Word: militiaization
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ISRAELIS OF ALL political persuasions are living a New Year of shame in the aftermath of last week's massacre of innocent Palestinian refugees. As the details slowly emerge, it seems clear some members of the military knew of the carnage undertaken by the Christian militia from its start. But the horrors of Shatila and Sabra obscure what we must hope will be the Jewish state's eventual salvation: a working, vibrant democracy...
During eight years of bitter sectarian strife in Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, 34, gained a reputation as an iron-willed warlord of his country's Christian militia forces as he fought both Muslim and rival Christian groups. But now Gemayel, who will take office as President on Sept. 23, is talking like the national leader of Christian and Muslim alike. Last week Lebanon's President-to-be, lounging in blue slacks and an open-necked shirt in his 400-year-old ancestral home in Bikfaya, talked with TIME Rome Bureau Chief Wilton Wynn about Lebanon's problems. Highlights...
...occupied for five years. As soldiers under the protection of French Foreign Legionnaires cleared away earthen barricades, the Sodeco crossing point between East and West Beirut was opened for the first time since 1978. It was quickly closed, however, when sniper fire from members of a small militia group, Partisans of the Revolution, caused a halt in traffic. But an hour later the leader of the group, Moustafa Turk, went to Prime Minister Wazzan's office to deliver a bouquet of flowers and an apology. There had been, he said, a "misunderstanding" by some...
There were no illusions about the fragility of the prevailing calm or the problems that still remain to be solved in the war-torn land. Grudge fights between Christians and Muslims caused several deaths, illustrating the difficulties President-elect Bashir Gemayel, former leader of the Christian militia forces, faces when he tries to pull together a country of feuding sects. On Wednesday, Gemayel had a secret meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Later, a French soldier attached to a United Nations unit was killed by sniper fire outside the city. A Syrian MIG-25 jet fighter was struck...
Gemayel launched his military career when he was still a boy. During the brief age war of 1958, he officially joined the Phalangist militias at the age of eleven. He began regular military training two years later, and by 1969 was commander of a 100-man militia in his family's native village of Bikfaya, east of Beirut. Educated by the Jesuits, Gemayel took a law degree at St. Joseph's University of Beirut in 1971, but abandoned a short-lived law practice at the onset of Lebanon's civil war. In 1976 he became commander...