The Sabra-Shatila Massacre: 28 years later does anyone remember?
Does anyone really care?
on the news-fix list on September 14, 2007.
jh
A Letter to Janet
Franklin Lamb
Martyrs Square
Sabra-Shatilla Palestinian Refugee Camp
Beirut
September 12, 2007
Dearest Janet,
It’s a very beautiful fall day here in Beirut today. Twenty-five years ago
this week since the September 15-18, 1982 Massacre at the Palestinian refugee
camps at Sabra-Shatila. Bright blue sky and a fall breeze. It actually rained
last night. Enough to clean out some of the humidity and dust. Fortunately
not enough to make the usual rain created swamp of sewage and filth
on Rue Sabra, or flood the grassless burial ground of the mass grave (the
camp residents named it Martyrs Square–one of several so named memorials
now in Lebanon)) where you once told me you that on Sunday September
19, 1982, you watched, sickened, as families and Red Crescent workers
created a subterranean mountain of butchered and bullet riddled victims
from those 48 hours of slaughter. Some of the bodies had limbs and
heads chopped off, some boys castrated, Christian crosses carved into some
of the bodies.
As you later wrote to me in your perfect cursive:
“I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and
their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up
against an ally wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman
with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face
silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been
stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles”.
Today Martyr’s Square is not much of a Memorial to the upwards of 1,700
mainly women and children, who were murdered between Sept. 15-18. You
would not be pleased. A couple of faded posters and a misspelled banner that
reads: “1982: Saba Massacer”, hang near the center of the 20 by 40 yard area
which for years following the mass burial was a garbage dump. Today,
roaming around the grassless plot of ground is a large old yellow dog that
ignores a couple of chicken hens and six peeps scratching and pecking
around.
Since you went away, the main facts of the Massacre remain the same as your
research uncovered in the months that followed. At that time your findings
were the most detailed and accurate as to what occurred and who was
responsible.
The old 7-storey Kuwaiti Embassy from where Sharon, Eytan, Yaron, Elie
Hobeika, Fradi Frem and others maintained radio contact and monitored the
48 hours of carnage with a clear view into the camps was torn down years
ago. A new one has been built and they are still constructing a Mosque on its
grounds.
I am sorry to report that today in Lebanon, the families of the victims of the
Massacre daily sink deeper into the abyss. No where on earth do the
Palestinians live in such filth and squalor. ‘Worse than Gaza!” a journalist
recently in Palestine exclaims.
A 2005 Lebanese law that was to open up access to some of the 77 professions
the Palestinians have been barred from in Lebanon had no affect. Their social,
economic, political, and legal status continues to worsen
“It’s a hopeless situation here now,” according to Jamile Ibrahim Shehade,
the head of one of 12 social centers in the camp. “There are 15,000 people
living in one square kilometer,” Jamile runs a center which provides
basic facilities such as a dental clinic and a nursery for children. It receives
assistance from Norwegian People’s Aid and the Lebanese NGO, PARD.
“This whole area was nothing before the camps were here and there has been
very little done in terms of building infrastructure,” Shehade explained.
Continued misery in the camps has taken a heavy psychological toll on
the residents of Sabra and Shatila, aid workers here say. Tempers run high as
a result of frustration from the daily grind in the decrepit housing complex.
In all 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon, tensions and tempers rise with
increasing family, neighborhood, and sect conflicts. Salafist and other militant
groups are forming in and around Lebanon’s Palestinian camps but
not so much here in the Hezbollah controlled areas where security is better.
In Sabra-Shatilla schools will run double shifts when they open at the end of
this month and electricity and water are still a big problem.
According to a 1999 survey by the local NGO Najdeh (Help), 29 percent
of 550 women surveyed in seven of the 12 official refugee camps scattered
across Lebanon, have admitted being victims of physical violence. Cocaine
and Hashish use are becoming a concern to the community.
There is some new information about the Sabra-Shatilla Massacre that has
come to light over the years. Few Israelis, but many of the Christian Lebanese
Forces, following the national amnesty, wanted to make their peace and
have confessed to their role. I have spoken with a few of them.
Remember that fellow you once screamed at and called a butcher outside of
Phalange HQ in East Beirut, Joseph Haddad. At the time he denied
everything as he looked you straight in the eye and made the sign of the cross.
Well, he did finally confess 22 years later, around the time of his youngest
daughter’s Confirmation in his local Parish. Your suspicions were indeed
correct. His unit, the second to enter the camp, had been supplied with
cocaine, hashish and alcohol to increase their courage. He and others gave
their stories to Der Spiegel and various documentary film makers.
Many of the killers now freely admit that they conducted a three-day
orgy of rape and slaughter that left hundreds, as many as 3,500 they claim,
possibly more, of innocent civilians dead in what is considered the bloodiest
single incident of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a crime for which
Israel will be
condemned for eternity.
Your friend, Um Ahmad, still lives in the same house where she lost her
husband, four sons and a daughter when Joseph, a thick-set militiaman
carrying an assault rifle bundled everyone into one room of their hovel and
opened fire. She still explains like it was yesterday, how the condoned
slaughter unfolded, recalling each of her four sons by name, Nizar, Shadi,
Farid and Nidal. I asked Joseph if he wanted to sit with Um Ahmad and seek
forgiveness and possible redemption since he has now become a lay cleric in
his Parish. He declined but sent his condolences with flowers.
Do you remember Janet, how we used to walk down Rue Sabra from Gaza
Hospital to Akka Hospital during the 75-day Israeli siege in ‘82, as you
used to say “to see my people”? Gaza Hospital is gone now. Occupied and
stripped by the Syrian backed Amal militia during the Camp Wars of ‘85-87.
Its remaining rooms are now packed with refugees. One old lady who
ended up there recited how it’s her 4th home since being forced from
Palestine in 1948. She survived the Phalangist attack on and destruction of
Tel a Zaatar camp in 1976 fled from the Fatah al Islam Salafists in Nahr
al Bared Camp in May of this year and wore out her welcome at the teeming
and overwhelmed Bedawi camp near Tripoli last month.
Most of your friends who worked with the Palestine Red Crescent Society are
gone from Lebanon. Our cherished friend, Hadla Ayubi has semi-retired in
Amman, Um Walid, Director of Akkar Hosptial, finally did return to Palestine
following Oslo, still with the PRCS. And its President, Dr. Fathi Arafat,
your good friend, passed away in December of 2004 in Cairo less than a month
after his brother Abu Ammar died in Paris. They both loved you for all you
had done for their people.
That trash dump near the Sabra Mosque is now a mountain. Yesterday I
did a double take as I walked by because I saw three young girls-as sweet and
pretty as ever I have seen–maybe 7 to 9 years old in rags picking thru the
nasty garbage. Their arms were covered with white chemical paste.
Apparently whoever sent them to scavenge sought to protect them from
disease. As I climbed thru the filth to give them my last 6,000 LL ($4) they
managed a smile and giggle when I slipped on a broken thin plastic bag of
juicy cactus fruit skins and plunged to my knees.
In some areas of the camps there are mainly Syrians. Selling cheap ‘tax free’
goods. Still some Arafat loyalists. Mainly among the older generation.
Palpable stress among just about everyone it seems. One young Palestinian
explained to me his worry that with the upcoming Parliamentary election
to choose a new President scheduled for September 25, there may be fighting
and his October 6th SAT exams may be cancelled and he won’t be able to
continue his studies.
When you and I last spoke Janet, it was on April 16th of that year, and
I was en route to the Athens Airport to catch a flight to Beirut to be with you,
you told me you were working on evidence to convict Sharon and others
of war crimes.
Twenty years later, lawyers representing two dozen victims’ and other
relatives attempted to have Ariel Sharon tried for the massacre under Belgian
legislation, which grants its courts “universal jurisdiction” for war crimes.
There had been great expectations about the case among the Palestinians
and their friends, since as you remember, Sharon had already been found to
bear “personal responsibility” in the massacres by an Israeli commission of
inquiry which concluded he shouldn’t ever again hold public office. But
hopes were dashed when the Belgium Court, under US and Israeli pressure,
decided the case was inadmissible.
I regret to report that all those who perpetrated the Massacre at Sabra-Shatilla
escaped justice. None of the hundreds of Phalange and Haddad militia
who carried out the slaughter were ever punished. In fact they got a blanket
amnesty from the Lebanese government.
As for the main organizers and facilitators, their massacre at Sabra-Shatilla
turned out to be excellent career moves for virtually all of them.
ARIAL SHARON, found by the Israeli Kahan Commission Inquiry “to bear
personal responsibility” for allowing the Sabra-Shatilla massacre resigned as
Minister of Defense but retained his Cabinet position in Begin’s Government
and over the next 16 years held four more ministerial posts, including
that of Foreign Minister, before becoming Prime Minister in February, 2001.
Following the Jenin rampage US President Bush anointed him “a man
of peace.”
RAFEL EYTAN, Israeli Chief of Staff, who shared Sharon’s decision to send in
the Phalange killers and helped direct the operation was elected to the
Knesset as leader of the small ultra rightwing party, Tzomet. In 1984 he was
named Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in 1996. He currently
serves as head of Tzomet and is jockeying for another Cabinet position in
the next government.
Major-General YEHOSHUA SAGUY, Army Chief of Intelligence: found by
the Kahan Commission to have made “extremely serious omissions”
in handling the Sabra-Shatilla affair later became a right-wing Member of the
Knesset and is now mayor of the ultra-rightist community of Bat-Yam,
a little town near Tel Aviv.
Major-General AMIR DRORI, Chief of Israel’s Northern Command: found
not to have done enough to stop the massacre, a “breach of duty”, recently
was named as head of the Israeli Antiquities Commission.
Brigadier-General AMOS YARON, the divisional commander whose troops
sealed the camps to prevent victims from escaping and helped direct
the operation along with Sharon and Eitan was found to have” committed
a breach of duty”. He was immediately promoted Major-General and made
head of Manpower in the army, served as Director-General of the Israeli
Defense Ministry and Military Attaches at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
He is currently working for various Israeli lobby groups as a scholar in
‘tink thanks’.
ELIE HOBEIKA, the Chief of Lebanese Forces Intelligence, who along with
Sharon master-minded the actual massacre fell out with the Phalange in 1980s
under suspicion that he was involved in killing their leader, Bachir
Gemayal. He defected to the Syrians, acquired three Ministerial posts in
post-civil war Lebanon Governments, including Minister of the Displaced
(many thought he knew a lot about this subject) of Electricity and Water and
in 1996, Social Affairs.
On January 24, 2002, twenty years after his involvement at Sabra-Shatilla he
was blown up in a car bomb attack in East Beirut. Two of his associates who
were also rumored to be planning to “come clean” regarding Sharon’s role
were assassinated in separate incidents.
A few days before Hobeika’s death he stated that he might reveal more about
the massacre and those responsible and according to Beirut’s Daily Star
staff who interviewed him, Hebeika told them that his lawyers had copies of
his files implicating Sharon in much more than had become public. These
files are now is the possession of his son who following Sharon’s death may
release them to the public.
They still remember you in Burj al Buragne camp. A few weeks ago one
old man told me: “Janet Stevens? No, I didn’t know her”. He paused and then
said, “Oh!.. you mean Miss Janet! She spoke Arabic… I think she was
American. Of course I remember her! We called her the little drummer girl.
She had so much energy. She cared about the Palestinians. That was so long
ago. She stopped coming to visit us. I don’t know why. How is she?”
And so, Dearest Janet, I will be waiting for you at Sabra-Shatilla , at Martyrs
Square, on Saturday, September 15, 2007.
You will find me patting and mumbling to that old yellow dog. He and I have
become friends and we will pay our respects to the dead and I will reflect
on these past 25 years and we will watch for and wait for you. You will find
us behind the straggly rose bushes on the right as you enter.
Come to us, Janet. We need you. The camp residents need you, one of their
brightest lights, on this 25th anniversary of one of their darkest hours.
You were always their mediator and advocate… and until today you are their
majorette for Justice and Return to their sacred Palestine.
Forever,
Franklin
Note:
Janet Lee Stevens was born in 1951 and died on April 18, 1983, at the age of 32,
at the instant of the explosion which destroyed the American Embassy in
Beirut. Twenty minutes before the blast, Janet had arrived at the
Embassy to met with
U.S.A.I.D. official Bill McIntyre because she wanted to advocate for more aid to
the Shia of South Lebanon and for the Palestinians at Sabra, Shatilla,
and Burg al
Burajneh camps, stemming from Israel’s 1982 invasion and the September 15-18
massacre. As they sat at a table in the cafeteria, where she had
planned to ask why the
US government has never even lodged a protest following the Israeli invasion
or the Massacre, a van stolen from the Embassy the previous June
arrived and parked
just in front of the Embassy. Almost directly in front of the
cafeteria. It contained
2,000 pounds of explosives. It was detonated by remote control and
tons of concrete
pancaked on top of Janet and Bill, killing 63 and wounding 120. Remains of
Janet’s body were found two days later, unidentified in the basement
morgue of the
American University of Beirut Hospital by the author. She was pregnant with
our son, Clyde Chester Lamb III. Had he lived he would be 24 years
old. Hopefully
taking after his mother he would, no doubt, be a prince of a young man.
Franklin Lamb’s book on the Sabra-Shatilla Massacre, now out of print, was
published in 1983, following Janet’s death and was dedicated to Janet Lee
Stevens. He was a witness before the Israeli Kahan Commission Inquiry, held
at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in January of 1983.
Lamb, Franklin P.: International legal responsibility for the
Sabra-Shatila-massacre
Franklin P. Lamb – Montreuil: Imp. Tipe, 1983 – 157 S. Ill., Kt.
Franklin Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace,
Beirut-Washington DC, Board Member of The Sabra Shatila Foundation, and
a volunteer with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Lebanon. He is the
author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American
Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon and is doing research in Lebanon for
his next book. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com
ThereAreNoSunglasses 