Arab Democratic Party

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Parti Démocratique Arabe
الحزب العربي الديمقراطي
Party leader Rifaat oath
founding 1974 by Ali Eid
Headquarters Tripoli
Alignment Alawite , Pan-Arabism , Arab Socialism
Colours) green

The Arab Democratic Party - ADP ( Arabic الحزب العربي الديمقراطي al-Hizb al-'arabi ad-dimuqrati ) or in French Parti Démocratique Arabe (PDA) is a Lebanese party of the Alawites based in Tripoli . Its current chairman is Rifaat Eid . She is part of the Alliance of March 8th .

root

The PDA traces its origins back to a left student organization called Mouvement de la Jeunesse Alaouite (MJA), which was formed in Tripoli in 1972 by the teacher Ali Eid . The MJA had support from the Shiite Alawite community in Lebanon and even had the personal support of Rifaat al-Assad , Syria's then vice-president. During the Lebanese civil war , the MJA stayed out of the MNL - PLO alliance, but in 1977-78 it joined the Patriotic Opposition Front (POF), a pro-Syrian multi-confessional coalition of Lebanese notables and activists founded in Tripoli by member of parliament Talal El-Merhebi , Souhale Hamadah , Rashid al-Muadim , George Mourani, and Nassib al-Chatib , and had Ali Eid as vice presidents.

Internal disagreements led to the dissolution of the alliance in the early 1980s when Eid and some coalition partners founded the PDA in 1983 and elected the Sunni - Muslim lawyer Nassib al-Chatib as the first general secretary, replaced by Ali Eid in 1985. With the process, the MJA was absorbed into the new party and became its youth branch.

Political principles

As a Pan-Arab - nationalist and radical socialist party represents the PDA apparently the interests of small Alawitengemeinde, although their pro-Syrian stance and secular views can feel the hostility of Sunni Islamist factions. Despite its alliance with Damascus politics, the PDA played an important role in liberating PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and her loyalist forces from Tripoli in December 1983 after he was expelled from the Syrian Army .

PDA in the Civil War 1982–1990

Widely regarded as a Syrian-backed proxy, the PDA and its Red Knights fought several factions of Tripoli that opposed the Syrian occupation of Lebanon , most notably the Sunni Mouvement de Unification Islamique from 1981-82, which they supported with the help of the Syrian Army , the Syrian Social Nationalist Party , the Ba'ath factions and the Lebanese Communist Party (PCL) were able to eliminate 1985-86.

The PDA / ARK also joined the LNRF Guerilla Alliance in September 1982 to combat the Israeli presence in southern Lebanon , and in July 1983 became a member of the Syria-backed Front National de la Résistance Lebanaise (LNSF) against the US- backed government by President Amin Gemayel . 1988–1990 they supported the legitimate parliamentary government of Selim al-Hoss against General Michel Aoun's transitional military government.

Military structure

In July 1981 the PDA set up its own militia with Syrian help , the Arab Red Knights - ARK or Red Knights for short . Trained by Rifa'at's 'Defense Companies', they were also known as the 'Pink Panthers' because of their green and raspberry camouflage uniforms . Commanded by Ali Eid, the ARK was about 1,000 men strong, divided into infantry , signal, medical and military police 'branches', as well as a motorized corps of rifle trucks ( military jeeps Santana 88 Ligero , Land Rovers and Toyota Land Cruisers ) equipped with heavy machine guns , recoilless cannons and anti - aircraft machine guns . The PDA / ARK operated primarily in northern Lebanon , with its stronghold of unaffiliated Alawite populated Jabal Muhsin , a suburban strategic high ground area, although they also claimed control of some of the Alawite villages in the Akkar region across the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Funded and armed by Syria, the Red Knights controlled the city's commercial port and oil refinery - the second largest deep-water port in Lebanon - in the mid-1980s, in fraudulent consent with port director Tripoli's Ahmad Karami and corrupt Syrian army officers. The National Fuel Company (NFC), headed by Haj Muhammad Awada , was occupied to operate its profitable gasoline smuggling ring, which stretched as far as the Bekaa Valley .

Post-war years

After the end of the war in October 1990, the PDA was disarmed and its chairman Ali Eid in the 1992 elections to the newly established Alawite parliamentary seat of the National Assembly elected; not a single Alawite was previously elected to the Lebanese parliament. The party rethought its traditional pro-Syrian stance in the 1990s and now prefers a moderate, deliberately neutral position in the current sphere of Lebanese domestic politics.

During the Cedar Revolution in 2005, Rifaat al-Assad came up with plans to revive the Red Knight Militia in Tripoli. After the 2006 Lebanon War , she was rearmed in 2007 after it emerged that the Islamist group Fatah al-Islam was planning an attack on the Alawites of Tripoli. It has been active again since 2008, is headed by Ali Eid's son Rifaat and is 1,000 to 2,000 strong. During the 2008 conflict, when Sunnis and Shiites were fighting in Lebanon, Rifaat said: "We are the most appropriate targets, the double for Hezbollah , our problem can only be solved if Shiites and Sunnis solve theirs." About 9,000 Alawites fled their homes during the conflict.

bibliography

  • Denise Ammoun: Histoire du Liban contemporain: Tome 2 1943-1990. Fayard, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-213-61521-7 . (in french )
  • Edgar O'Ballance: Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-92. Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, ISBN 0-333-72975-7 .
  • Fawwaz Traboulsi : Identités et solidarités croisées dans les conflits du Liban contemporain; Chapitre 12: L'économie politique des milices: le phénomène mafieux , Thèse de Doctorat d'Histoire - 1993, Université de Paris VIII, 2007 (in French )
  • Rex Brynen: Sanctuary and Survival: the PLO in Lebanon. Westview Press, Boulder 1990.
  • Robert Fisk , Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. 3. Edition. Oxford University Press, London 2001, ISBN 0-19-280130-9 .
  • Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon. Elite Group, Beirut 2003.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Rifaat founded the Red Knights in northern Lebanon in the early 1970s and they were eventually instrumental in helping Yasser Arafat to slip by sea to Tripoli in 1983 ..." [1]
  2. ^ "Sporadic fighting in Tripoli between the Alawite ADP forces and anti-Syrian Sunni Muslim groups has continued throughout the 1980s. Open conflict between the ADP and anti-Syrian Sunni groups broke out in the streets of Tripoli in 1981-82, largely in response to the conflict in Syria between the Sunni majority and the Alawites who constitute the ruling elite. " [2]
  3. ↑ "Hashem Minqara: Free at Last" (September 2000) ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.meib.org
  4. ↑ a b Mideast Monitor 2008 ( memento of the original from February 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mideastmonitor.org
  5. ↑ O'Ballance: Civil War in Lebanon (1998), S. 171st
  6. ^ Middle East Contemporary Survey . Google Books, (Retrieved October 13, 2012).
  7. ↑ O'Ballance: Civil War in Lebanon (1998), S. 110th
  8. ↑ "... the pro-Syrian Arab Democratic Party, whose militiamen are sometimes called the Pink Panthers because of their raspberry-colored fatigues ..." [3]
  9. ↑ James Kelly: His Brother's keeper , TIME magazine, December 19, 1983, p. 21 (box).
  10. ↑ Crisis Group - Sunnitengemeinde and Hariri's Future
  11. ↑ "President Bashar Assad's exiled uncle, Rifaat Assad, is reactivating his" Red Knights "dissident organization in Alawite-populated regions surrounding the northern port city of Tripoli after the downfall of Syria's 29-year control of Lebanon, An Nahar reported on Sunday. " [4]
  12. ^ Daniel Williams: Tripoli Turmoil Increases Risk of a Sunni-Shiite War in Lebanon , Bloomberg. September 29, 2008. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  13. ^ Robert Fisk: Al-Qa'ida sends its warriors from Iraq to wage 'jihad' in Lebanon - Robert Fisk - Commentators , The Independent. August 15, 2008. Retrieved October 13, 2012.