Lebanon A Preview of The Apocalypse

By Jill Smolowe

Factional strife has ripped Lebanon again and again over the past 14 years, numbing outrage at the carnage. But last week Beirut seemed to offer a grisly preview of the apocalypse. The fighting between Christian soldiers and Muslim and Syrian soldiers rose to a pitch that tested the limits of human endurance and forced the outside world to take notice. "Beirut is being wiped off the face of the earth," cried the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio. Rival Muslim station Voice of the Nation shared, at least, the agony. "Is this meaningless war going to continue until the last Lebanese is dead?"

It certainly seems that way. The ferocious shelling gave way only for lulls to permit both sides to reload. Calls for a cease-fire were drowned out by the volcanic bombardments. Western officials wrung their hands and made vain appeals to reason. But the sky continued to rain fire and death on the city in a prolonged paroxysm of violence.

There is not much the watching world can do to stop it. Bitterly stung by previous attempts to serve as a buffer among Lebanon's feuding militias, Europe and the U.S. steered clear of direct intervention, appealing instead for a campaign of international pressure to quiet the guns. The U.N. Security Council urged an immediate cease-fire. Pope John Paul II blamed Damascus for "genocide." But the pleas had little impact on a situation that is governed by passion and irrationality. Unless a cease-fire can be brokered quickly, Syria and its allies might risk an all out assault to crush the Christian forces.

The adversaries have been shelling each other mercilessly since March, when Major General Michel Aoun, the determined Christian President of the divided nation, clamped a blockade on Muslim ports and declared a "war of liberation" against Syria. Last week came intimations of a more serious escalation in hostilities. Syrian-backed Muslim forces attempted to invade the Christian sector. Aoun's troops successfully repulsed the ground attack on the town of Suq al Gharb, the gateway to the Christian stronghold in the southeast of the capital. The battle of Beirut appeared to be entering a crucial phase.

Damascus denied that any Syrian troops, who entered Lebanon as peacekeepers in 1976 and neglected to leave, had taken part in the assault. Yet plainly Syria was deeply involved. A Muslim officer who fought under Aoun stated that both Druze and Syrian forces advanced on Suq al Gharb, then turned back under heavy Christian fire, leaving 35 dead Syrians behind. In Damascus, Syrian President Hafez Assad convened representatives of various Muslim, Druze and Palestinian militias to map out a combat plan to topple Aoun. The war council aroused international concern that Syria, which has upwards of 30,000 troops inside Lebanon, might be preparing to invade the 300-sq.-mi. Christian enclave. Despite the evident danger, none of the combatants seem willing to back down. Syria stated flatly that there could be no cease-fire in Beirut until Aoun stepped aside. Responded Aoun: "A cease-fire is not the national objective. The Syrian regime does not belong in this country." To the Western leaders who pleaded from the sidelines, he said, "If declarations are all the rest of the world can offer, I would prefer the rest of the world shut up."

Only France made some serious attempts to build pressure. In addition to deploying two warships to the region, President Francois Mitterrand dispatched a flood of envoys to Moscow and key Arab League capitals, which command some leverage over Syria. But Mitterrand's diplomacy cut little ice in Lebanon, where France is regarded as an ally of the Maronites, or in Damascus, where France is suspect for its support of Iraq in the gulf war.

At the heart of Lebanon's misery is a 1943 "national pact" reaffirming that the predominance of power would be held by the majority Christian community. Since then, the Muslim population has overwhelmed the Christian count, but the political arrangements have not been altered to reflect the Muslims' strength. Until that imbalance is redressed, tribal hostilities will not cease.

Lebanon's turf war is hopelessly entangled in other conflicts. Aoun and Assad have developed a deep personal animosity. Aoun regards Assad as the head of an occupational force, which must be driven out. Assad, who considers Lebanon part of Greater Syria, has been embarrassed that in the past six months Aoun's smaller forces have held the Muslims at bay. "Assad doesn't want to annihilate the Christians," says retired Israeli Brigadier General Aharon Levran. "He just wants Aoun's head."

Aoun gets help from Iraq, eager to exact revenge for Syria's support of Iran in the gulf war. Baghdad has been shipping weapons to the Christians mainly to gall Syria. Long rivals for hegemony in the region, the two Arab giants seem to be fighting a proxy war on Lebanese soil. The struggle for control of Lebanon is further confused by the power contest in Tehran and the fate of the 15 foreign hostages.

Western leaders are trying to halt the slaughter through international pressure on Assad. The Syrian President does not wish to offend the West when his country sorely needs economic help. Nor can Assad calculate Israel's or Iraq's response to an assault by his troops that would amount to Syrian control of Lebanon.

But both Assad and Aoun seem bent on the same deadly gambit: Damascus hopes the violence will turn Christians against Aoun; the Maronite leader hopes it will bring intervention from the West against Syria. Meantime, it is the people of Lebanon who continue to suffer, particularly those -- Muslim and Christian alike -- who live in Beirut, where the shells have killed almost 800 and wounded over 2,000 since March. The fortunate have fled, paring the city's population from 1.5 million to just 150,000. Those who remain huddle by night in airless underground shelters, listening to the sounds of destruction. Those who venture out by day find their streets overrun by starving dogs and giant rats and occupied by implacable soldiers. "They are murdering the city," says one forlorn resident. The fear is that the remaining people may be murdered as well.

With reporting by William Dowell/Damascus and William Rademaekers/Paris