Guardian of the Cedars
The Guardians of the Cedars ( Arabic حراس الأرز, DMG Ḥurrās al-Arz ), also known as Gardiens du Cedre or Gardiens des Cèdres (GdC), is a Maronite - Christian national right-wing extremist party and former militia in Lebanon . It was founded in the early 1970s by Étienne Saqr (also known by his nom de guerre "Abu Arz" - "Father of the Cedars"). During the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) she formed an armed militia and fought against the PLO , the Amal militia , Hezbollah and the Syrian army , among others . In 1982 it was allied with Israel in phases during Israel's invasion of Lebanon .
Their slogan was Lebanon, at your service.
founding
Presumably they were founded in 1974. They introduced themselves to the public a year later. In September 1975, they issued Communiqué No. 1, which was directed against the division of Lebanon. The second communiqué attacked the Palestinians sharply. The third communiqué was directed against Arabism or Pan-Arabism . The WdZ also spread their slogans via graffiti in East Beirut. These were anti-Arab , anti- Syrian and especially anti-Palestinian. One of the slogans wasعلى كل لبناني أن يقتل فلسطينياً / ʿAlā kull lubnānī an yaqtula filasṭīnīyan / 'It is a duty of every Lebanese to kill a Palestinian'.
In 1976 it joined forces with other Christian militant groups.
1970s
In March 1976 they fought against Palestinian and other left groups in West Beirut . The WdZ fought in Zaarour , over the mountain road to Zahlé , to support Falangists. In April they fought in the Hadeth , Kfar Shima and Bsaba area against a coalition of Palestinians, the Druze PSP and the SSNP .
In the summer of 1976 the Wdz took part in a massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp Tel al-Zaatar (southern Beirut). In the northern Lebanese port city of Chekka , WdZ militants fought free Christian civilians who had been trapped by Palestinians.
The WdZ also penetrated the Koura district and reached Tripoli there, where they fought together with other Christians against the Syrian army.
During the war, the WdZ acquired a reputation for particular cruelty. Palestinians are said to have been tied alive to cars and dragged to death. The carcasses were then thrown into dry river beds. Saqr is said to have urged his fighters to show no mercy towards the Palestinians.
1980s
In 1985 the WdZ fought against Palestinians and Shiite Lebanese in Kfar-Fallus and Jezzine . In the further course of the war, the WdZ were mainly active in the south and became part of the south Lebanese army .
Military structure and organization
Founded in 1974, they did not go public until 1975. Their headquarters were in Ashrafiyya and Saqr was the commander in chief . The group was strong between 500 and 1,000 men and women. She was trained by Kayrouz Baraket, a young officer in the Lebanese army . She got guns on the black market . In January 1976, the Lebanese army broke up and Saqr recruited deserters and obtained heavy weapons. The WdZ grew to 3,000–6,000 militiamen. The WdZ procured vehicles, armored vehicles, a tank , pick-up trucks with mounted machine guns and anti-aircraft guns.
In contrast to the other Christian militias, the WdZ rejected drug trafficking , extortion or looting . They had positions in East Beirut , the neighboring areas of Metn ( Laqluk , near Akoura ), the Batroun district ( Tannourine ), the eastern Keserwan district ( Ayoun es-Simane ) and the Jabal-Amel region (Kfar-Fallus, Jezzine , Marjayoun , Qlayaa , Ain Ebel and Rumeish ). In May 1979 there were clashes with the NLP Tiger militias in Beirut over control of the Fern el-Shebak and Ain el-Rammaneh districts and the city of Akoura in Metn.
Political principles
The guardians of the cedar held a number of core neophoenician beliefs:
- Lebanon is an old nation with its own independent identity.
- The Lebanese descend from the Phoenicians .
- Phenicia is the cradle of early Western civilization.
The Guardians of the Cedars believed that Lebanese were not Arabs . They wanted Lebanon to be de-Arabized, distinguishing between speaking the Arabic language and speaking Arabism (as a nationality). In doing so, they followed the ideas of the philosopher Said Akl . The guardians of the cedars categorically rejected pan-Arabism . Because of this, the idea could not spread outside the Maronite spectrum.
Saqr had already fought against pan-Arab forces during the Lebanon crisis in 1958 . During this time, Camille Chamoun joined the US-led Baghdad Pact . However, the Lebanese opposed this pact, which ultimately led to the overthrow of Chamoun.
During the civil war, Israel supported the WdZ. While some Christian Lebanese saw this as an alliance of convenience, Saqr was convinced of a strategic alliance between the two countries. Saqr, who now lives in Tel Aviv , later admitted that Israel supported the organization even before the civil war.
Front of the Guardians of the Cedars
The front of the Guardians of the Cedars ( Arabic الجبهة لحراس الأرز, DMG al-Ǧabhat li-Ḥurrās al-Arz ) was a mysterious splinter group of the Guardians of the Cedars, who left their graffiti in West Beirut in the 1970s and which probably became part of the Christian front in 1977.
Lebanese Party of Renewal
The Lebanese Party of Renewal (حزب التجدد اللبناني, DMG Ḥizb at-Taǧaddud al-Lubnānī ) or Parti de la Renovation Lebanaise (PRL) is a banned party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1972 as the WdZ militia. While she is viewed as right-wing extremist , she sees herself as patriotic . Its founder was also Étienne Saqr (or Abu Arz ).
history
It was founded by far-right activists and saw itself as an opposition to the presence of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Among the refugees were fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), who had to leave Jordan in 1970 after the actions of Black September . The influx increased tensions in Lebanon.
During the civil war, the Lebanese Party of Renewal was a small but active part of the Christian alliance that fought the Palestinians. The party is said to have been involved in the Karantina and Tel al-Zaatar massacres . In 1977 the Christian forces in Lebanon formed the Lebanese front . This political coalition joined forces as the Forces Libanaises . The phalangist Bashir Gemayel is sometimes under pressure, sometimes with deadly force at the head of these armed forces. The Lebanese Party of Renewal was uncompromising against the Syrian presence in Lebanon.
After the Israeli Lebanon War in 1982 , the party collaborated with the Israeli army and its militia joined the South Lebanese (SLA). After Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, most of their leadership fled to Israel. The Syrian-influenced Lebanese government banned the group and the Guardians of the Cedars decided to continue to exist as a political party disarmed.
Ideological beliefs
The Lebanese Party of Renewal is ethnocentric and refuses to view Lebanon as an Arab country. She even tried to call the Lebanese dialect a separate language and to introduce a separate alphabet for this language.
The Lebanese Party of Renewal endorsed the genocide of the Palestinians and favored an Israeli-Lebanese axis.
Attitude to Palestinians and Muslims
The WdZ was extremely anti-Palestinian and demanded the forcible removal of all Palestinians from Lebanon, including all civilians. Saqr explained his stance on the subject in an interview with the Jerusalem Post on July 23, 1982:
“It is the Palestinians that we have to take care of. Ten years ago there were 84,000; today it is between 600,000 and 700,000. In six years it will be two million. We cannot allow it to happen. "
His solution to this was:
"It's very easy. We should bring them to the border with brotherly Syria ... Anyone who looks back, stops or goes back will be shot on the spot. We have the moral right. "
Even though it was fighting with almost all Islamic forces in Lebanon, the organization always emphasized its national and secular attitude.
End of the militia
In 1989 the Guardians of the Cedars fought against the Syrians with General Michel Aoun . In a declaration on the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990, the WdZ said that "Arabism is the lie of the 20th century". They called for Lebanon to leave the Arab League .
Aoun failed in his fight against the Syrians and Syria stayed in Lebanon until 2005. The civil war ended in late 1990. The Lebanese Forces of Samir Geagea took Etienne Saqr caught because he sided with Aoun had struck. Saqr fled to Israel a little later. Several former WdZ leaders are wanted by Lebanese authorities for war crimes.
Between the end of the civil war and the withdrawal of Israelis from Lebanon in 2000, the movement fought politically against the withdrawal of Syrians from Lebanon. Today she is in opposition to the government of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war .
Lebanese Nationalism Movement
Today it is a reorganized, legal party that has added the name affix relating to the movement of Lebanese nationalism ( Arabic حركة القومية اللبنانية, DMG Ḥarakat al-Qaumīya al-Lubnānīya ).
literature
- Edgar O'Ballance , Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-92 , Palgrave Macmillan, London 1998. ISBN 0-333-72975-7
- Maria Chakhtoura, La guerre des graffiti , Éditions Dar an-Nahar, Beyrouth 2005. (in French)
- Mordechai Nisan , The Conscience of Lebanon: A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz) , Frank Cass Publishers, London 2003. ISBN 978-0-7146-8378-2
- Moustafa El-Assad, Blue Steel IV: M-50 Shermans and M-50 APCs in South Lebanon , Blue Steel books, Sidon 2007.
- Moustafa El-Assad, Civil Wars Volume 1: The Gun Trucks , Blue Steel books, Sidon 2008.
- Robert Fisk , Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War , Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-280130-9
- Plonka Arkadiusz, L'idée de langue libanaise d'après Sa'īd 'Aql , Geuthner, Paris 2004. ISBN 2-7053-3739-3 (in French)
- Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon , Beirut: Elite Group, 2003.
- Samer Kassis, Véhicules Militaires au Liban / Military Vehicles in Lebanon 1975-1981 , L'Echo des Cedres, Beirut 2011. ISBN 978-1-934293-06-5
Web links
- Guardians of the Cedars - Official Website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chakhtoura, La guerre des graffiti (2005), p. 121.
- ↑ Etienne Saqr, "The Ideology of the Guardians of the Cedars" (Lebanon 1977) Original title: من عقيدة حراس الأرز
- ↑ فضل شرورو "الأحزاب و التنظيمات و القوى في لبنان 1930-1980" بيروت 1981
- ↑ Micheal Kuderna, "Christian groups in Lebanon (Wiesbaden 1983)
- ^ Fisk, Pity the Nation (2001), p. 85.
- ↑ http://milinme.wordpress.com/category/v-200-chaimite .
- ↑ - GoC M34 Gun-Truck with a ZU-23-2 AA, c.1976.
- ↑ O'Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon (1998), p 90th
- ↑ Phoenician DNA. Al Jazeera , January 28, 2009, accessed October 2, 2009 .
- ^ The Middle East: From Transition to Development by Sami G. Hajjar
- ↑ Statement from the Guardians of the Cedars - The Movement of Lebanese Nationalism in July 2013
- ^ Website of "The Guardians of the Cedars - Movement of Lebanese Nationalism"