The Birthplace of Civil War

AIN EL-RUMMANE, Lebanon — It’s an odd place to start a war.

Ain el-Rummane, a Chris­t­ian neigh­bor­hood in the hills above Beirut occu­pies an omi­nous place in Lebanese his­tory. It was here, in 1975, near a statue of the Vir­gin, that a bus full of Pales­tin­ian refugees was ambushed by Chris­t­ian mili­ti­a­men. It was a mas­sacre in response to an assas­si­na­tion attempt, and the reprisals it gen­er­ated in turn quickly grew into the Lebanese civil war.

And now this res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood may pro­vide some of the sol­diers to fight in a new one. Mem­bers of the Lebanese Forces, the same mili­tia that killed the Pales­tini­ans in 1975, still claim Ain el-Rummane as home and they sim­mered Wednes­day, the day after the grand­son of the founder of their polit­i­cal party was killed by assas­sins on a busy Beirut street in mid-afternoon.

“One more mis­take and we will take the streets with our hands,” said Arz Wehbe, 27, a mem­ber of the mili­tia. “There are no weapons out now, but when it becomes seri­ous, we will take weapons from under the ground.”

The assas­si­na­tion of the 34-year-old Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon’s min­is­ter of indus­try, on Tues­day was the lat­est, most omi­nous devel­op­ment in Lebanon’s lat­est, most omi­nous polit­i­cal cri­sis that began in Feb­ru­ary 2005 with the mur­der of for­mer prime min­is­ter Rafik Hariri. Since then, Lebanon has seen five assas­si­na­tions, 15 bomb­ings, a vicious war between Hezbol­lah and Israel and an attempt by the Shi’ite group to top­ple the elected government.

But Gemayel’s death is more than just another assas­si­na­tion, because he was the first sit­ting mem­ber of gov­ern­ment to be killed and his death brings the spec­tre of a gov­ern­ment col­lapse closer than ever. Two weeks ago, five Shi’ite min­is­ters and a pro-Syrian Chris­t­ian min­is­ter resigned from Fuad Siniora’s U.S.–backed cab­i­net over the issue of the approval of an inter­na­tional tri­bunal on Hariri’s killing — which many think would impli­cate senior Syr­ian offi­cials. Other politi­cians gave omi­nous warn­ings that Syria would try to assas­si­nate some of the remain­ing cab­i­net min­is­ters in order to reduce it below its quo­rum level of 16 mem­bers. With Gemayel’s death, only two min­is­ters stand against its dis­so­lu­tion, and with it the inter­na­tional tribunal.

In Lebanon, his­tory casts a long shadow. It was an attempt on the life of his grand­fa­ther, the Pha­langist Party founder who was also named Pierre Gemayel, that sparked the mas­sacre in Ain el-Rummane 31 years ago.

“We will not shut up, we will not be silent,” said Wehbe. “Even if the coun­try is destroyed, we will stay.”

Another Lebanese Forces loy­al­ist, Simon Ghanime, 39, said that every­one was ready to take to the streets. They were just wait­ing for word from their lead­ers, Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces, and Amin Gemayel, the slain man’s father and a for­mer president.

“At the end of the day, you have to defend your­self,” Ghanime said. “I lis­ten always to my leader.” And if, at the end of the day, Geagea or Amin Gemayel says fight?

“Then we have to fight,” he said with a shrug. “They are hunt­ing us (Chris­tians) like birds.”

For now Amin Gemayel has coun­seled patience and prayer in Bik­faya where his son would be buried on Thurs­day. But in Beirut and its sub­urbs like Ain el-Rummane, angry men prowled the streets.

“I won’t leave Lebanon to the Shi’ites or the Syr­i­ans,” said Char­bel Nas­ral­lah, 24, from a mas­sive con­voy that was pass­ing the Pha­langist Party Head­quar­ters in East Beirut. “We don’t want Syr­i­ans or Ira­ni­ans to decide our fates. We will.”

But even within the ranks of Lebanon’s right-wing Chris­tians, there are those with less appetite for confrontation.

“The aim of March 8″ — the name of the pro-Syrian coali­tion — “is to get us to fight,” said a for­mer Lebanese Forces fighter who gave his name only as Car­los. “We can’t slip into this trap. It’s in their inter­est to get us to fight, but we don’t want that.”

Another man who was tap­ing pic­tures of the slain Gemayel to his car and who gave his name only as Eli echoed the idea that Lebanon’s Chris­tians must unite and not fall into the trap of vio­lence set by Syria and other for­eign pow­ers. But he said that even he would fight if his lead­ers told him to.

“To ensure the Chris­tians stay in this part of the world?” he asked. “Of course I would fight.”

Orig­i­nally pub­lished in the Newark Star-Ledger.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts