Syrian Feats in Lebanon – Part VI
By: General Michel Aoun
The air is thick over Beirut these days from all the huffing and puffing. We fear for those spewing all their venom in the smear campaign that they don’t choke on their own filth. We also pray for them that they remain – thanks to their Syrian-granted immunity – clear of all the patriotic diseases they blame us for. May God Almighty keep good morals and ethics away from them so that they are not embarrassed in their own shame for playing the pioneering role assigned to them in defense of Syria. For after all, Syria is ever our protector against Israeli and the Israeli “evils”…

We are pleased that the investigating judges will get to know us through our interventions in the media, if they have not already done so, for they will discover a dignifying language that tells the truth and respects the right of others to know the truth. In it, they will find a permanent call to respect the values without which no society and no nation can stand. We wish they also applied a similar test on the state’s chorus of voices that have been hurling insults, lies, and incitement. They can then tell us their opinion on the violations of national unity and the jeopardy placed on the country’s security, through the incitement of sectarian fanaticism, blackmail, and collaboration with the enemy. I doubt that any judge will get lost in his search for the truth and will have any problem placing the responsibility where it belongs, on those “boys” playing with the fate of the country and the people.

In the name of the “unity of fate”, the “coupling of the two tracks”, and the “strategic collaboration” between Syria and Lebanon, and by virtue of geography and history, and for the sake of liberating occupied Jerusalem and the orphan Golan, the Syrian Minister of Information, Mr. Omran, is given the privilege of deciding who gets Lebanese citizenship. He also gets to decide that those who oppose the Syrian occupation will lose their Lebanese citizenship, especially the Christians whom he saved from extermination in 1976.

In fact, I found this extermination statement among other similar statements and articles at one of the think tanks in Washington DC where I met a researcher in social-religious studies. I was presenting to him the proposition that Lebanese society is a successful model for the interaction between cultures, which must be helped against t hose who speak of the inevitability of the clash – by war – between these cultures. My interlocutor replied with serious doubts about my proposition and used the statement by Omran as evidence. He then rejected my clarification that Mr. Omran’s talk about the extermination of Christians is no more than a political ploy, arguing that he never heard or read from a single Moslem official in Lebanon denying, rejecting or apologizing for these words.

My memory takes me back to the early years of the war, to North Lebanon, and specifically to Beit Mellat, Tal Abbas, Deir Ashesh, Deir Jenin, Minjiz, and Rahbeh, where the Syro-Palestinian forces killed tens of innocent citizens and monks and burned churches and cleansed entire villages. After setting Lebanon – its la nd and its people – on fire, in a climate virtually identical to the one it has created, the Syrian regime entered Lebanon as the fireman hero to save Lebanon from itself.

It is not important for us that the Syrian regime creates pretexts to justify its occupation of Lebanon. What is unacceptable is that the regime forces the Lebanese to admit to the crimes it itself committed, and then appoints itself the judge in the matter.

Crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations. Those responsible for them can be indefinitely held accountable.
(To be continued….)|
General Michel Aoun
Long Live Free LEBANON

2.10.02