil, Mieh-Mieh toward Jezzine and other safer Christian villages and the Moslems converged to Sidon.
After a month of continuous relocation, Joseph’s father decided to go back to Sidon instead of East Beirut. The business house was untouched because the neighbors kept watch, but his house in Hilalieh was now occupied by another family by the permission of the People Nasserite Organization.
They lived for two months in Abra in an apartment vacated by cousins of theirs, who immigrated to the USA. They managed to retake their house, which was practically ruined and emptied. Within days, neighbors started returning the furniture that they claimed have borrowed for safe keeping.
The Israelis and Syrians decided that the dividing line of demarcation between the warring factions would be Majdeliun. The region was self-administered until the Lebanese Army entered Sidon in 1990.
The Israeli forces destroyed a modern university constructed by Rafic Hariri in Kfarfalus and many villages suffered destruction and pillage by Israeli troops, but not at the scale observed around Beirut and the Chouf.
Testimonials of a civil war: The case of Zinab Sheaban Naanuh
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 22, 2008
Testimonials of a civil war: The case of Zinab Sheaban Naanuh
Note: civil war in Lebanon (1975-1991)
The issue of the daily Al Balad, April 17, 2005
Zinab Sheaban Naanuh is from the Shiaa Moslem sect and in her fifty now. Zinab had to relocate seven times with her four children, without the assistance of her husband.
When she was living in Ras Dekwani in East Beirut, close to the Palestinian refugees’ camp of Tel Zaatar, water was the priciest commodity during the war. People had to walk far to the only well available because all water lines were destroyed or cut off. In every sortie for fetching water, three out of ten volunteers died during the trip to the well. Then the Christian militias polluted the well by dumping dead bodies. Zinab new born child almost died of dehydration and she had to leave all her children and tempt death to the well.
Her husband Abu Nasser sold cigarettes, but they lived the good life before the war. Her husband had to travel to Russia for a stomach surgery and Zinab did not see him for the duration of the war. She remembers the Black Saturday massacre as the Christian militias slaughtered all of Beirut port workers using machetes, daggers, and bullets, while her husband was isolated in West Beirut for two weeks.
One day, a butcher sold her half of a whole mutton for two cigarettes. Zinab never patronized any shelter for the duration of the war because of the serious diseases contracted in these infected places and opted instead to taking her chances.
Zinab twice gave birth during heavy shelling while having to cater for her children all alone. Once, a rocket entered her living room but did not explode; then, after cleaning the house she carried the rocket outside the building where expert people detonated it and the Captain admonished her for this foolishness.
After the fall of Tal Zaatar, Zinab experienced her worst nightmares during her exit from Dekwani to West Beirut. The Christian militias exterminated the Palestinian males and left only one male to each mother and carried away the rest to their death.
One method the militia used to carry out this mass killing plan was to deliver sleeping pills under the guise of aspirin to the refugees and to retrieve the males sentenced to death while people were sleeping. A taxi driver charged Zinab 100 dollars to take her out of this mad place.
Zinab was an eyewitness to the impalements of people: two jeeps would attach the limbs of a person then drive away in different directions.
Testimonials of a civil war: What happened in Ashrafieh (Lebanon)?
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 22, 2008
Testimonials of Lebanon civil war 1975-1991: What happened in Ashrafieh (Lebanon)?
The issues of daily Al Balad, April 14 and 15, 2005
Ashrafieh is on the hilly part of East Beirut, surrounded by highways on all sides, and cut by a major artery that divides it into two main regions.
This district of Beirut was originally inhabited by Christian Oriental Orthodox, and slowly middle class Christian Maronite families moved in and constituted the majority before the civil war. Ashrafieh is famous for its labyrinths of narrow streets, of mainly one directional ways, and tall buildings that overlook most of Beirut.
This region was crowded with gang members exhibiting machismo trends. The gang members packed places of flippers and pool games. Mafia-type groups, enjoying the backing of the Lebanese internal intelligence agencies called the “Second Bureau”, were setting the rules in the streets. They rode motorcycles and red American convertibles and wore white suits and mafia hats.
Western young girls, picked from bordellos in El Zeitouny area, were exhibited in the convertible cars of these Mafiosos. The militias of the Christian “Lebanese Forces” would later displace these gangs and transfer them to the demarcation lines going as far as Ain Rumany and Furn Chebak.
Many families suffered irreversible psychological injuries because no specialized centers existed for cases that could be rehabilitated.
Many feel lucky to be alive and thus consider that anything less than death must be a superficial damage not worth confessing about. The mother of Hani stated that her child could not sleep without pills and kept trembling in her arms for long time since the end of the war.
Samira, now 45 years of age, lost her parents and never felt the urge to return to her home. Mohamad, of 40 years now, lost his eldest son and goes into fits whenever he hears a loud noise.
In his book “Streets war”, Charles Chehwan describes an event of two football (soccer) players finishing a tough game under pouring rain and then screeching their car on the highway toward the war front and having a quick fuck with a girl before reaching destination.
There was a group of fighters who shaved their heads and wore priest cloth who joined the Phalanges Party.
A guy named Zorro drove a black Mercedes convertible and carried a silver shining revolver. Another guy named Kosov was a fan of Che Guevara. A gangster formed the “Death squad” which located in an old house by a major school and hired an American Kong Fu trainer. This gangster became filthy rich and would usually drive, forwarded by a band of motorcyclists. A famous soccer player got ever more famous in battles and amassed riches.
A renowned 100 m sprinter turned into an ugly killer and forced tribute on his neighborhood.
Those who tortured prisoners were mostly handymen, ironworkers, wood craftsmen and butchers.
One circus professional committed atrocities in Karantina, a very poor neighborhood adjacent to the Phalange Party main headquarter, while he exhibited utmost kindness, politeness and modesty in his social surrounding. Many students wore pistols dangling from large belts, long leather overcoats and cowboy boots.
Girls started to accompany their boyfriends to the war fronts. University graduates, especially engineers, were given the task of manning canons and thus, the Christian Maronites raised the slogan of “Quality versus quantity”. It was common to wear a large wooden cross, let the hair grow tall and have long beard.
Leftists had to leave Ashrafieh and move to West Beirut.
In this confessional war, the Christian militias made St. Charbel and Saint Mary appear in different places, simultaneously, and on many occasions. Obviously the Palestinian was made the nemesis and the devil; he was the unfaithful, the dirty, the one who sold his homeland and honor.
During this war no verbal or written culture chanted or honored the martyrs in the Christian cantons as was very common in West Beirut.
All schools were transformed into barracks for training fighters and old houses for partying and having good time.
Adonis Diaries 