Back to the Brink with a Demi-Coup

Again, things blew up in Lebanon, giving the rest of the world a grim sense of dej`a vu. Beirut's television station suddenly interrupted a news broadcast last Thursday to present startled viewers with the grim visage of Brigadier General Aziz Ahdab, commander of the Beirut military region. In cool, measured tones, he proclaimed a state of emergency and declared that he had just taken control of the country as Military Governor. Giving no hint as to his source of support, Ahdab called on President Suleiman Franjieh and Premier Rashid Karami to resign within 24 hours, "for the sake of national unity." Ahdab insisted that he had "no desire to rule" and called upon Parliament to select a new President within seven days.

While Lebanese army patrols and hundreds of Beirut militiamen fired off their guns to celebrate Ahdab's coup,

Beirut radio periodically rebroadcast the general's announcement, which was dubbed Communique No. 1. The message was ignored by President Franjieh, who remained safe inside his presidential palace at Baabda, on a hill overlooking the capital. The 150-man presidential guard, reinforced with armor units, was on alert and patrolled the grounds. "I am staying on to defend legality and legitimacy," Franjieh announced. "There are three conditions for vacating the presidency: resignation, death or dismissal by Parliament. None of these exist."

Pax Syriana. As the 24-hour deadline passed, one of Franjieh's conditions was met when two-thirds of the 99-member Parliament agreed to ask him to step down. Still, Franjieh defiantly refused, although widespread anarchy and dangerously rising tensions increased military and political pressures on him to vacate the presidency. Meanwhile, nothing had been heard from Karami, who, ironically, had threatened to resign just before Ahdab had demanded his resignation.

What prompted Ahdab's demi-coup was the collapse of the fragile seven-week-old Pax Syriana--the Damascus-sponsored truce of Jan. 22. The authorities, charged Ahdab, had simply been unable to maintain order or begin to build a consensus in the divided country. This threatened to push Lebanon into renewed war between right-wing Christians and Moslem leftists. All last week gunmen again began erecting street barricades and kidnaping scores of civilians.

Self-Styled Army. The most alarming development was mutiny within Lebanon's 18,000-man army, which long was almost the sole national institution to remain generally above the confessional conflict. Now it is being split into antagonistic Moslem and Christian factions. Hundreds of Moslem soldiers deserted and took over army garrisons. Among them was Beaufort Castle--a massive stone fortress built 900 years ago by French Crusaders --which is within artillery range of settlements inside Israel. Many of the deserting Moslem troops were believed to be sympathetic to the Palestinian guerrillas, and there were fears last week that they might fire across the border--thereby provoking a strong Israeli retaliation that could easily spark a new Middle East war.

Mutiny also spread among Christian soldiers. Many had been angered when Moslem deserters in northern Lebanon earlier this month besieged the Christian town of Qobayat. Some Christian troops commandeered helicopters and rushed to help relieve the town, further infuriating the Moslems. The Christian soldiers were also incensed by the growth of the self-styled Lebanese Arab Army, composed primarily of Moslem deserters and led by Lieutenant Ahmad Khatib, 33, who had served in the regular army for eleven years before deserting in January. Originally, his army numbered about 70 men and was confined to a lone command post in the Bekaa Valley, but it has grown nearly fourteenfold in the past two months and controls about a dozen camps.

Khatib's basic appeal to Moslem soldiers is his charge--in part justified--that the Lebanese army is biased in favor of Christians. Only about 40% of the officers are Moslems, while they make up a disproportionately large share of the rank and file. Khatib wants the Lebanese constitution specifically to acknowledge the Arab character of the state; he also wants a reorganization of the army on a nonconfessional basis. Preoccupied with trying to maintain the cease-fire and stalemated by political bickering, the government paid little attention to Khatib and his growing band of rebels, even though 250 army officers demanded that the government punish the mutineers.

The Syrian-arranged peace had failed to remove some of the basic causes of the civil war because of political feuding among Lebanon's many sectarian factions. The truce had promised reforms that would give the predominant Moslems a larger share of political power and economic programs to develop impoverished Moslem areas. Since January there has been virtually no progress toward these goals, despite intense mediation efforts by Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, principal architect of the truce. Though Khaddam wields enormous influence in Lebanon, based largely on the presence there of close to 9,000 Syrian-trained soldiers of the Palestine Liberation Army, he was unable to force an end to what Beirut newspapers regularly deplore as their country's "political stagnation."

Khaddam flew to Beirut early last week, but left after a few days, having failed to come up with a plan upon which Lebanon's political and religious factions could agree. At the same time, mutinous Moslem soldiers rejected an offer of amnesty by a number of senior army officers, including General Saeed. Instead, the Moslem deserters captured several more outposts.

Front Man. The combination of more stalemate and more rebellion evidently was the last straw for the military. Sitting in his Beirut headquarters beneath a portrait of Franjieh, Ahdab told reporters the morning after his surprise television broadcast: "For God's sake, we have been patient for ten months, and if we had waited one more day, there would have been uncontrollable bloodshed." The choice of Ahdab as the military's front man was apparently carefully calculated by a group of Christian and Moslem officers to give the coup a nonreligious character. He is the highest-ranking Sunni Moslem in the armed forces but is also respected by Christian officers.

As one Beirut Christian remarked, "I don't give a damn who runs the country as long as someone finally runs it." This widespread longing, however, will only be fulfilled if last week's attempted coup galvanizes Lebanese leaders into uniting to work for what has eluded them so far: creating a basis for permanent peace.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, there seemed to be as little unity as in Lebanon. Less than three years ago, Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, Syria's Hafez Assad and Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi were seemingly the best of friends. No longer. Last week Assad intensified the Syrian rhetoric against

Egypt's policy of relying on U.S. peace initiatives. He denounced the second Sinai accord between Jerusalem and Cairo as "the mother of Arab setbacks." Sadat fired back that Assad's salvo was nothing but "narrow-minded party maneuvers."

Like Assad, Colonel Gaddafi is angered by Egypt's seemingly lukewarm support for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Recently, Gaddafi has begun denying visas to Egyptians seeking jobs in Libya and has recalled his official representative from Cairo. Last week Sadat tried to even the score. Egyptian authorities arrested 42 Libyans and accused them of having been sent by Gaddafi to assassinate prominent Egyptians and kidnap anti-Gaddafi Libyans living in Egypt. In retaliation, Libya expelled at least 3,000 Egyptian workers, many of whom--according to Cairo officials--had first been beaten and tortured.

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