Remembering

By James Kelly

Women search for missing kin

They looked like angry apparitions, these shawled women with arms stretched up to God and faces gnarled by grief. They came not because they remembered, but because they resolutely refused to let others forget. What has become of their husbands, their brothers and sons who have vanished during nearly a decade of civil strife? Delirious with despair, hundreds of them defied Lebanon's warlords last week and shut down the freshly opened roads between East and West Beirut. Bustling about in thick cotton dresses, they piled up burning tires, tree trunks and splintered furniture. Motorists who dared approach the barricades got their windshields smashed by club-toting mothers. Wives hurled curses at scurrying pedestrians, daughters scuffled with astonished soldiers.

Many of the women wore pictures of their missing relatives across their dresses, like rows of hard-won campaign medals. Some pulled out worn snapshots, while others brandished framed glossies. The haphazard gallery of photographs symbolized one of the nastiest legacies of Lebanon's nine years of civil war. During the spasms of bloodletting, which primarily pitted Muslim against Christian, as many as 5,000 people disappeared without a trace. Most were taken by rival militias in the perennial quest for revenge or as hostages for the return of members of the abductors' own sect. What makes the mournful protests so poignant is that of the thousands kidnapped, only about 200 are thought to be alive. Many Beirutis remember seeing bodies dumped in streams or floating in the sea. "You just turned your head and went about your business," said an office manager. "You knew that they had been killed by the militias and that there was nothing you could do about it."

The protesters sought not revenge but peace of mind, to go to bed at night knowing the fate of their dearest. "Both my husband and my eldest son disappeared eight years ago," said Fatmi Hassan, 54, proffering two smudged black-and-white photos as proof. "The Christian militia took them away. If they are alive, I want them back. If they are dead, I want to know they are dead." Said Jamal Khoury, a Christian whose husband was last seen in the Chouf Mountains in September: "He must be dead, but there is something inside you that won't let go until you see the body or know the details."

The identity cards that all Lebanese must carry and that indicate their religion became instant death warrants for some. "They took my husband just because his papers said he was a Shi'ite," said Nabila Khalil, 23. "Some soldiers stopped him and said they wanted to ask him a few questions. I haven't seen or heard from him in 14 months." One episode occurred often enough to become a sort of national nightmare: militiamen would set up an impromptu checkpoint, stop a car and discover the driver belonged to an enemy sect. Sometimes the motorist would be shot, sometimes he would be hustled away and executed later.

Since every faction in the Cabinet bears responsibility for its share of abductions, the government has no interest in public discussion of this issue. But to placate the women, the Cabinet last week set up a committee to determine the fate of the missing and win the release of the survivors. International Committee of the Red Cross officials have already visited about 120 hostages held by the various militias.

A dramatic act of violence momentarily distracted Beirut last week: a Shi'ite Muslim splinter group blew up the Libyan embassy to protest the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr, their spiritual leader, who vanished while visiting Libya in 1978. Aside from that, life in the city was normal. On Wednesday four men were kidnapped, allegedly by Christian vigilantes. The next day, three Christians were abducted. And somewhere in the city, several more women suddenly agonized over whether they should hope or mourn. --By James Kelly.

Reported by John Borrell/Beirut

With reporting by John Borrell