Beirut, Beirut

by Sonallah Ibrahim

  Al-Safeer. A photo of Archbishop Hilarion Capucci. The headline says: “Capucci goes on a hunger strike in prison.” Another headline: “A smuggled letter from Capucci in prison.” A third headline above the text of the letter: “To the people resisting in the south: we are the same as ever, Palestine is in our heart.”

  Damascus. Pierre Gemayel ascends the staircase of the presidential palace.

  Title card:

  On the same day . . .

  East Beirut. A stream of speeding cars continuously honking their horns, heading toward the Museum where the crossing point to West Beirut is located. Pedestrians are running. Several gunmen in black clothes are chasing them. Pop music blares from radios.

  Sahat al-Burj Square. Fruit and crates of Pepsi and 7-Up are scattered in the middle of the street. Men are running. One of them huddles into his clothes for warmth. Another has his head covered with a Russian fur hat. A third has on the common white skullcap worn by Muslim men. In the background, the cinema is showing the Egyptian film, Keep Those Men Away from Me, Mama.

  Title card:

  Black Saturday. On Saturday, December 6, 1975, after a period of relative calm, the Phalangist militia dispatched its fighters to Martyrs’ Square and Bab al-Idris. They set about kidnapping dozens of people: they killed most of them, then carried off the rest to their party’s centers of operation, and massacred them in front of the doors. They started attacking government offices, especially the electric power company, where they murdered more than 200 Muslims. They also attacked the harbor, opening fire on the dockworkers and then throwing their corpses into the sea.

  The office building of the state-owned power company, in East Beirut. The camera focuses on a thirteenth-floor window.

  Title card:

  The president of the company, Fu’ad Bizari, a Sunni Muslim, was saved from the slaughter thanks to his solid relationship with the office of the president of the Republic, since he had previously worked as an advisor to two presidents. He telephoned an aide to President Frangieh, who immediately called the Phalangist leadership, and his life was spared.

  A Beirut intersection. A handcart with three rubber wheels. Its surface is covered with dishes, cups and home appliances. Its owner pushes it quickly, bending his head to protect his wares. A powerful explosion hits him, hurling him over his cart; blood flows out of him.

  Lebanese radio: “Once again, we are with you. Don’t leave your homes. All streets are unsafe.”

  A Volkswagen with its flat tires sunk into the ground. Its frame is riddled with dozens of holes, all of a similar size, except in those places where two holes merge into one.

  A hallway in a hospital. Groaning from the wounded. Wastepaper baskets with flies circling around them. The baskets are filled with amputated feet and bloody eyeballs.

  Al-Safeer. The main headline: “Phalangist leadership confesses. The militia disobeyed orders, kidnapped and killed.”

  A circle drawn in pen around a paragraph from an article in the French newspaper, Le Monde: “Saturday’s massacre took place in several Beirut neighborhoods, in an extremely organized fashion. Do they support the division of Lebanon, or are they agents of foreign powers, Israelis and Americans, as the independent Maronite leader Raymond Eddé says? Or are they extremists bringing about a smaller, Christian Lebanon?’

  Barricades of mounded dirt. A young man in a military uniform is bent over a Kalashnikov machinegun. Behind him is a young man with the checkered Palestinian hatta scarf wound around his face. He is loading a Russian RPG anti-tank rocket into the launcher, getting ready to fire it. The young man is wearing a holder for other rockets on his back.

  The waterfront. Fire and smoke rise up from the luxury Phoenicia Hotel.

  The main headline in al-Safeer: “Lebanese National Movement forces begin clearing out the hotels district.”

  The al-Mazraa Corniche. The PLO office. An armored car belonging to the Lebanese army fires at the building.

  The main headline in al-Safeer: “Isolationists occupy the Ghawarna district after burning 300 homes and taking prisoner women, children and old men.”

  South Beirut Mental Hospital, near the Damascus Road. Within a walled garden. Several patients with their striped clothing are walking about in the sun. The street leading to the hospital. A military car comes up at high speed and stops in front of the hospital entrance. Several gunmen emerge. They storm the hospital by force and take out a young male patient. The patient seems to have some connection to one of the gunmen. A number of patients seize the opportunity and rush outside the hospital. They walk at a rapid clip along the street leading to the city. One of them is a middle-aged man with a red skullcap on his head.

  A street in central Beirut. Naked, mutilated corpses strewn at wide intervals in the middle of the road. A naked girl gushes blood from between her thighs. Beside her is a bottle whose neck is stained with blood. A young man with his genitals removed. Next to him is another young man lying on his stomach with the other’s cut-off genitals sticking out from his behind.

  The street leading to the mental hospital in West Beirut. The middle-aged patient with the red skullcap hurries back to the hospital’s steel entrance gate.

  A circle around a paragraph from an American newspaper: “The last few days have revealed signs of division within the ranks of the factions of the ‘national and progressive’ front in Lebanon. Rashid Karami demanded an end to the killing, even as the front announced its determination to keep fighting against the armed presence of Christians. Then a group of factions and organizations linked to Syria, in addition to ‘the Dispossessed’ – followers of Imam al-Sadr – announced their support for Karami. The Palestinian resistance seems reluctant to get involved in more killing, and thus they are making intensive efforts to make peace between Karami and Jumblatt, and resume dialogue for the sake of a ceasefire.”

  A newspaper headline: “Tony Frangieh, the leader of what is called ‘The Zgharta Liberation Army’, announces: We are satisfied with our region and don’t need the capital.”

  The main headline in al-Safeer: “The Palestinian resistance is making efforts to stop the killing between the populations of Zgharta and Tripoli.”

  Damascus. The entrance of the presidential palace. Rashid Karami and Jules Bustani, head of Lebanon’s Deuxième Bureau, climb the stairs.

  Beirut. Church bells. The headquarters of the Maronite patriarch in Bkerké. A diplomatic car flying the French flag is in front of the door.

  Title card:

  As usual, the French ambassador presided over the ‘‘consular’’ mass at Christmas.

  Damascus Airport. King Khalid of Saudi Arabia walks down the stairway of his plane.

  Title card:

  Saudi Arabia, with the participation of the Gulf countries, offered 3 billion dollars to Syria as financial assistance in 1975. Syria’s estimated budget for 1967 amounted to 16 billion Syrian lira, 9 billion of which came from Saudia Arabia and the Gulf.

  Main headline from a Saudi newspaper: “A spokesman for King Khalid says that Saudi Arabia supports Arab efforts to solve the Lebanese crisis by means of Syria alone.”

  Damascus. The Syrian foreign minister to reporters: “Lebanon was a part of Syria. If fate allows, we will annex it.”

  Beirut. Camille Chamoun to reporters: “I was hoping they might be able to regain the Golan Heights before they start thinking about annexing Lebanon.”

  A page from a Lebanese newspaper with a photo of Zuheir Mohsen. Headline: “Head of the al-Sa’iqa organization warns against any major victory over the isolationists because it will invite Israeli interference.”

  The main headline in al-Safeer: “The Phalangists and the Tigers, with the help of the army, storm the Dbayeh Palestinian refugee camp, 20 kilometers from Beirut. 47 inhabitants of the camp dead and wounded.”

  Headline: “The small Dbayeh camp includes 200 Christian Palestinian families.”

  The main headline in al-Safeer: “Slaughter in Maslakh and Karantina; 500
killed. Phalangists announce their dominance over Karantina and the evacuation of its inhabitants.”

  General shots of the shacks of tin-sheet and wood that make up the Karantina district, near the three-story “Lebanese Forces” war council building.

  Title card:

  Karantina had 30,000 inhabitants, most of them Kurds and poor Shiis who had fled from the south.

  A posed photograph of several young men dancing over a pile of corpses. One of them is opening a bottle of champagne. In the middle of them is a young woman in a blouse and pants, strumming a guitar.

  A posed photograph of men of different ages, standing with their faces against the wall of a building. Behind them are several gunmen with large wooden crosses dangling from their necks.

  A posed photograph of a procession of women and children carrying white flags. There isn’t a single grown man among them.

  The “Sleep Comfort” furniture factory.

  Title card:

  Inside this factory, several dozen Palestinian gunmen, residents of Karantina, were dug in, and they held out against the Phalangists for three days until they were killed down to the last man.

  A Palestinian woman with wide eyes sits at the side of a public street. Her strong, angular features are set in a whitish face framed by an embroidered kerchief tied under her chin. Next to her a crowd of barefoot children look at the camera with a smile as they raise their hands in a victory sign.

  Title card:

  Two days later . . .

  The village of Damur. The estate of Camille Chamoun. A poor person’s home, abandoned, on the edge of the village. Two rooms made of stone. A television. Farm tools beside the wall. A color painting of Jesus with sad eyes and long blond hair.

  Title card:

  In revenge for the Karantina massacre, some Palestinian and extreme leftist Lebanese forces attacked the Christian village of Damur in the south, considered a stronghold of the Tigers and Phalangists. After they encircled the forces of the Maronite militias, they chased the inhabitants from their homes and slaughtered some of them, while others sought shelter in the church. Fatah forces got involved and surrounded the church to protect those inside, and moved them safely to Beirut. They also transported Chamoun and his son in a helicopter to East Beirut.

  The Lebanon–Syria border. Truckloads of Syrian soldiers cross the border into Lebanon.

  A Kuwaiti newspaper: “2,000 Palestinians, led by Syrian officers, have entered Lebanon from Syria. Chamoun welcomes the step from Syria.”

  Al-Nahar newspaper. A photo of Raymond Eddé above a statement by him: “Kissinger’s desire to reach an agreement between Syria and Israel is leading him to try to obtain parts of Lebanon for Syria.”

  A Kuwaiti newspaper: “Gemayel announces that he is prepared to end the fighting on the basis of ‘No winner and no loser’.”

  Al-Nahar. Main headline: “US State Department says it acknowledges the constructive role the Syrian government is playing in Lebanon after reaching a ceasefire agreement.”

  Al-Safeer: “Nayef al-Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, states: ‘I don’t think that Syria’s goal is the absorption of the resistance.’ ”

  A French newspaper: “Elements from the Sa’iqa organization, loyal to Syria, have attacked with heavy rockets two newspapers, al-Muharrir and Beirut, which are bankrolled by Iraq. Seven were killed in the attack, including the Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Amir.”

  An American newspaper: ‘‘Gemayel tells the Associated Press: ‘We are importing new weapons in preparation for the next round.’ ”

  Raymond Eddé to a reporter: “The Phalangist Party, whose slogan was ‘God, the Nation and the Family’, has violated God’s commandments, inflicted its bad actions on the nation, and driven away other people’s families, while destroying their homes and exploiting the populace. They are still operating protection rackets, extorting money at roadblocks, and levying taxes that the state should be pocketing.”

  Abu Iyad, Fatah’s second-in-command, to an al-Safeer reporter: “There are incidents of looting and pillaging done by elements attributed to the Palestinian revolution and the Lebanese National Movement. Some individuals have gotten rich, and some organizations have gotten rich at the expense of the revolution.”

  The Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Watan. A statement by Zuheir Mohsen, head of the PLO’s military office, and leader of the Sa’iqa organization which is bankrolled by Syria: “The leadership of the resistance needs new blood.”

  A headline in another newspaper: “Is Zuheir Mohsen taking Arafat’s place?”

  Zuheir Mohsen leaving the PLO building in a colorful shirt. He has a cigar in his hand.

  Title card:

  Zuheir Mohsen was known by the name of Zuheir “Persian Rug”, because of his passion for carpets, which he would collect from destroyed and plundered homes. He married the daughter of a rug merchant, then went into the weapons-smuggling business with a Phalangist leader, the brother of Lebanon’s ambassador to France, before bullets from an unidentified assassin killed him in front of a casino in Cannes, France.

  The French newspaper Le Monde: “Gaddafi denies that he offered assistance to any side in the Lebanese struggle.”

  Al-Nahar. A photo of Suleiman Frangieh, and beneath it his public statements, at the top of which is his quote: “Lebanon is a unique human laboratory.”

  The Al-Anba’ newspaper. A photo of Kamal Jumblatt below his statement: “I hope the next president of the Republic has more character, virility and culture.”

  A Kuwaiti newspaper: “George Habash, leader of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, accuses Syria of attempting to impose its dictates on the resistance, and invites the nationalist forces to establish the authority of the people over all Lebanese territories.”

  Al-Safeer: “A military rebellion led by Ahmad al-Khatib forming the ‘Arab Army of Lebanon’.”

  Al-Nahar: “Soldiers in Sarba mutiny and seize weapons and armored cars on which they have written ‘Lebanese Liberation Army’. They have set up barricades which have led to the murders of 15 Muslims.”

  A street branching off from Hamra Street. Daytime. A group of men and women whose clothes indicate that they are middle class are storming a Spinneys supermarket. They raid the contents of the shop – food, electric appliances and liquor – and bring their loads back to where they left their cars. Some of them are surprised to find that their cars have been stolen. A fight breaks out among them, in the course of which bullets fly.

  The Le Relais de Normandie restaurant. During the dinner service. Gunmen rush inside and gather up the diners’ money, watches and jewelry. They force two young women to leave with them.

  Al-Safeer: “Nationalist forces and factions authorize Kamal Jumblatt to act in their name with regards to the government.”

  Al-Nahar: “Imam al-Sadr and the Mufti Hasan Khalid demand an adjustment to the proportion of parliamentary seats divided between Muslims and Christians.”

  Al-Anba’: ‘‘Jumblatt says: ‘Traditional Muslim leaders who are hostile to secularism are no better than the isolationists.’ ”

  The entrance to al-Mukhtara villa in Jebel Chouf. Below the enormous, ancient doorway stand two rows of gunmen in jackets and checkered Palestinian scarves. They have their machinegun barrels lowered. Jumblatt welcomes the Syrian foreign minister, Abd al-Halim Khaddam.

  An Israeli newspaper: ‘‘Mordecai Gur, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, says: ‘The civil war in Lebanon has revealed a new Lebanon, different from the Lebanon as we know it. It will cooperate effectively in any new military confrontation with Israel.’ ”

  A press conference with Kamal Jumblatt. He says: “For 10,000 dead and 20,000 injured, people are asking for a price that is much higher than what was mentioned in the statement given by the president of the Republic . . . The constitution must be amended and the political system completely replaced. The hurdles placed by traditionalists and isolationists – Christian an
d Muslim alike – must be surmounted, with the aim of secularizing the state and eliminating political sectarianism . . . The Lebanese Nationalist Movement must have a share in a new, expanded government.”

  Al-Safeer: “66 members of parliament from different parts of the political spectrum, including Rashid Karami, Saeb Salam and Kamal Jumblatt, ask for Frangieh’s resignation.”

  Beirut Airport. A destroyed plane belonging to Syrian Airlines.

  A Lebanese newspaper: “Jumblatt accuses the Deuxième Bureau of striking the Syrian plane in order to drive Syria into military involvement.”

  Al-Amal newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Phalangist Party: “The Phalangist delegation returns from Damascus with a new plan, one important enough to be kept secret.”

  Beirut harbor. Phalangists loot the harbor and carry off its contents – cars, electrical equipment, rugs and different tools – to their storehouses.

  Title card:

  The stolen items were valued at 1 billion dollars. A merchant could then pay 6,000 dollars to a Phalangist in exchange for filling his truck with the looted goods he wanted. Then the Phalangists began to divide up the loot into different types and held a public auction in the Christian Brothers seminary in Gemmayzeh.

  Masarif Street in Beriut.

  Title card:

  This street, lined with banks, changed hands several times before the collapse of the army. But the protection money, which bank owners generously paid, kept them from harm. For the time being. Men from the Phalangists and Tigers began to strip the National Bank of all the cash it had. The Sa’iqa organization looted the Banca di Roma. Gunmen from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine seized the contents of the vaults belonging to the British Bank of the Middle East, which were valued at more than 130 million dollars. As they left with their spoils, Sa’iqa gunmen blocked their way. Fighting broke out briefly between the two sides and was resolved in favor of the Democratic Front by heavy artillery guns that arrived loaded on top of military cars.