Beirut's Agony Under the Guns of March

It offers lingering visitors luxurious furnished apartments with a lovely sea view, right in the middle of the best hotels. Under the same roof, anyone who chooses to do so can live, indulge in business, exercise a profession, get supplies, eat, drink and enjoy himself. A dream come true.

In grim contrast to its publicity brochures, Beirut's 26-floor Holiday Inn last week was more a nightmare than a dream come true. The only visitors lingering in the shell-pocked, fire-scorched tower beside the Mediterranean were alternating bands of Christian militiamen trying to hold their hotel stronghold and Moslem fighters intent on blasting them out with rockets and tanks. The Christian Phalangists lost the hotel, won it back briefly, then lost it for good as Moslem riflemen stormed into the shattered lobby, fought their way up from floor to floor and savagely tossed the body of a Phalangist sniper out a window as they climbed.

The battle of the Holiday Inn was typical of the bloody skirmishing in Beirut last week as the city trembled under the worst fighting yet in the eleven-month struggle between Christians and Moslems, right and left, haves and havenots. The capital was on the verge of final collapse. The crisis had international dimensions; with Lebanon unable to stop the fighting, there was a possibility that Syria might move in, and if Syria moved, there was also the threat of an Israeli countermove.

For the first time, both sides in Beirut wheeled up heavy artillery. Most civilians, accustomed to gunfire and mortars, did not recognize the sound of howitzer fire as the first shells came arcing out of the mountains ringing Beirut to burst with gigantic splashes in the Mediterranean alongside the seafront boulevards. As the gunners found their range, reported TIME Correspondent Karsten Prager, the shells began to slam into office buildings and apartment houses. Sound trucks sped through the hastily cleared streets warning citizens: "Go to your basements and avoid elevators when the shells come." For some, the warning was too late. By one estimate, 200 Beirutis were killed and another 500 injured on a single day of the city's "guns of March." At week's end the eleven-month toll in Lebanon's civil war had passed 11,000 dead, with thousands more wounded.

Breaking a gentleman's agreement that both right and left factions had managed to honor since the war began, leftist gunners zeroed in on the presidential palace at Baabda, six miles above the city. As some 80 shells crumped into the palace, President Suleiman Franjieh, 65, made a hasty exit in an armored limousine.

Two weeks ago, after the fighting broke out again, Franjieh, a Maronite Christian, vowed to leave his palace only as a corpse. Even after army officers led by Brigadier General Aziz Ahdab mounted a coup to force him out of office and end the fighting, Franjieh huddled behind his loyal presidential guard at Baabda and refused to step down. But last week, as Franjieh hastily moved to a village city hall near the Phalangist stronghold of Juniyah on the seacoast 13 miles north of Beirut, a radio station supporting him announced "a temporary transfer of the seat of the presidency."

Principal Obstacle. The crusty Franjieh, whose six-year term runs until Sept. 23, remains the principal obstacle to peace in Lebanon. He has stubbornly opposed the political benefits the Moslem left seeks--with some justice--in a country traditionally dominated by Maronite Christians on the right. After the army fragmented into factions fighting on either side, Franjieh even opposed the general amnesty for soldiers on all sides, which Ahdab and other officers had proposed in order to try to restore military control in a collapsing situation.

Syria's President Hafez Assad, who originally intervened in behalf of his fellow Moslems in Lebanon, eventually became the protector of Franjieh, a personal friend. Assad urged Franjieh to quit soon in order to stabilize the situation, but he also insisted that he be allowed to bow out with dignity rather than through force. By last week, however, as Franjieh still hovered over his decision, the Lebanese left angrily decided that the fierce old man would never leave until he had to.

They decided to drive him out, despite Syrian demands for still another cease-fire and still another try at arbitrating the conflict. Leftist Leader Kamal Jumblatt, 57, announced defiantly: "We are not considering a ceasefire. Let Suleiman Franjieh resign immediately and unconditionally."

Crumbling Situation. Jumblatt, long a political kingmaker as head of the Progressive Socialist Party and as boss of a force of 7,000 Druze fighters who fondly call their hawk-nosed leader "Kamal Bey" (meaning chief), ordered a "local military solution" for the presidential impasse. Jumblatt's Druzes, along with other leftist militia groups and Palestinian fedayeen, thereupon opened a broader attack on the increasingly beleaguered right.

The fierce new fighting in Lebanon was especially dangerous for the Phalangists, who were rapidly running out of food, gasoline and ammunition. Phalangist Leader Pierre Gemayel issued a call for "every Christian man, woman and soldier to join me at once in a last-ditch heroic battle to defend and save Lebanon."

The rapidly crumbling situation was deeply humiliating to the Syrians, who eagerly entered the Lebanese imbroglio last summer and broadly advertised their aim of imposing a salutary Pax Syriana on the Arab world's basket-case country. Now Lebanon was rapidly coming apart and, with no Lebanese force capable of restoring order, the Syrians were faced with deciding whether to intervene militarily to salvage what they could of the situation. If they did move in, the entire Middle East would be affected. Israel last week canceled military leaves and put its forces on the alert. Syria blamed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who is currently reviled in Damascus for dealing with Israel over Sinai, of egging Jumblatt on and "hampering all loyal efforts to settle the problem." Actually Sadat has had almost nothing to do with the Lebanese crisis, while Iraq and Libya have both been supplying the leftist side.

So far, at least, the Syrians made no further moves toward massive involvement in Lebanon, presumably because they reckoned that the shattered country was not worth all-out war with Israel at this point. Such a move, since it would be aimed at Jumblatt, would also antagonize the Arab left. The U.S., deeply worried over disintegration in Lebanon, last week counseled both Syria and Israel to stay clear.

At week's end, short of Syrian intervention, the only solution for the intensified fighting was obviously for Franjieh to resign. Until he did, Beirut was in for continued mayhem, now including a nightly rain of some 200 artillery rounds from the surrounding mountains. Said one weary Beiruti: "I really don't think that the people care any longer who wins, as long as this tragedy finally stops."

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