An interview with General Michel Aoun
conducted by the Haaretz Newspaper

A dragon that won't be slayed
Ten years after he was toppled from power, former Lebanese leader General Michel Aoun is dismissive of any agreement with what he calls 'a gangland dictatorship' and furious that the fate of his country will be decided by two foreign powers, Syria and Israel. From his home in exile in Paris, Aoun spoke to Ha'aretz
(By Dov Alfon ) PARIS -
The interview
Ten years ago this week, Michel Aoun received a laconic announcement from a couple of gendarmes who came to pay him a call: the Christian general had two weeks to leave Lebanese soil. Despite United Nations intervention and the presence of an Arab League observer and despite French warships anchored in Beirut harbor, Syria was poised to complete the domination of its small neighbor. "Syria and Lebanon are one and the same," Syrian President Hafez Assad was saying in Damascus.The dream of a 'free Lebanon' was washed away in a river of blood: What ensued was a war of Christians against Christians and a clash of pro-Syrians and anti-Syrians.
According to the official count, the long civil war claimed 200,000 victims, or seven percent of the population. On October 31, 1990, Aoun found asylum in the French embassy in Beirut where he remained for 10 months. Today, in his place of exile in France, Aoun claims that he never actively sought asylum. "I was called in to the embassy to look over a new Syrian cease-fire proposal. An hour after I came to the embassy, the French informed me that the Syrians were massacring the civilian population and completing their military advance, and that I was now under the protection of the French republic.

" The French kept their promise to protect their transitory ally, but at the same time were careful not to unduly provoke the Syrians. Aoun was smuggled to Marseilles, a city far removed from media or political influence. After spending a year there, he was permitted to move to a suburb of Paris, Crecy la Chapelle. Two years later, he was transferred to another, more affluent suburb closer to the capital, Haute Maison. Officially, he still lives there. But in fact, the French allowed Aoun to move to Paris proper, where he lives in a large apartment in one of the more aristocratic quarters near Parc Monceau. Two French police officers watch the house day and night, and Aoun has always distanced himself from any political activity which might irritate his hosts.
The man who was appointed as the leader of Lebanon by Amin Gemayel and who once ruled over the army and the centers of power, now heads a ghost organization called the Free Patriotic Movement, most of whose members are Christian students.
Every so often, his followers organize a strike at the universities; every so often, his name is mentioned as someone who will return to save his people. At age 64, Michel Aoun found a new lease of life this week, 10 years after his overthrow. The upcoming agreement between Syria and Israel, in which Lebanon will be invited to join the negotiations only after everything has been decided, has revived him. He is embarking on a new campaign, without the approval of the French it seems, and is rallying other exiles living in the French capital. The interview with this Israeli journalist is held in his home, following an exhaustive round of clarifications and background checks. As a rule, he has been careful not to maintain contact with any Israelis, for fear that Syria will accuse him of "cooperation with the Zionists." But now Aoun is taking his crusade to a new level: He is furious. "Lebanon has always served as the means by which Syria put pressure on Israel," he says. "As far as Syria is concerned, that is Lebanon's entire function. Even Israel has now caved in to this pressure. Poor Lebanon is just another one of the issues to be discussed by Syria and Israel, like the Golan, like water, or like granting visas to Israelis who want to visit Damascus. That's Lebanon. How does that make the Lebanese feel? Two countries that illegally occupy extensive portions of a third country decide its face in that country's absence. And all this is going on while international law, UN resolutions, justice and morality are all being scorned
."

Q. But with whom can Israel discuss peace along its border with Lebanon? The country doesn't even have its own delegate.
Aoun:

"You know, in 1989 I publicly called for three-way negotiations between Israel, Syria and Lebanon. I said that Lebanon wanted to sit at the negotiating table, not on the table as one of the items on the agenda. And then the Syrians invaded our country, and I was overthrown. It goes without saying that they needed Israel's acquiescence in carrying out their plan. In retrospect, you can conclude that Israel essentially gave Syria the green light to subjugate Lebanon. The Israelis preferred that Lebanon would be on the table. Yitzhak Rabin once said that he was not opposed to Syrian control of Lebanon. And now, with the opening of talks in Washington, Israel is announcing that it will demand Syrian guarantees of its security, even along its border with Lebanon. "That's the limit. Why is it that on the Golan, Israel will demand American guarantees, while in Lebanon it will demand Syrian guarantees? Is that logical? It's unbelievable. This proves the existence of a partnership between Syria and Israel, a partnership in dismembering Lebanon. And we won't agree to it. The Lebanese people won't agree to it. Only we can provide guarantees of Israel's security along its border with Lebanon."

Q. What do you mean when you say "only we can?" Even the Lebanese government would admit that it cannot guarantee anybody's security.
Aoun:

"If the Lebanese government admits that it cannot grant guarantees for its neighbors' security, it is only because for the past 10 years, you have been allowing the Syrians to do whatever they feel like doing in Lebanon. They've massacred our people, they've committed crimes against humanity in many Lebanese villages. These are well-documented facts, and someday the West will have to admit to them. They have established Syrian settlements on Lebanese soil, they have forced Lebanese people to adopt Syrian citizenship and they are turning Lebanon into part of Greater Syria. " The Syrians, you see, have no interest in peace with Israel. Not in the same way that you understand the word. But they have a strategy, and this strategy is forcing them to give you a little quiet right now, so that they'll be able to drive the last nail into the independent Lebanon. When they're finished, they'll turn on you. Can Barak seriously believe that this peace agreement he's going to sign in Washington is worth the paper it's printed on?

Q. Why not?
Aoun:
"First and foremost for the reason I just gave. Syria is like the legendary dragon that asked for another maiden as a sacrifice every morning. Until Saint George shows up in the Middle East, it's going to go on that way. Secondly, because we won't let it happen. Lebanon will become a center of instability in the Middle East, and the Lebanese people will rebel against this agreement, which is being made at our expense. The Lebanese will take out their fury on Israel, and there's no way to guess what will happen. I see that you're smiling. Perhaps I sound a little ridiculous right now, because my people are in the stranglehold of a Syrian dictatorship and cannot express their opposition. But who can guarantee that it will always be this way? No one can say what the future holds for us. We have yet to see what the people of Lebanon feel about Israel."

Q. But realistically speaking-
Aoun:
"And there's that word again - 'realistic.' Why is it that only the people of Lebanon have to be realistic? Why doesn't the world tell the residents of Kosovo to be realistic, or the people of East Timor? And Indonesia is a slightly larger and slightly more frightening country than Syria, is it not? Why is it O.K. to ask the Chechens, the Tibetans and the Lebanese to be realistic, while asking the same of other peoples would be considered an indecent act? Why is it verboten [forbidden] for an Arab country to conquer Kuwait, but permissible for an Arab country to subjugate Lebanon? "Evidently it is because, technically speaking, we have a president. But the president is appointed by the Syrians, and the parliament that confirmed the appointment was elected in phony elections. All of the Western ambassadors in Beirut admit that the elections were rigged, and last month the U.S. Ambassador appeared at a social event and told those present to forget it; that it is better to have phony elections than no elections at all. And this coming from the representative of the country that flies the flag of freedom and democracy. "With my own ears I heard James Baker, when he was U.S. Secretary of State, say that America had decided not to take Syria off the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, and in the same breath say that the United States recognizes Syria's right to defend its interests in Lebanon. What a disgrace! It is beyond belief that a representative of a Western country would speak this way, but with Lebanon, anything goes. And Israeli policy is not much different from this hypocritical stance. They are always talking about how awful it was that the world stood silent, but now you are standing silent. "The Syrians massacred us, but the world doesn't even recognize the existence of Syria's invasion of Lebanese territory. It's as if the Syrians were transparent. The only action the West took was expelling me from the region, as if it were I who brought the Syrian mortars to Lebanon. And it all went down without the world even blinking. Massacre in Hamra, massacre in Beirut, and nothing. They don't even give us the right to oppose the occupation, because ostensibly, there is no such occupation. "And all Israel wants is the signature of Hafez Assad on a piece of paper. And as such, it encourages him to do what he's been doing. And I'll let you guess how he will do that and let you guess who is the next maiden in line. A dictatorship like that, a gangland dictatorship such as you have in Syria, cannot exist without an enemy. It needs an adversary so that it can keep its domestic affairs in order, so that it can rob the public treasury and so that it can send its opponents to prison. Peace is simply not a viable option."

Q. What is a viable option for Lebanon?
Aoun
"
1. Parallel withdrawal of Syria and Israel from our territory.
2. Implementation of UN resolutions 425 and 426.
3. Positioning of UNIFIL forces in areas evacuated by the Israel Defense Forces.
4. Immediate implementation of UN resolution 520 - in other words, the departure of the Syrians.
5. The massive rearmament of the independent Lebanese army. This is the viable option
This is the key to genuine peace in the region. We have no territorial demands from Israel; we only have a legal dispute between us. If the IDF pulls out of Lebanon, the dispute is solved of its own accord. But only on condition that you stop providing support and encouragement for the Syrian occupation. The Western countries must get involved, and restore Lebanon's independence - by force if necessary."

Q. And you believe this will happen?
Aoun:
"The Western countries have pangs of conscience, because they know they've done nothing. They would like the problem to simply vanish, so they try to claim that there never was a problem and that no crime has been committed. And what do they really care about Lebanon? They're far away. But the people of Israel are close, and Israel is more exposed along its northern border than in the Golan because there is no demilitarized zone. Therefore, Israel has to take an interest in what is really happening in Lebanon, and seriously consider what to expect in the future.
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