Chapter 5: The Christian role in the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990

The Lebanese Civil war and its outcome changed the status of Christians in Lebanon and helped their political decline. The Civil War started in 1975 and many historians still do not agree on its immediate causes. However, Brenda Seaver cited two events, which marked the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War.

The first event occurred in February 1975, where Lebanese fishermen's unions in Sidon, Tyre, and Tripoli jointly protested the establishment of the Protein Company, a modern high-technology monopolistic fishing company owned in large part by former president Camille Chamoun, a Maronite Christian[1].

Brenda Seaver added that the army began firing upon protesters mortally wounding Ma'ruf Saad, the Sunni Muslim leader of the popular Nasserite Organisation of Sidon[2]. Following Sidon's events, street demonstrations erupted virtually in all of Lebanon's major cities and intense fighting occurred between Christian troops and gunmen aided by Palestinian commandos.

While the second event, according to Seaver, took place on 13 April 1975, when unknown assailants attempted to assassinate Pierre Gemayel, the leader of the Phalanges, while he was attending the consecration of a new church in the Christian Beirut suburb of Ain Rumana. Gemayel survived, but three of his bodyguards died[3]. Seaver added that a group of Maronite militiamen at Ayn Al-Rumana retaliated by ambushing a bus containing mostly Palestinians on their way to the Tel-Al Za'atar refugee camp, killing twenty-seven passengers[4]. The incident incited heavy fighting throughout the country between the Phalangists on the one hand and Palestinian militiamen and leftist Muslims on the other hand, resulting in over 300 deaths in three days. The first incident highlighted the Muslims' uneasiness about the privileges that the Christian elite were enjoying. The protest was not just a protest against the opening of the company, but because it was owned by one of the Christian power brokers. Moreover, it followed a constant outcry of Muslim leaders against the privileges and wealth of the Christians.

After the Cairo Agreement in 1969, which sanctioned the arming of Palestinians in Lebanon, the Christians perceived the continuing presence of the Palestinians in Lebanon as a serious threat.

These above incidents are not the only factors, which led to the eruption of the Civil War. The nature of nationalism in Lebanon has played a crucial role in making the Civil war inevitable.

Twefik Khalaf noted that the Christians had a hidden agenda when fighting broke out between the Phalanges and the Palestinians. The Phalanges wanted to hold on for a few days and then engage the Lebanese Army in a Jordanian style campaign against the Palestinians[5].

The Christians may be indirectly blamed for the eruption of the civil war, due to the fact that the demands of Muslims for more equality fell on deaf ears. As a result of a fifteen-year Muslim boycott of the Lebanese state during the French mandate, there was always considerable disequilibrium in the civil service, which was made up largely by Christians. The disequilibrium continued well into the independent republic: young civil servants appointed in the 1930s reached retiring age only in the 1960s[6]. This ably explained the reason behind the Christian control of the civil service.

In the fifties, Maronites and Greek Catholics Melkites and Sunni Muslims were over represented at the expense of the Shi'ites. As Muslim communities lagged in university education, Muslim deputies, parties and institutions were among the zealous champions of the principle of proportionality or quota citing Article 95 of the constitution which stipulated an adequate distribution of civil service posts among the communities[7]. Christians, with their educational advantages, rejected the Muslim demand, citing that Article 12 of the constitution, stipulated that all citizens should have equal access to the civil service and that the only criteria of selection was merit and ability[8].

The above example effectively explains that the different interpretation of the constitution by Christians and Muslims had made them in conflict with each other.

Brenda Seaver criticised the Christian militias, as they often seemed to act in defiance of the Lebanese Front's leadership[9]. Ghassan Hage cited Christian notorious atrocities on 6 December 1975. The day was to be known later as " black Saturday", where more than two hundred Muslims were brutally massacred by Christians. This event was usually explained as an act of revenge for the killing of Christians in Muslim areas[10].

Simon Haddad recorded that Palestinian refugees were slaughtered in Tal Al Za'atar in 1976 and in Sabra and Shatila camps in 1982[11]. Rex Brynen estimated that Christians killed about one thousand Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims and evicted twenty thousand from the Palestinian protected areas of the Al-Karantina and Al-Maslakh slum districts[12].

The years between 1975-1990 were the darkest time for Christians. This was due to the atrocities committed by the Christian militia and by the atrocities committed on Christians by Muslims and Palestinians. Charles Sennott recalled the war memory of one Christian villager Michael Abu Abdella from Damour. Abu Abdella remembered the attacks that devastated his village Christian community and had caused thousands to flee[13].

During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, a Phalange faction led by Elie Hobaiqa attacked the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and massacred about one thousand unarmed refugees, including women, children, and old men[14]. Israel was blamed widely for not intervening to stop it once it had began[15].

However, the Lebanese forces denied its involvement and the victims' relatives have recently launched criminal proceeding at a the Belgium supreme court against the current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was the Defence Minister during the 1982 invasion.