Word: sunny
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...months, relative calm had settled over Lebanon under a peace plan adopted by its warring factions and backed by nearby Syria. The peace fell apart last week. In the northern seaport of Tripoli, a smoldering feud between a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group known as Tawheed and the pro-Syrian Arab Democratic Party, whose militiamen are sometimes called the Pink Panthers because of their raspberry-colored fatigues, erupted in the worst violence so far this year. Before a truce was called at week's end, at least 100 people had been killed and more than 200 wounded, most of them...
Even last week's accomplishment almost never came about. After hand-picking Karami, a Sunni Muslim, in April, the Syrians pressured Lebanon's warlords into joining his Cabinet. Its meetings, however, took place against a backdrop of daily artillery duels between rival militias. As the fighting grew worse, Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam met with the Cabinet at President Amin Gemayel's residence at Bikfaya. According to Lebanese officials, a furious Khaddam promised tough Syrian measures if no compromise was reached. A newly attentive Cabinet appointed a Maronite Christian to head the 25,000-man army...
Meanwhile, a tug of war was developing over Lebanon's new Cabinet. Rashid Karami, 62, had been appointed Prime Minister two weeks ago and asked to form his tenth Cabinet since 1955. It was hoped that Karami, a pro-Syrian Sunni Muslim, would find that a new 26-member Cabinet would be large enough to accommodate all of Lebanon's myriad sectarian interests and make a political reality of the dramatic realignment in the country's balance of military power brought about when Shi'ite militiamen seized control of West Beirut in February...
...correct the underrepresentation of Shi'ites and Druze in Lebanese politics than to compound it. Shi'ite Leader Nabih Berri, 44, was given the relatively unimportant portfolio of Justice, Water and Electricity; Druze Chieftain Walid Jumblatt, 35, was offered Transport, Public Works and Tourism. Said one prominent Sunni powerbroker: "I guess Karami thinks that by co-opting a Cabinet rather than forming one through consensus, he can steamroll issues through...
...London embassy three weeks ago was sparked by the hanging on the Fatah University campus in Tripoli last month of two Muslim fundamentalists, a veterinary student and a chemistry graduate. The pair had been in prison for four years but managed nonetheless to keep in contact with a Sunni Muslim student group opposed to what it regarded as Gaddafi's perversion of Muslim teachings. Gaddafi is said to have met with the two imprisoned students on more than one occasion in an effort to "convert" them to his way of thinking, but without success. His patience finally snapped over...