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Chapter 5 MERGING MILITARIES: THE LEBANESE CASE Florence Gaub The Lebanese civil war is a classic case of the evolution of an internal conflict into something more complex: A conflict that started internally, with (mostly Christian) Phalangist and (mostly Sunni Muslim) Palestinian militias opposing each other, led to the emergence of other militias and to intervention by two neighboring countries. Although the war saw several national as well as international attempts to broker peace among the warring factions, it finally came to an end in an inter-Lebanese conference that took place in Saudi Arabia after fifteen years of conflict. When the war ended in 1990, Lebanon’s security sector was in shambles, with numerous militias, a shattered armed force, and two occupying powers on most of its territory. The issue of the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of the various armed groups on Lebanese territory was therefore crucial and found a prominent place in the final peace negotiations—long before DDR became fashionable in political scientists’ circles. It was decided not only to merge a Lebanese Army split in two, but also to integrate former militia fighters into the armed forces. ORIGINS The Lebanese Army had long been regarded as one of the most integrated state institutions , although it was based on ethnic units. It was kept out of the civil war for a long time but was eventually dragged into it, ironically just at the end, when it split into Christian and Muslim units. After the war an amnesty was declared, and some Christians and Muslims on both sides were integrated into the new military. It was also decided that integration would proceed at the individual rather than the unit level. The Historic Role of the Military The Lebanese Army’s role in Lebanese society has been largely symbolic. The last institution to be given up by the French colonizer, it has fought only one battle: its victorious one against Israel in 1948. Staying aloof from politics during the unrests of 1952 and 1958, it gained an image of multiethnic professionalism on which its popularity is based. When the civil war broke out, the Lebanese Army was thus incapable of taking sides between the Maronite Christian Phalangists and the Palestinian militias—or, EARLY ADOPTERS 70 rather, Lebanese politicians refrained from using the armed forces in a biased way. If the Lebanese military wanted to retain its multiethnic image, it could not act against any part of society or the allies of any part of society. A second element that came into play was the fear of a possible disintegration of the armed forces upon deployment in a semisectarian scenario. Thus the passivity of the Lebanese Army during the civil war years was considered the price that had to be paid to protect the one institution that stood for the Lebanese model itself, namely, peaceful coexistence. Yet the army suffered from this enforced paralysis. Drained by constant low-level desertion, frustrated by the never-ending conflict, and bloated by hasty reformist attempts , it was in a sorry state when it was dragged into a political quagmire that divided the country. When Lebanese parliamentarians and Syria (at that time the de facto occupying power) could not agree on a successor to President Amin Gemayel, Syria appointed the commander in chief of the armed forces, General Michel Aoun, first as prime minister and then as acting interim president. This occurred on September 22, 1988, only 15 minutes before the end of Gemayel’s mandate. But according to Lebanon ’s unwritten National Pact, the president has to be a Sunni Muslim, and Aoun was a Maronite. Thus Salim Hoss, the previous prime minister, declared Aoun’s appointment invalid. Because Aoun refused to resign, two Lebanese governments opposed each other: Hoss’s in West Beirut and Aoun’s in East Beirut. While retaining his post as army commander, Aoun ordered his government to occupy the harbors, which were used by the militias to smuggle weapons and drugs. His goal, the recovery of Lebanese sovereignty over its entire territory, initially meant only the expulsion of the Syrian Army. Hence he declared a “War of Liberation” against Syria on March 14, 1989, and started the bloodiest episode in the Lebanese civil war as far as the army was concerned. After the surviving parliamentarians of 1975 (no more elections had taken place since) had convened in the Saudi Arabian city of Ta’if in October 1989 and negotiated a peace treaty that put an end to Lebanon...

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