Word: truce
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Each time embattled Beirut tries to pick up the pieces after a makeshift truce dampens political sectarian violence, something happens to rekindle the fighting and paralyze the city. Last week, only four days after the start of another ceasefire, the multifactional civil war between right-wing Christian Phalangists and left-wing Moslems raged anew. In one day there were at least 200 kidnapings. Two of the victims were Americans: Charles Gallagher and William Dykes, the director and deputy director of the regional center of the U.S. Information Service. The first foreigners to be kidnaped during the latest troubles, they were...
...psychological roller coaster for the past six months. Their hopes for peace have soared when it seemed that the factional, sectarian fighting between left-wing Moslems and right-wing Christians might halt; they have plunged when violence again erupted. Last week was typical. As yet another attempt at a truce seemed to be taking hold at the start of the week, some of the sand and cement barricades in Beirut were pulled down. Militiamen from both sides poured out of their strongholds; some embraced and even kissed one another. Banks reopened, shopkeepers unshuttered their windows, and traffic soon clogged streets...
...week's end, however, there was at least a faint ray of hope. A new truce -arranged by President Hafez Assad of Syria, Palestine Liberation Organization Leader Yasser Arafat and Lebanese Premier Rashid Karami-seemed to be making some headway. In parts of Beirut, Christians and Moslems tore down barricades and gun emplacements and were aided by army bulldozers. But elsewhere in the capital, the combatants continued exchanging gunfire. The week's senseless violence had taken 100 lives, raising the death toll since April to more than 2,500, and had devastated even more of Beirut, turning...
...Shaky Truce. The latest round of fighting in Beirut, fourth in the tragic sequence, rippled into other areas of Lebanon, principally Moslem Tripoli and the neighboring predominantly Christian town of Zgharta. The shooting began after a shaky and frequently violated two-week truce, during which it seemed for a time that the wobbly "rescue" government of Premier Karami might be able to contain the situation. With help from Syria, which does not want uncontrolled civil war on its doorstep, Karami had worked out a ceasefire between the heavily armed Christian and Moslem guerrillas. Karami hastily put together a "National Reconciliation...
Even if the new truce holds, the latest round of fighting has probably ended Beirut's long reign as the commercial queen of the Arab world. At least 25,000 Lebanese, including many prominent businessmen, have taken refuge in Damascus, while others have fled to Athens or other points in Europe. More than 60% of the 1,000 Japanese assigned to Beirut have left the country. The list of American firms that have ordered their personnel or their dependents to leave Lebanon reads like a roll call of U.S. business overseas: General Electric, General Motors, Boeing, Lockheed, FMC Corp...