Dany Chamoun

Dany Chamoun ( Arabic داني شمعون, DMG Dānī Šamʿūn ; * August 26, 1934 in Deir el-Qamar ; † October 21, 1990 , murdered) was a Christian politician in Lebanon . As the youngest son of the former Maronite President Camille Chamoun , Dany Chamoun went into politics himself.

Dany Chamoun

Life

Dany Chamoun was born in Deir el-Qamar . In 1975 he was chief of defense in the National Liberal Party led by his father and founded the Tiger Militia ( Noumour el Ahrar , since his father's middle name was Nemr, which means tiger ), which played an important role in the early years of the Lebanese civil war before it was destroyed as a military force in 1980 by a surprise attack by the Phalange militia led by Bachir Gemayel . Chamoun and Gemayel became bitter enemies and Chamoun moved his office to Muslim-ruled West Beirut .

He was general secretary of the National Liberal Party from 1983 to 1985, when he succeeded his father as party chairman. In 1988 he became president of the Lebanese Front , a coalition of nationalist and mostly Christian parties and politicians that his father co-founded. In the same year he announced his candidacy to succeed President Amin Gemayel . Syria, which at the time occupied 70 percent of Lebanese territory, was against his candidacy.

Gemayel's term expired on September 23, 1988 without a successor having been elected. Chamoun declared his strong support for General Michel Aoun , who had been appointed by the outgoing President to lead an interim government and led one of the two rival governments for the next two years. Chamoun opposed the Taif Agreement , which not only gave the Muslims a greater share of power than before, but, more seriously in Chamoun's eyes, laid down Lebanon's subservience to Syria. He therefore refused to recognize the new government under President Élias Hrawi .

On October 21, 1990, Chamoun was assassinated, in which he, his second wife Ingrid, who was born in Germany , and his two sons Tarek (7) and Julian (5) were killed. The pro-Syrian regime arrested Samir Geagea , a rival Christian militia leader who was subsequently on trial. The verdict was controversial and Amnesty International has questioned the fairness of the trial . Chamoun's brother Dory Chamoun (who also replaced him as party chairman) publicly stated on April 25, 2005 that he believes in Geagea's innocence and that a new investigation is required to uncover the real assassins he suspects are Syrian intelligence agents.

Dany Chamoun left two daughters, one of whom ( Tracy Chamoun ) is a well-known human rights activist.

literature

• Tracy Chamoun: Le Sang de la paix , éditions Jean-Claude Lattès , Paris, 2013, ISBN 978-2709643764 .
• Jean-Marc Aractingi: La Politique à mes trousses , éditions l'Harmattan , Paris, 2006, ISBN 978-2-296-00469-6 .