They arrived in their finery to feast and celebrate and then, with no warning, there was complete mayhem One guest said: "I grabbed my son when the floor collapsed. We fell one floor, then the next floor collapsed, and then the next, and all the while I'm trying to hold onto my son's hand He's only 10 years old We dropped all the way down. We landed among the ruins and we had to be pulled out."At least 300 people were injured and estimates of the dead were vague but kept rising ominously. Wave after wave of rescue workers were bought in including the army already badly over-stretched by the intifada to help lift the giant blocks of concrete that had fallen.The only hint of the festivities that the night was supposed to bring, were to be found on the top floor above the wall-to-wall hole that the floor collapse had created. The party candles were still glowing through the arched windows lined with ornamental cacti and wrought-iron railings, but in a second last night any sense of celebration vanished.. Did Nasrallah Sfeir, the present Maronite patriarch in Lebanon, ask the Pope to persuade Israel to protect the Christians at the height of the Lebanese civil war? Did Nasrallah Sfeir, the present Maronite patriarch in Lebanon, ask the Pope to persuade Israel to protect the Christians at the height of the Lebanese civil war?General Mustapha Tlass, the Syrian defence minister, has claimed just that in an incendiary attack on the cardinal who is leading Christian calls for a Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon "Unworthy of response," was the cardinal's reply to Tlass.
The remarks did not represent "Syria's official position", the Lebanese defence minister announced.But however much local politicians brought out the hoses to douse the latest fires, the Syrians and the Lebanese Christians who originally invited Syrian troops into Lebanon in 1976 can find little common ground. Under the 1990 Taef agreement, Syrian troops should long ago have withdrawn to the Mdeiriej-Hamana ridge in the mountains behind the capital; but they are still in Beirut.The Christian president, Sulieman Franjieh, asked Syria to intervene in Lebanon in 1976 when the Palestinians seemed ready to crush Maronite militiamen in the civil war. Syria obliged and, like so many foreign armies that have arrived in Lebanon, stayed somewhat longer than expected. During the 1982 Israeli invasion, the Syrians were pushed out of Beirut and the Israelis installed a government run by its own Phalangist allies. As Israel withdrew, the Druze militia fought a war of ethnic cleansing against the Maronites.That, supposedly, is where Sfeir came in. According to General Tlass who writes poetry to Gina Lollabrigida the cardinal called up Pope John Paul II and asked him to persuade the Israelis to defend their Christian allies in the Chouf. The Israeli prime minister of the time, Menachem Begin, reportedly turned down the Pope's request.But in a country that has never explored the roots of the civil war that ended 11 years ago, Tlass' remarks have opened up some very savage wounds notwithstanding the fact that Sfeir wasn't a cardinal in 1983 and only became patriarch in 1986.Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader the Maronites' enemy in the Chouf battles has himself fallen out with Damascus over the continuation of Syria's military presence in Lebanon.
If nothing else, the debate has at least brought Syria's role in Lebanon into the normally tame pages of the Lebanese newspapers.The reason why Syria stayed on in Lebanon is obvious; concerned about a possible return of Israeli-inspired Maronite rule, it also feared a return of the Israeli army which would strategically threaten Syria as it did in 1982 when it controlled half of Lebanon. So a quarter of a century after they entered Lebanon, the Syrians are still here, 20,000 regular and special forces troops, loyal to President Bashar Assad and obedient to the orders of the Syrian intelligence commander in Lebanon, General Ghazi Kenaan.Under a post-Taef Treaty of Fraternity, Coordination and Cooperation, Lebanon accepted the continued presence of the Syrians. But now, with the Israelis withdrawn behind the United Nations "blue line" in compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 425 the Christians are asking why the Syrians don't also go home. Hence General Tlass' outburst.The problem, of course, is that while the Maronite Christians are demonstrating their super-patriotism in demanding a Syrian withdrawal the Christians were somewhat less heroic when the Israelis smashed into the country in 1982. On that occasion, Lebanon's foreign invaders were welcomed in Christian homes and treated as heroes, the Christian militia itself being sent into the Palestinian camps by Israeli forces after the occupation of Beirut; hence the massacre of Sabra and Chatila.For the present, the Christian complaints remain a nuisance rather than a threat. Syrian and Lebanese military intelligence long ago arrested militants of the Lebanese rebel general Michel Aoun, who tried to drive the Syrians out in 1989.
