Carving Out a Christian Canton

Reluctantly convinced that Beirut is a dying city, the U.S. Embassy last week announced that it was suspending most operations in the Lebanese capital; by radio and newspaper ads, it urged the few remaining Americans to leave in a U.S.-sponsored international evacuation this week. In Cairo, meanwhile, the Arab League admitted failure so far in imposing peace in Lebanon. Despite a force of 2,300 Arab troops there as peacemakers, the league has been unable to mediate a cease-fire between the Christians and Moslems that have savaged Lebanon in the course of its increasingly brutal 15-month civil war.

What now may put peace beyond reach is that the war is no longer simply a confrontation between Lebanese Christians and Moslems; the heaviest fighting at present is between the Christians and Palestinian commandos, who are struggling desperately to save their longtime military base in Lebanon.

By last week the Palestinian situation had become desperate: in one of the stranger turns in the course of the struggle, Moslem Syria's forces were on the side of the Lebanese Christians. The Syrians had moved into Lebanon originally to stop the fighting before either side lost. But the Syrian troops trying to contain the Christian-Moslem fighting were provoked into combat by Palestinians fighting alongside the Lebanese Moslems. Damascus' answer has been to increase its commitment in Lebanon still more, to 15,000 men who control most of the rich Bekaa Valley. The Syrians have also cut their opponents' sources of supply by sea and air, and destroyed their fuel supplies to the point that Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat last week appealed to Moscow to pressure Damascus.

Unwilling to live side by side with belligerent Palestinians, the Christians in recent weeks have shifted to an ominous new strategy. They have unilaterally decided to impose their own solution: regionalization or "cantonization" of Lebanon into Christian and Moslem areas.

The Christians are well armed with supplies pouring into the port of Jounieh, north of Beirut--including U.S. M-16 rifles from Israel, which has also intercepted arms shipments destined for the Moslems en route to the southern Lebanese port of Tyre. Regaining the offensive, the Christians set about carving out an enclave stretching from East Beirut north to Tripoli between the Mediterranean and the Lebanon Mountains. By last week the only remaining Moslems in important numbers in the 800-sq.-mi. area were Palestinians in refugee camps. The Christians have leveled some of their heaviest firepower on the camps. Three weeks ago they captured Jisr Basha in East Beirut with heavy casualties, and last week they were mopping up around larger Tel Zaatar, which once housed 17,000 civilian Palestinians.

Confident Christians. Behind the lines in "Christian Lebanon," TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn reported last week following a visit there, life is peaceful and even pleasant. The Christians' Phalangist Party has become the ad hoc government and is running the zone as well as any part of Lebanon has ever been governed. In Maronite towns, there is no garbage littering the streets. Gas costs less than one-fifth the price charged in West Beirut; bread prices are controlled and pegged to prewar levels. The Phalangists have established their own police force, courts and jails, and they operate intercity buses, supermarkets, medical centers and a telephone service. The distribution of gasoline, imported from Rumania, is so efficient that traffic jams clog the little towns along the coast.

The Christians are so confident of their strength that they have begun to talk--once again--of a possible reconciliation with the Moslems. But that will take time; the war has been vicious and memories are stark. At one point on his tour of Christian Lebanon, Wynn was escorted through the ruined Jisr Basha refugee camp. He reported: "I was led behind the camp church by a Christian officer and to a once sealed concrete room that had been smashed open by a shell during the fighting for the camp. 'This is what the Palestinians did to our people,' he said, pointing to a pile of human skulls, bones and rotting clothing heaped inside. 'They kidnaped our people and dumped them into this dark chamber already crowded with corpses and left them there to die.' "

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