|
Lebanon's history from independence has been marked by periods of political
turmoil interspersed with prosperity built on Beirut's position as a
regional center for finance and trade. In 1958, during the last months of
President Camille Chamoun's term, an insurrection broke out, and U.S.
forces were briefly dispatched to Lebanon in response to an appeal by the
government. During the 1960s, Lebanon enjoyed a period of relative calm and
Beirut-focused tourism and banking sector-driven prosperity. Other areas of
the country, however, notably the South, North, and Bekaa Valley, remained
poor in comparison.
In the early 1970s, difficulties arose over the presence of Palestinian
refugees, many of whom arrived after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and "Black
September" 1970 hostilities in Jordan. Among the latter were Yasser Arafat
and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Coupled with the
Palestinian problem, Muslim and Christian differences grew more intense.
Top of Page
[^]
Beginning of the
Civil War--1975-81
Full-scale civil war broke out in April 1975. After shots were fired at a
church, gunmen in Christian East Beirut ambushed a busload of Palestinians.
Palestinian forces joined predominantly leftist-Muslim factions as the
fighting persisted, eventually spreading to most parts of the country and
precipitating the President's call for support from Syrian troops in June
1976. In fall of 1976, Arab summits in Riyadh and Cairo set out a plan to
end the war. The resulting Arab Deterrent Force, which included Syrian
troops already present, moved in to help separate the combatants. As an
uneasy quiet settled over Beirut, security conditions in the south began to
deteriorate.
After a PLO attack on a bus in northern Israel and Israeli retaliation that
caused heavy casualties, Israel invaded Lebanon in March 1978, occupying
most of the area south of the Litani River. In response, the UN Security
Council passed Resolution 425 calling for the immediate withdrawal of
Israeli forces and creating the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL),
charged with maintaining peace. Israeli forces withdrew later in 1978,
turning over positions inside Lebanon along the border to their Lebanese
ally, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) under the leadership of Maj. Saad
Haddad, thus informally setting up a 12-mile wide "security zone" to
protect Israeli territory from cross border attack.
Top of Page
[^]
U.S.
Intervention--1982-84
An interim cease-fire brokered by the U.S. in 1981 among Syria, the PLO,
and Israel was respected for almost a year. Several incidents, including
PLO rocket attacks on northern Israel, as well as an assassination attempt
on the Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom, led to the June 6, 1982
Israeli ground attack into Lebanon to remove PLO forces. Operation "Peace
for Galilee" aimed at establishing a deeper security zone and pushing
Syrian troops out of Lebanon, with a view toward paving the way for an
Israeli-Lebanese peace agreement. With these aims in mind, Israeli forces
drove 25 miles into Lebanon, moving into East Beirut with the support of
Maronite Christian leaders and militia.
In August 1982, U.S. mediation resulted in the evacuation of Syrian troops
and PLO fighters from Beirut. The agreement also provided for the
deployment of a multinational force composed of U.S. Marines along with
French and Italian units. A new President, Bashir Gemayel, was elected with
acknowledged Israeli backing. On September 14, however, he was
assassinated. The next day, Israeli troops crossed into West Beirut to
secure Muslim militia strongholds and stood aside as Lebanese Christian
militias massacred almost 800 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps. Then-Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon was
held indirectly responsible for the massacre by the Kahane Commission and
later resigned. With U.S. backing, Amin Gemayel, chosen by the Lebanese
parliament to succeed his brother as President, focused anew on securing
the withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian forces. The multinational force
returned.
On May 17, 1983, Lebanon, Israel, and the United States signed an agreement
on Israeli withdrawal that was conditioned on the departure of Syrian
troops. Syria opposed the agreement and declined to discuss the withdrawal
of its troops, effectively stalemating further progress. In August 1983,
Israel withdrew from the Shuf (southeast of Beirut), thus removing the
buffer between the Druze and the Christian militias and triggering another
round of brutal fighting. By September, the Druze had gained control over
most of the Shuf, and Israeli forces had pulled out from all but the
southern security zone, where they remained until May 2000. The virtual
collapse of the Lebanese Army in February 1984, following the defection of
many Muslim and Druze units to militias, was a major blow to the
government. With the U.S. Marines looking ready to withdraw, Syria and
Muslim groups stepped up pressure on Gemayal. On March 5, 1984 the Lebanese
Government canceled the May 17 agreement; the Marines departed a few weeks
later.
This period of chaos witnessed the beginning of terrorist attacks launched
against U.S. and Western interests. These included the April 18, 1983
suicide attack at the U.S. Embassy in West Beirut (63 dead), the bombing of
the headquarters of U.S. and French forces on October 23, 1983 (298 dead),
the assassination of American University of Beirut President Malcolm Kerr
on January 18, 1984, and the bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in East
Beirut on September 20, 1984 (9 dead).
It also saw the rise of radicalism among a small number of Lebanese Muslim
factions who believed that the successive Israeli and U.S. interventions in
Lebanon were serving primarily Christian interests. It was from these
factions that Hizballah emerged from a loose coalition of Shi'a groups.
Hizballah employed terrorist tactics and was supported by Syria and Iran.
Top of Page
[^]
Worsening Conflict and Political
Crisis--1985-89
Between 1985 and 1989, factional conflict worsened as various efforts
at national reconciliation failed. Heavy fighting took place in the "War of
the Camps" in 1985 and 1986 as the Shi'a Muslim Amal militia sought to rout
the Palestinians from Lebanese strongholds. The Amal movement had been
organized in mid-1975, at the beginning of the civil war, to confront what
were seen as Israeli plans to displace the Lebanese population with
Palestinians. (Its charismatic founder Imam Musa Sadr disappeared in Libya
3 years later. Its current leader, Nabih Berri, is the Speaker of the
Chamber of Deputies.) The combat returned to Beirut in 1987, with
Palestinians, leftists, and Druze fighters allied against Amal, eventually
drawing further Syrian intervention. Violent confrontation flared up again
in Beirut in 1988 between Amal and Hizballah.
Meanwhile, on the political front, Prime Minister Rashid Karami, head of a
government of national unity set up after the failed peace efforts of 1984,
was assassinated on June 1, 1987. President Gemayel's term of office
expired in September 1988. Before stepping down, he appointed another
Maronite Christian, Lebanese Armed Forces Commanding General Michel Aoun,
as acting Prime Minister, contravening Lebanon's unwritten "National Pact,"
which required the prime minister to be Sunni Muslim. Muslim groups
rejected the move and pledged support to Salim al-Hoss, a Sunni who had
succeeded Karami. Lebanon was thus divided between a Christian government
in East Beirut and a Muslim government in West Beirut, with no president.
In February 1989 Aoun attacked the rival Lebanese Forces militia. By March
he turned his attention to other militias, launching what he termed a "War
of Liberation" against the Syrians and their Lebanese militia allies. In
the months that followed, Aoun rejected both the agreement that ultimately
ended the civil war and the election of another Christian leader as
president. A Lebanese-Syrian military operation in October 1990 forced him
to take cover in the French Embassy in Beirut and later into a 15-year
exile in Paris. After Syrian troop withdrawal, Aoun returned to Lebanon on
May 7, 2005 and won a seat in the 2005 parliamentary elections. He is now
the leader of the largest opposition bloc in parliament.
Top of Page
[^]
End of the Civil War--1989-91
The Ta'if Agreement of 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the war.
In January of that year, a committee appointed by the Arab League, chaired
by Kuwait and including Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco, had begun to
formulate solutions to the conflict, leading to a meeting of Lebanese
parliamentarians in Ta'if, Saudi Arabia, where they agreed to the national
reconciliation accord in October. Returning to Lebanon, they ratified the
agreement on November 4 and elected Rene Moawad as President the following
day. Moawad was assassinated in a car bombing in Beirut on November 22 as
his motorcade returned from Lebanese Independence Day ceremonies. Elias
Hrawi, who remained in office until 1998, succeeded him.
In August 1990, parliament and the new President agreed on constitutional
amendments embodying some of the political reforms envisioned at Ta'if. The
Chamber of Deputies expanded to 128 seats and was divided equally between
Christians and Muslims (with Druze counted as Muslims). In March 1991,
parliament passed an amnesty law that pardoned all political crimes prior
to its enactment. The amnesty was not extended to crimes perpetrated
against foreign diplomats or certain crimes referred by the cabinet to the
Higher Judicial Council. In May 1991, the militias (with the important
exception of Hizballah) were dissolved, and the Lebanese Armed Forces began
to slowly rebuild itself as Lebanon's only major nonsectarian institution.
In all, it is estimated that more than 100,000 were killed, and another
100,000 left handicapped, during Lebanon's 16-year civil war. Up to
one-fifth of the pre-war resident population, or about 900,000 people, were
displaced from their homes, of whom perhaps a quarter of a million
emigrated permanently. The last of the Western hostages taken during the
mid-1980s were released in May 1992.
Top of Page
[^]
Postwar Reconstruction--1992 to
2005
Postwar social and political instability, fueled by economic
uncertainty and the collapse of the Lebanese currency, led to the
resignation of Prime Minister Omar Karami in May 1992, after less than 2
years in office. Former Prime Minister Rashid al Sulh, who was widely
viewed as a caretaker to oversee Lebanon's first parliamentary elections in
20 years, replaced him.
By early November 1992, a new parliament had been elected, and Prime
Minister Rafiq Hariri had formed a cabinet, retaining for himself the
finance portfolio. The formation of a government headed by a successful
billionaire businessman was widely seen as a sign that Lebanon would make a
priority of rebuilding the country and reviving the economy. Solidere, a
private real estate company set up to rebuild downtown Beirut, was a symbol
of Hariri's strategy to link economic recovery to private sector
investment. After the election of then-commander of the Lebanese Armed
Forces Emile Lahoud in 1998, following Hrawi's extended term as President,
Salim al-Hoss again served as Prime Minister. Hariri returned to office as
Prime Minister in November 2000. Although problems with basic
infrastructure and government services persist, and Lebanon is now highly
indebted, much of the civil war damage has been repaired throughout the
country, and many foreign investors and tourists have returned.
In January 2000 the government took action against Sunni Muslim extremists
in the north who had attacked its soldiers, and it continues to act against
groups such as Asbat al-Ansar, which has been linked to Usama bin Laden's
al-Qaida network, and other extremists. On January 24, 2002, Elie Hobeika,
a former Lebanese Forces figure associated with the Sabra and Shatila
massacres who later served in three cabinets and the parliament, was
assassinated in a car bombing in Beirut. Israel withdrew its troops from
south Lebanon in May 2000, in accordance with UN Security Council
Resolution 425, which had been adopted in 1978. Armed elements of Hizballah
are still present in southern Lebanon.
A September 2004 vote by the Chamber of Deputies to amend the constitution
to extend President Lahoud's term in office by 3 years amplified the
question of Lebanese sovereignty and the continuing Syrian presence. The
vote was clearly taken under Syrian pressure, exercised in part through
Syria's military intelligence service, whose chief in Lebanon had acted as
a virtual proconsul for many years. The UN Security Council expressed its
concern over the situation by passing Resolution 1559, also in September
2004, which called for withdrawal of all remaining foreign forces from
Lebanon, disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese
militias, the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces throughout the
country, and a free and fair electoral process in the presidential
election.
Top of Page
[^]
Post-Syrian Withdrawal--2005
Former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 19 others were assassinated in
Beirut by a car bomb on February 14, 2005. The assassination spurred
massive protests in Beirut and international pressure that led to the
withdrawal of the remaining Syrian military troops from Lebanon on April
26. In the months that followed Hariri’s assassination, journalist Samir
Qassir and Lebanese politician George Hawi were both murdered by car bombs,
and most recently, Defense Minister Elias Murr narrowly avoided a similar
fate when a car bomb exploded near his convoy. The UN International
Independent Investigative Commission (UNIIIC) headed by Detlev Mehlis is
investigating Hariri’s assassination and is expected to report its findings
to the Security Council in fall 2005.
Parliamentary elections were held May 29-June 19, 2005 and the anti-Syrian
opposition led by Sa’ad Hariri, Rafiq Hariri’s son, won a majority of 72
seats (out of 128). Hariri ally and former Finance Minister Fouad Siniora
was named Prime Minister and Nabih Berri was reelected as Speaker of
Parliament. Parliament approved the first “made-in-Lebanon” cabinet in
almost 30 years on July 30. The new cabinet’s ministerial statement, a
summary of the new government’s agenda and priorities, focuses on political
and economic reform.
Top of Page |
