Again, Christian v. Moslem

For the fourth time in six months, bloody fighting broke out in Lebanon last week between heavily armed irregular forces of Moslems and Maronite Christians. The three earlier rounds of street fighting had rocked the capital city of Beirut. The latest battles revolved around Tripoli in the north, Lebanon's second largest city and seaport. Before the Lebanese army was finally ordered into the area to stop the shooting, at least 100 people had been killed. That brought the death toll since the internecine fighting started in April to well over 1,000 people, in a country with a population of only 3 million. Property losses are already estimated at $800 million, equal to one-sixth of Lebanon's total annual revenues.

The latest battle was between the predominantly Moslem community of Tripoli (pop. 200,000) and Christians from the mountain town of Zgharta (pop. 12,000) five miles away. It erupted after a seemingly trivial incident: a minor auto accident involving Tripoli and Zgharta drivers. After a Zghartawi was assaulted, armed clansmen threw up a roadblock on the outskirts of Tripoli and halted traffic. When a bus carrying some 25 Moslems reached the roadblock, gunmen herded the passengers into the road. Without warning, a guerrilla opened fire with a submachine gun, slaughtering twelve Moslems.

The roadside execution provoked a predictable spree of Moslem revenge. Before long, the road between Tripoli and Zgharta had become a battleground. The private militias of opposing political factions hammered one another with automatic weapons, dynamite, plastique, .50-cal. machine guns and 120-mm. mortars. Newsmen who managed to reach Zgharta reported that some Lebanese army vehicles and internal-security-force Jeeps in the town had their license plates covered with paper or daubed with mud--suggesting that these units were covertly aiding the Christians. As the fighting increased between a reported 3,000-man Moslem force and 2,000 Zghartawis, buildings burned out of control because firemen could not reach them, and stores were plucked clean by looters.

Christian Officers. The latest fighting had particularly ominous political overtones. Tripoli is the home town and political base of Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Moslem. Since midsummer, Karami has headed a "rescue government" whose first priority is to end the religious strife that has paralyzed the nation. Zgharta is the home village of Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh, a Maronite Christian and longtime political foe of Karami's. Indeed, the gunman alleged to have executed the Moslem bus riders is a distant relative of the President's.* Thus forces loyal to Lebanon's two highest officials were locked in a fight that was certain to have bitter political side effects.

Meeting in emergency session with their six-man rescue Cabinet, Franjieh and Karami grappled with the question of whether to send in Lebanon's 18,000-man armed forces to end the fighting. Some political leaders were reluctant to do so, since the officer corps is dominated by Maronite Christians. Moreover, the army commander, Major General Iskandar Ghanem, an old friend of Franjieh's, had antagonized Moslems by ordering the army two years ago to attack militant Palestinians in Lebanon, and by his inability to protect the country from Israeli attacks (another one took place last week, aimed at Palestinian camps in the south). Finally a compromise was worked out: Ghanem was ordered on leave. He was replaced by Brigadier General Hanna Said, a Maronite officer less objectionable to Moslems, who was quickly promoted. Two thousand soldiers were then ordered to set up a buffer zone between battling forces without entering either Tripoli or Zgharta, which might provoke an encounter.

Special Position. Though the fighting appeared to taper off at week's end, few Lebanese believed that the paralyzing feud was finished. They feared, moreover, that the continuing battles might eventually destroy the special position of Lebanon in the Middle East, in which it has managed to avoid the bloodshed of wars with Israel and at the same time build up a profitable business with the world around it. At the core of the problem is the country's outdated government structure, which was designed in a poly-religious society to be fair to all by allotting posts and powers according to a census of faiths.

The trouble is that the current census (unofficial, because no one wants to provoke a crisis with an official count) no longer bears much relationship to the unwritten National Covenant of 1943, which established ratios. The Moslems, once a minority, now total 1.8 million and exceed Maronite Christians (1.2 million), who still wield majority power. This rigid confessional formula has become a straitjacket, institutionalizing communal dissension rather than easing it. Yet despite the continuing bloodshed and the threat of anarchy, politicians in the bitterly divided nation have largely proved neither powerful, courageous nor selfless enough to agree on a practical alternative.

* The Franjieh family is no stranger to violence. During Lebanon's 1957 elections, family members shot it out with rival Christian clans in Zgharta. The bloody encounter during a funeral near the village left 18 dead and twice as many wounded.

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