Word: gemayel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Gemayel's troops had lost control of West Beirut to the Shi'ite and Druze militias in a vicious battle the week before, and the rout south of the city left his government controlling little more than Christian East Beirut. The Muslims were expected to make their next major thrust at Suq al Gharb in the mountains east of Beirut, where the Lebanese Army held a strategic position overlooking the presidential palace at Baabda, just outside the capital. Fighting did break out around Suq al Gharb and along the "green line" separating West and East Beirut...
Some U.S. officials who had been derisively calling Gemayel "the mayor of Beirut" because of his shrunken domain began referring to him still more sarcastically as "the shah of Baabda." To defend even the areas he still holds, the Christian President has left only about half the army that the U.S. helped train and equip. The melting away of the Fourth Brigade removed 2,000 of the 22,000 to 25,000 combat troops supposedly answering Gemayel's orders at the beginning of February. An additional 10,000 Muslim soldiers are staying in their barracks and refusing to fight...
...revenge or for political purposes of their own. No matter how orderly the pullout, it now seemed all but impossible for the Marines to turn over control of the airport to what is left of the Lebanese Army. This had been the U.S. goal only days before. Unless Gemayel chooses to ferry troops from East Beirut by helicopter, the Marines will have to abandon the airport to his Muslim foes...
...impotence of Gemayel's government needed no underlining to Christian residents of the villages south of Beirut. Thousands fled before the advancing Muslim militia into the Israeli occupation zone. Reported TIME Correspondent David Halevy: "They rolled up to the Awali River in cars and trucks of every age and description. The vehicles were crammed with children, mothers and grandmothers and piled high with blankets, mattresses, ancient refrigerators, rusty sewing machines and, here and there, a new color TV or even a Persian carpet. On a single day last week some 4,000 to 6,000 refugees crossed the Awali...
Desperate to save his political skin and perhaps even his life, Gemayel late in the week took a step that represented still another blow to U.S. policy. He decided to scrap the agreement his government had signed with Jerusalem last May 17, calling for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in return for Lebanese concessions on political and security arrangements in the southern part of the country. The agreement never went into effect, because it was contingent on a simultaneous Syrian pullout from Lebanon that Damascus refused to accept. Nonetheless, the pact, achieved after heavy U.S. prodding of both sides, became...