World Affairs Council Delegation Visits Sabra/Shatila on Anniversary of Massacre

By A. Omar Turbi

As a member of the World Affairs Council of America’s delegation to Lebanon, I realized that we could not have arrived at a more challenging—and intriguing—moment. As our plane landed in Beirut, the United States was preparing to commemorate the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, and the drumbeats of war were loud. America was saddling up to attack Iraq.

Unlike many congressmen and administration officials, many World Affairs Council leaders have reservations about the claim that Iraq is a terrorist state, building and preparing to use weapons of mass destruction. Members of our delegation asked everyone we met if Lebanon would support U.S. moves to attack Iraq and get rid of Saddam Hussain. Not one person said “yes”!

“Would the promotion of some kind of internationally monitored participatory democratic process in Iraq work?” I asked Lebanon’s Prime Minster Rafiq Hariri.

His rhetorical reply: “Would you insert a needle through your eye?”

I was struck by Lebanon’s extraordinary natural beauty, and by the pulsating human talent and resilience of its people. I also noted the downside. No one who visits Lebanon can fail to see the scars, physical and emotional, of the civil and religious wars that shattered the country’s economy and devastated Beirut between 1975 and 1990. Lebanon today has turned its back on violence. Beirut bustles by day and glitters by night.

My mission was to look, listen and learn, and to bring back to America a deeper understanding of what makes Lebanon tick. Our generous hosts, the Fares Foundation, arranged for us to meet the country’s president, prime minister, defense minister, and the industry, trade and communications ministers. We also met with the governor of the Central Bank, the Chamber of Commerce, editors of Lebanon’s principal newspapers, the U.S. and British ambassadors, the head of UNWRA, and the president of the American University of Beirut (AUB). Our delegation benefited from more than 30 revealing interviews and discussions with the leaders of Lebanon on matters ranging from current political, economic and financial matters to the Palestine peace process and Lebanon’s relations with Syria, the rest of the Arab world, and the U.S.

By far the strongest reactions delegation members encountered in Beirut when discussions turned to international matters were the strong feelings Lebanese had against Israel. No matter how often the question of Iraq was raised, our hosts politely but firmly brought the conversation back to Israel! Israel was condemned for “expelling” the Palestinians, “occupying” Arab land, “bullying” the PLO, “oppressing” the West Bank and Gaza. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in particular was accused of “human rights violations,” “defying U.N. resolutions” and “building, and threatening to use, nuclear weapons.”

Shatila Refugee Camp: 20th Anniversary of the Massacre

Even had it not been the 20th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, it would have left a tremendous gap in my visit to Lebanon if I had not visited one of the dozen or more refugee “camps” in which most of the 400,000 Palestinians live. This was not easy to arrange, however. Lebanon does not accept responsibility for the refugees. Only the head of the delegation, Council chairman Sir Eldon Griffiths, and I made the visit to Shatila, the camp nearest Beirut. He agreed to join me after he felt assured of our safety.

On our visit to this labyrinth of hovels and concrete tenements it was suggested that we wear old clothes and sneakers and stay close to our guide, Rashid el Khatib, the Arab representative in Shatila of a Norwegian NGO, People’s Aid in Palestine.

Shatila is not much larger than a U.S. city block: a square kilometer of dirt and despair in which 5,000 refugees pitched their tents after their expulsion from Palestine 54 years ago. Much of the camp was destroyed, and the refugees scattered a second time, during Lebanon’s civil wars of the 1980s. Today, three generations of Palestinians—a total of about 22,000 people—have been forced back into Shatila and the fringe of unsanitary hovels that surround it.

The Sabra and Shatila massacres of Sept. 16 to 18, 1982 have been well documented. While the Israelis cordoned off this part of Beirut, the Phalangists executed more than 1,800 Palestinians and dumped their bodies in a pit that, covered over with clay, now serves as the amphitheater we visited. Around it are posters saying, in Arabic, “Remember the Martyrs,” ”Never forget Sabra massacre,” ”Bring Sharon to Trial.” Huge photographs show piles of the victims’ tangled bodies, reminding Eldon Griffiths of a mass grave unearthed in a Nazi concentration camp at Belsen at the end of World War II

Walking past fly-infested mounds of rubbish, we entered Shatila camp. It is a warren of concrete blocks separated by narrow dirt lanes covered with sacks and corrugated sheets to keep out the rain and blistering hot sun. The living conditions are appalling. There is no piped water, no power, no schools, clinics or hospitals save those the refugees contrive to provide for themselves. Swarms of barefoot children greeted us. They and their parents—in some cases their grandparents—have never lived anywhere else than in this noisome slum.

Outside the camp a woman had dug down several feet to reach one of Beirut city’s water pipes, into which she had inserted a plastic tube. Using a makeshift electric-powered pump, each morning this mother of half a dozen children covertly extracts clean water for her family. When we questioned whether the water was sanitary, one of the boys shouted, “Never mind the dirty water, the hanging bare electrical wire is more dangerous.”

Without UNWRA’s help all the camps would have been ravaged by starvation and disease. Indeed, most of the day-to-day assistance, especially for children, the elderly and disabled, is provided by NGOs. The only government that offers regular help is Norway, whose Foreign Ministry provides $2 million a year to Norwegian People’s Aid. Our guide told us that more than a score of international delegations were arriving in Beirut that night to mark the 20th anniversary of the Sabra massacre. No Americans were among them.

“The other day,” our guide noted, “I watched the commemoration of 2,600 Americans and others killed in New York on CNN. It was very moving. But why was there no CNN when we remember the 1,800 people murdered in Sabra? Is this not double standards?”

South Lebanon Frontier: Landmine-infested Area

Our tour of scenic south Lebanon took in Tyre and Sidon and was intended to include a visit to the frontier territory from which Israeli forces and their local allies, the South Lebanon Army, withdrew on May 25, 2000. This, however, proved to be impractical. A Lebanese army patrol stopped our bus at the Fatima gate checkpoint, eight miles from the border, and told us to go no further. The way ahead was too dangerous, we were told. The army could not be responsible for the safety of a group of Americans in an area where Hezbollah dominates the hills and Israeli counterattacks are frequent and unpredictable.

Determined to see something of the border area, I worked out a compromise. Our bus would remain at the checkpoint, where a local restaurant owner offered coffee and softdrinks. Sir Eldon Griffiths and I would “hitch a ride” with a local vehicle whose tough-looking driver agreed to drive us to the frontier and back for a fee of $20.

The car in which we drove was 30 years old and showed it. Its grizzled owner, Ahmed, made no bones about his hatred of Israel. Winding down the potholed road that leads to the creeks and bluffs of the Litani River valley, we saw the yellow flag of Hezbollah, a Kalashnikov machine gun held afloat on three pillars, fluttering on the hilltop. Waved on by another patrol of heavily armed Lebanese soldiers, we found ourselves in a tangle of steep hills, narrow ravines, limestone caves and, here and there, a few trees and tiny fields of corn and poppies.

So rough and inhospitable is this frontier region that we wondered why on earth anyone should want to fight over it. Yet these mountains bristle with fortresses, many dating back to the Crusaders, and battlefields where, in recent years, our driver told us, hundreds of Arabs and Israelis have been killed.

Closer to the frontier, we saw piles of building materials and half-built homes. Roadside billboards incongruously advertised shaving cream and Libby’s orange juice. Lebanese entrepreneurs, believing that peace was about to break out after the Camp David agreement, bought up building sites for a song, hoping to sell mountainside homes to Lebanese retirees. So far they have made few sales. Yet hope springs eternal in the human breast. On our flight home from Beirut, we met a Lebanese American from Los Angeles who owns one of these sites, and still hopes to live there one day!

The road to the frontier ended at the heavily fortified blockhouse where the mountains give way to a plain with Israeli-occupied farms and a red-roofed Jewish settlement. The border snakes along a dirt road rising into the hills, rugged country that reaches toward Mt. Hermon and the Shebaa farms area still occupied on one side by the Syrians, and on the other by Israelis. An Israeli army radio tower dominated the near horizon. We turned around at a bunker with Hezbollah flags. Armed men eyed us suspiciously but, recognizing Ahmed, made no move to stop our car.

On our way back to the Fatima gate, we noted strings of red and white plastic pennants along the roadside. Signs in English and Arabic said “KEEP OUT—MINEFIELDS.” Carrying geiger counters among the rocks was a group of U.N. mine clearance officers, wearing orange anti-flak coveralls, plastic visors and heavy helmets. We were told that, although the U.N. had asked Israel for maps of the minefields the SLA had laid when its forces withdrew from south Lebanon, these have not been forthcoming.

Ahmed would not stop his car. As we drove past the brave men engaged in de-mining this part of southern Lebanon, however, we took a photograph and saluted them. They were Ukrainians!

Omar Turbi is Senior Board Member of Trustees, World Affairs Council of America. WAC chairman Sir Eldon Griffiths contributed to this report.