HISTORY
Lebanon is the historic home of the Phoenicians, Semitic traders whose maritime culture flourished there for more than 2,000 years (c.2700-450 B.C.). In later centuries, Lebanon's mountains were a refuge for Christians, and Crusaders established several strongholds there. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the League of Nations mandated the five provinces that comprise present-day Lebanon to France. Modern Lebanon's constitution, drawn up in 1926, specified a balance of political power among the various religious groups. The country gained independence in 1943, and French troops withdrew in 1946. Lebanon participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and signed an armistice with Israel on March 23, 1949.
The terms of the first two presidents
ended in political turmoil. In 1958, during the last months of
President Chamoun's term, an insurrection broke out, aggravated
by external factors. In July 1958, in response to an appeal by
the Lebanese Government, U.S. forces were sent to Lebanon. They
were withdrawn in October 1958, after the inauguration of President
Shihab and a general improvement in the internal and international
aspects of the situation.
President Franjiyah's term saw the
outbreak of full-scale civil conflict in 1975. Prior to 1975,
difficulties had arisen over the large number of Palestinian refugees
in Lebanon and the presence of Palestinian fedayeen (commandos).
Frequent clashes involving Israeli forces and the fedayeen endangered
civilians in south Lebanon and unsettled the country. Following
minor skirmishes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, serious clashes
erupted between the fedayeen and Lebanese Government forces in
May 1973.
Coupled with the Palestinian problem,
Muslim and Christian differences grew more intense, with occasional
clashes between private sectarian militias. The Muslims were dissatisfied
with what they considered an inequitable distribution of political
power and social benefits. In April 1975, after shots were fired
at a church, a busload of Palestinians was ambushed by gunmen
in the Christian sector of Beirut, an incident widely regarded
as the spark that touched off the civil war. Palestinian fedayeen
forces joined the predominantly leftist-Muslim side as the fighting
persisted, eventually spreading to most parts of the country.
Elias Sarkis was elected president
in 1976. In October, Arab summits in Riyadh and Cairo set forth
a plan to end the war. The resulting Arab Deterrent Force (ADF),
composed largely of Syrian troops, moved in at the Lebanese Government's
invitation to separate the combatants, and most fighting ended
soon thereafter. As an uneasy quiet settled on Beirut and parts
of Lebanon, security conditions in southern Lebanon began to deteriorate.
A series of clashes occurred in the south in late 1977 and early
1978 between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Lebanese
leftists on the one hand, and the pro- Israeli, southern Lebanese
militia (eventually known as the "Army of South Lebanon," or SLA)
on the other.
After a raid on a bus in Northern
Israel left large numbers of Israeli and Palestinian guerrilla
casualties, Israel invaded Lebanon in March 1978, occupying most
of the area south of the Litani river. The UN Security Council
passed Resolution 425 calling for withdrawal of Israeli forces
from Lebanon and creating a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL),
charged with maintaining peace. When the Israelis withdrew, they
turned over positions inside Lebanon along the border to their
Lebanese ally, the SLA, and formed a "security zone" which exists
to this day under the effective control of Israel and the SLA.
In mid-1978, clashes between the
ADF and the Christian militias erupted. Arab foreign ministers
created the Arab Follow-Up Committee, composed of Lebanon, Syria,
Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, to end fighting between the Syrians
and Christians. After the Saudi ambassador was wounded in December
1978, the committee did not meet again formally until June 1981,
when it was convened to address security and national reconciliation.
The committee was unsuccessful in making progress toward a political
settlement and has been inactive since November 1981.
Israeli-Palestinian fighting in
July 1981 was ended by a cease-fire arranged by U.S. President
Ronald Reagan's special envoy, Philip C. Habib, and announced
on July 24, 1981. The cease-fire was respected during the next
10 months, but a string of incidents, including PLO rocket attacks
on northern Israel, led to the June 6, 1982, Israeli ground attack
into Lebanon to remove PLO forces. Israeli forces moved quickly
through south Lebanon, encircling west Beirut by mid-June and
beginning a three- month siege of Palestinian and Syrian forces
in the city.
Throughout this period, which saw
heavy Israeli air, naval, and artillery bombardments of west Beirut,
Ambassador Habib worked to arrange a settlement. In August, he
was successful in bringing about an agreement for the evacuation
of Syrian troops and PLO fighters from Beirut. The agreement also
provided for the deployment of a three-nation Multinational Force
(MNF) during the period of the evacuation, and by late August,
U.S. Marines, as well as French and Italian units, had arrived
in Beirut. When the evacuation ended, these units departed. The
U.S. Marines left on September 10.
In spite of the invasion, the Lebanese
political process continued to function, and Bashir Gemayel was
elected President in August, succeeding Elias Sarkis. On September
14, however, Bashir Gemayel was assassinated. On September 15,
Israeli troops entered west Beirut. During the next three days,
Lebanese militiamen massacred hundreds of Palestinian civilians
in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in west Beirut.
Bashir Gemayel's brother, Amine,
was elected President by a unanimous vote of the parliament. He
took office September 23, 1982. MNF forces returned to Beirut
at the end of September as a symbol of support for the government.
In February 1983, a small British
contingent joined the U.S., French, and Italian MNF troops in
Beirut. President Gemayel and his government placed primary emphasis
on the withdrawal of Israeli, Syrian, and Palestinian forces from
Lebanon, and in late 1982, Lebanese- Israeli negotiations commenced
with U.S. participation.
On May 17, 1983, an agreement was
signed by the representatives of Lebanon, Israel, and the United
States that provided for Israeli withdrawal. Syria declined to
discuss the withdrawal of its troops, effectively stalemating
further progress. Opposition to the negotiations and to U.S. support
for the Gemayel regime led to a series of terrorist attacks in
1983 and 1984 on U.S. interests, including the bombing on April
18, 1983 of the U.S. embassy in west Beirut (63 dead), of the
U.S. and French MNF headquarters in Beirut on October 23, 1983
(298 dead), and of the U.S. embassy annex in east Beirut on September
20, 1984 (8 killed).
Although the general security situation
in Beirut remained calm through late 1982 and the first half of
1983, a move by Christian militiamen into the Druze-controlled
Shuf area southeast of Beirut following the Israeli invasion led
to a series of Druze-Christian clashes of escalating intensity
beginning in October 1982. When Israeli forces unilaterally withdrew
from the Shuf at the beginning of September 1983, a full-scale
battle erupted with the Druze, backed by Syria, pitted against
the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) militia as well as the Lebanese
army. U.S. and Saudi efforts led to a cease-fire on September
26. This left the Druze in control of most of the Shuf. Casualties
were estimated to be in the thousands.
The virtual collapse of the Lebanese
army in February 1984, following the defection of many of its
Muslim and Druze units to opposition militias, was a major blow
to the government. As it became clear that the departure of the
U.S. Marines was imminent, the Gemayel Government came under increasing
pressure from Syria and its Muslim Lebanese allies to abandon
the May 17 accord. The Lebanese Government announced on March
5, 1984, that it was canceling its unimplemented agreement with
Israel. The U.S. Marines left the same month.
Further national reconciliation
talks at Lausanne under Syrian auspices failed. A new "government
of national unity" under Prime Minister Rashid Karami was declared
in April 1984 but made no significant progress toward solving
Lebanon's internal political crises or its growing economic difficulties.
The situation was exacerbated by
the deterioration of internal security. The opening rounds of
the savage "camps war" in May 1985--a war that flared up twice
in 1986-- pitted the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Beirut,
Tyre, and Sidon against the Shi'ite Amal militia, which was concerned
with resurgent Palestinian military strength in Lebanon. Eager
for a solution in late 1985, Syria began to negotiate a "tripartite
accord" on political reform among the leaders of various Lebanese
factions, including the LF.
However, when the accord was opposed
by Gemayel and the leader of the LF was overthrown by his hardline
anti-Syrian rival, Samir Jaja, in January 1986, Syria responded
by inducing the Muslim government ministers to cease dealing with
Gemayel in any capacity, effectively paralyzing the government.
In 1987, the Lebanese economy worsened, and the pound began a
precipitous slide. On June 1, Prime Minister Karami was assassinated,
further compounding the political paralysis. Salim al-Huss was
appointed acting prime minister.
As the end of President Gemayel's
term of office neared, the different Lebanese factions could not
agree on a successor. Consequently, when his term expired on September
23, 1988, he appointed Army Commander General Michel Aoun as interim
Prime Minister. Gemayel's acting Prime Minister, Salim al-Huss,
also continued to act as de facto Prime Minister. Lebanon was
thus divided between an essentially Muslim government in west
Beirut and an essentially Christian government in east Beirut.
The working levels of many ministries, however, remained intact
and were not immediately affected by the split at the ministerial
level.
In February 1989, General Aoun attempted
to close illegal ports run by the LF. This led to several days
of intense fighting in east Beirut and an uneasy truce between
Aoun's army units and the LF. In March, an attempt by Aoun to
close illegal militia ports in predominantly Muslim parts of the
country led to a 6-month period of shelling of east Beirut by
Muslim and Syrian forces and shelling of west Beirut and the Shuf
by the Christian units of the army and the LF. This shelling caused
nearly 1,000 deaths, several thousand injuries, and further destruction
to Lebanon's economic infrastructure.
In January 1989, the Arab League
appointed a six-member committee on Lebanon, led by the Kuwaiti
foreign minister. At the Casablanca Arab summit in May, the Arab
League empowered a higher committee on Lebanon--composed of Saudi
King Fahd, Algerian President Bendjedid, and Moroccan King Hassan-
-to work toward a solution in Lebanon. The committee issued a
report in July 1989, stating that its efforts had reached a "dead
end" and blamed Syrian intransigence for the blockage. After further
discussions, the committee arranged for a seven-point cease- fire
in September, followed by a meeting of Lebanese parliamentarians
in Taif, Saudi Arabia.
After a month of intense discussions,
the deputies informally agreed on a charter of national reconciliation,
also known as the Taif agreement. The deputies returned to Lebanon
in November, where they approved the Taif agreement on November
4, and elected Rene Moawad, a Maronite Christian deputy from Zghorta
in north Lebanon, President on November 5. General Aoun, claiming
powers as interim Prime Minister, issued a decree in early November
dissolving the parliament and did not accept the ratification
of the Taif agreement or the election of President Moawad.
President Moawad was assassinated
on November 22, 1989, by a bomb that exploded as his motorcade
was returning from Lebanese independence day ceremonies. The parliament
met on November 24 in the Biqa' Valley and elected Elias Hraoui,
a Maronite Christian deputy from Zahleh in the Biqa' Valley, to
replace him. President Hraoui named a Prime Minister, Salim al-
Huss, and a cabinet on November 25. Despite widespread international
recognition of Hraoui and his government, General Aoun refused
to recognize Hraoui's legitimacy, and Hraoui officially replaced
Aoun as army commander in early December.
In late January 1990, General Aoun's
forces attacked positions of the LF in east Beirut in an apparent
attempt to remove the LF as a political force in the Christian
enclave. In the heavy fighting that ensued in east Beirut and
its environs, over 900 people died and over 3,000 were wounded.
In August 1990, the National Assembly
approved, and President Hraoui signed into law, constitutional
amendments embodying the political reform aspects of the Taif
agreement. These amendments gave some presidential powers to the
council of ministers, expanded the National Assembly from 99 to
108 seats, and divided those seats equally between Christians
and Muslims (see GOVERNMENT section below).
In October 1990, a joint Lebanese-Syrian
military operation against General Aoun forced him to capitulate
and take refuge in the French embassy. On December 24, 1990, Omar
Karami was appointed Lebanon's Prime Minister. General Aoun remained
in the French embassy until August 27, 1991 when a "special pardon"
was issued, allowing him to leave Lebanon safely and take up residence
in exile in France. 1991 and 1992 saw considerable advancement
in efforts to reassert state control over Lebanese territory.
Militias--with the important exception of Hizballah--were dissolved
in May 1991, and the armed forces moved against armed Palestinian
elements in Sidon in July 1991. In May 1992 the last of the western
hostages taken during the mid-1980s by Islamic extremists was
released.
In October 1991, under the sponsorship
of the United States and the then- Soviet Union, the Middle East
peace talks were convened in Madrid, Spain. This was the first
time that Israel and its Arab neighbors had direct bilateral negotiations
to seek a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the Middle
East. Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and representatives of the Palestinians
concluded round 11 of the negotiations in September 1993.
A social and political crisis, fueled
by economic instability and the collapse of the Lebanese pound,
led to Prime Minister Omar Karami's resignation May 6, 1992. He
was replaced by former Prime Minister Rashid al Sulh, who was
widely viewed as a caretaker to oversee Lebanon's first parliamentary
elections in 20 years. The elections were not prepared and carried
out in a manner to ensure the broadest national consensus.
The turnout of eligible voters in
some Christian locales was extremely low, with many voters not
participating in the elections because they objected to voting
in the presence of non-Lebanese forces. There also were widespread
reports of irregularities. The electoral rolls were themselves
in many instances unreliable because of the destruction of records
and the use of forged identification papers. As a consequence,
the results do not reflect the full spectrum of Lebanese politics.
Elements of the 1992 electoral law, which paved the way for elections,
represented a departure from stipulations of the Taif agreement,
expanding the number of parliamentary seats from 108 to 128 and
employing a temporary districting arrangement designed to favor
certain sects and political interests. According to the Taif agreement,
the Syrian and Lebanese Governments were to agree in September
1992 to the redeployment of Syrian troops from greater Beirut.
That date passed without an agreement. In early November 1992,
Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri formed a new cabinet, retaining
for himself the finance portfolio. The formation of the Hariri
Government was widely seen as a sign that the Government of Lebanon
would seriously grapple with reconstructing the Lebanese state
and reviving the economy.
