The Conscience of Lebanon

A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz)

Mordechai Nisan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781135759513
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This work is a combination of an account of a most captivating Lebanese personality with a penetrating analysis of the historical and religious contours of Lebanon. Mordechai Nisan spent much time with Etienne Sakr between 2000 and 2001. Set within the context of the national political narrative of Lebanon, this volume offers a portrait of Sakr and the times in which he lived before his exile to Israel in May 2000. Personal testimonies from Lebanese residents and conversations with others outside of Lebanon who knew Abu-Arz, in addition to interviews with Israelis aquainted with him, provide the authenticity to the portrait of this remarkable man.

1
The Early Years, 1937–61

The village of Ayn Ebel in south Lebanon never integrally belonged to the broader geographic and ethnic surroundings. The core of the Maronite heartland in Mount Lebanon stretched from Bsharre in the north down to the area of Jezzine, thus isolating Ayn Ebel, situated still further south, from immediate contact with the vital religious-national Christian entity. At the same time, southern Lebanon was the home of an overwhelming Shiite majority population with no Maronite legislative representation from the Sidon, Nabatiyeh and Hasbayya areas and south of them. In the 1930s, the Shiites and Palestinian infiltrators, along with assorted marauding and terrorist Arab elements, dominated southern Lebanon in which the few Christian villages, such as Debel and Rmeish, Klay’a and Marj’ayoun, dwelled in precarious circumstances. It was therefore not without cause that the Maronites in these villages actually sought formal ties with Israel in 1948–49, even offering to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and perhaps be politically incorporated within the emerging map of the state of Israel in the course of the War of Independence.¹ To live with the Jews in Upper Galilee seemed a better option than contending with the Shiites in Jabal ‘Amil.

The Sakr family, like the Maronite population generally in south Lebanon, was not historically native to the region and probably came from Jbayl in the mountain, possibly from the village of Qartaba or Bentayel. Another possibility is that the family hails from Dou’waar in the Matn. Etienne Sakr confesses that it is not known with certainty where the family originally came from, but it is likely that their move was part of the considerable migration dating from approximately the sixteenth century intended to extend Maronite settlement and influence south of Mount Lebanon itself. This goal was only very partially achieved both because southern Lebanon remained a peripheral Shiite-dominated region, and one markedly undeveloped in comparison with other parts of the country.

Etienne Sakr was born in 1937 in Ayn Ebel, one of 11 children of whom eight were boys and three were girls. Caesar, the father, was French-educated and, when the French commander General Gouraud once visited the village after World War I, the only resident who was able to address the French commander in his native language was Etienne’s father. He had been educated at the Catholic Ecole des Pères Lazaristes in Jerusalem, not so much intending to become a priest, but rather to acquire a French education. With these qualifications, Caesar Sakr was appointed director of the Sale-sian Italian School in Haifa where the family lived during the school-term, in the city’s German Colony overlooking the sea for a number of years. All but two of the children were born in Ayn Ebel.

Caesar and Sa’da Sakr were people of principle and morality in the ethical education they gave to their large brood of children. Noel, Etienne’s brother, recalled that their father taught them that there is right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Their mother would not tolerate a lie. As school director, Caesar Sakr was a disciplinarian and Etienne remembered that, when his father passed by the pupils during recess, they would stop in their tracks.

The ethical standards of the Sakrs were perhaps not really seen as the norm in Lebanese culture. Noel recalls laughingly that when in later years the family lived in Beirut and had acquired a reputation for straight talk and honesty, people would ask wryly ‘are you people Lebanese?’ Etienne himself added that, ‘when a Lebanese says he’ll do something, it doesn’t mean he will. After all, he’s Lebanese.’ While one would refrain from attributing to the Lebanese any particular moral obtuseness, it is worth quoting in this regard the highly insightful moral portrait of the Lebanese drawn by Khalil Hawi, a Greek Orthodox Christian from Mount Lebanon:

The free air of the mountain, and the dignity of the Mountain itself, leave their impression on their spirit and physique, while a primitive kind of ideal morality is manifested in their conduct. Nevertheless, after their youth is over, the repeated shocks and frustrations which they are fated to receive from the evils inherent in their surroundings, the realization of the tragedies and the futilities in the history of their country, and the practical wisdom which their parents try to teach them…all these combine to keep them [the Lebanese] from believing in any great cause such as public welfare or the advancement of the nation. Petty egoism and indiscriminating opportunism seem indispensable qualities if they are to adapt themselves to their environment.²

In the case of Etienne, and undoubtedly for the other Sakr children, the good qualities inculcated by their parents in their youth remained central to their mature character thereafter. Etienne’s brother Noel added, however, that in his later public career Etienne showed a certain naiveté in that, at times, he trusted people too much. Sakr goodness could be a baneful quality.

Odette Sakr, Etienne’s sister, was the youngest of the 11 Sakr children. As a 7- year-old, she recalled, Etienne offered to help her in mathematics after learning that she copied her homework from a friend in her class. She felt guilty about not doing her own lessons and was happy that her older brother was going to teach her the subject: ‘Every morning at dawn he got up to teach me mathematics. Because of his tutoring I learned to love math. I also loved Etienne.’ Odette added: ‘As long as he was up anyway, after tutoring he would prepare breakfast for the whole Sakr family.’

Caesar Sakr died in 1944 of a liver infection, perhaps from drinking polluted water from the village well, and left the impoverished family in dire financial straits. To life’s inscrutable vagaries was added the absence of a father (Etienne’s mother passed away much later in 1988). Etienne was 6 or 7 years old at the time of his father’s death, and the family decided to move to the northern city of Tripoli where one of his older brothers worked at the Iraq Petroleum Company. Etienne, in keeping with the Maronite custom, received a French education at the Carmelite School and at the College Des Frères High School. Later, the family moved to Beirut as some of his brothers were already living there, and he completed his baccalaureat-deuxième partie at the Frères School in the capital. At the age of 17 Etienne Sakr would then go out to work.

Although he had not yet reached the required employment age, Etienne was hired to work for the Sûreté Générale (General Security) in 1958, when President Camille Chamoun was completing his term as president of the republic. Lebanon was under Syrian pressure and penetrated by pan-Arab nationalist propaganda emanating from Egypt. In that year Gamal Abdul Nasser launched the United Arab Republic (UAR) composed of Egypt and Syria which, anti-imperialist and anti-Western in rhetoric and policy, considered Lebanon a weak link in the American sphere of influence in the Middle East. In May 1958, a civil war erupted in Lebanon that threatened Christian political dominance and the country’s pro-Western orientation. In July, US President Eisenhower sent 11,000 American marines to support the Chamoun government and prevent a leftist, Nasserite and pro-Soviet takeover.

Etienne’s first mission in the Sûreté Générale took him to the southern Lebanese border at Bab al-Tnieh, just opposite the Israeli town of Metulla, but where he was responsible for demonstrating his country’s sovereignty against Syria. Damascus, after all, had never recognized Lebanon’s independence and considered the historic notion of Greater Syria (Suriya al-Kubra) inclusive of Lebanon as a permanent and legitimate goal. A near-by road at Bab al-Tnieh led to Kuneitra in the Golan Heights, which was then Syrian territory, and it was Sakr’s job to supervise traffic at the border between Lebanon and Syria. The Shiites in the south opposed President Camille Chamoun and sided with Syrian predatory objectives against Lebanon. Gun smuggling and infiltrations across the borders were common in this area where the national Lebanese authorities had only a weak presence.

The Beirut government traditionally lacked the interest and resources to integrate south Lebanon into the fabric of national life. This hinterland area, with its Shiite majority and marginal Christian presence, required the will of young Etienne Sakr, and he proved himself worthy of the task. His family’s southern background could only help steel his determination. The army with a base at al-Khiam was able to send Christians from Klay’a, fearful of Nasserism and armed with Israeli weapons, to support his actions. Indeed, Etienne single-handedly arrested 20 Shiites for smuggling weapons from Syria. His first experience in security work ended successfully in 1959, when he was sent on his next mission.

From the far south, Etienne was posted to Abudiyya in the Akkar region near the Syrian border in northern Lebanon. While a fellow-worker was regularly drunk, young Sakr was committed to properly administering the border crossing between Lebanon and Syria at a bridge over the Nahr al-Kabir. While responsible for security, the other seven or eight persons operating the post were in charge of customs, the gendarmerie and the railroad line that ran from the Lebanese border north to Aleppo in Syria. The Nasserites were intent on undermining Lebanon and blew up the station’s building. Etienne remembered that not only did they initially not even have a telephone, ‘but we had no place to sleep. The authorities sent us tents which the wind blew down. They then sent us train cabins to sleep in. We wanted to stop the Syrians, hundreds in number, who used to freely cross into Lebanon without any authorization to seek work.’ Virtually alone but strengthened by his patriotic convictions, Sakr set out to establish that the political deed of Lebanon’s statehood across the porous border with Syria should become a visible, physical fact. He recounted the events in a way which might appear almost comical, were it not that they touched upon the fundamental question of Lebanese sovereignty:

I sent a messenger to warn the Syrian trespassers to return to Syrian territory and to warn other Syrians not to try to cross the border. The Syrian officer in charge at the border was Captain Adnan. He was a mean person and laughed a lot. I had a small pistol. I sent one of our people, a civilian from Rayak, to convey my last warning. Captain Adnan laughed again and the Syrians, about 10–15 in number, came again to the post in a bus planning to enter Lebanon. I took my pistol and threatened Adnan, while taking the Syrians’ IDs.

I then called the Commissioner of Security in Tripoli who happened to be a Muslim. He was upset at me: ‘why are you making trouble?’ He called to Beirut and spoke with the Director-General of Security, who was a Christian from the Jalbut family in al-Khiam who had been appointed by President Fouad Shihab. The Director-General said that he would send the Army to support me.

Etienne continued the story by vividly recalling events and the individuals involved in them 40 years earlier:

A Lebanese Shiite officer with the family name Salloum, a friend of mine from Halba in the Akkar region, served in the village gendarmerie corps. In the evening he sent a tank and ten soldiers to my Abudiyya station. I felt confident then. I told Syrians who were returning to Syrian territory to tell people that ‘Etienne Sakr beat the Syrians and that it is forbidden to go from Syria to Tripoli’.

My Syrian interlocutors now said that they wanted to reconcile with me. I refused. Some Syrians had gone to Tripoli from the coast but not through my post. I told them: ‘the Syrians have to apologize’. I was only about twenty years old. I just sat on my chair [Etienne motioned proudly, crossed his arms, like he was the boss.] Captain Adnan and his soldiers came and I told them: ‘do not cross the border’. I established Lebanese sovereignty. I hated the Syrians.

Noel Sakr summarized Etienne’s exploits in Abudiyya succinctly: ‘People used to cross the border between Syria and Lebanon as if there was no border. Etienne stood there and said: “this is Lebanon and this is Syria”. He had a stamp for documents. Thanks to him, Lebanon made it a border crossing.’

Etienne Sakr lived in Abudiyya for 18 months, in a wet train cabin: ‘I wrote to my Director to rebuild the post. However, without awaiting his consent, I hired a contractor to build it. The Director later came to us and he was satisfied. He saw the work had been done and agreed to pay for it.’

Sakr’s term of duty in the north extended from 1959–60 during the course of which the young Lebanese official demonstrated leadership abilities, tactical agility in game-theory style negotiations, and a penchant for seeking big gains with little resources. In Abudiyya he won despite meager resources, but Salloum did after all send the tank.

In 1960, the Sûreté Générale posted Etienne Sakr to Masna’a, near Anjar, in the eastern Bekka valley on the road leading to Damascus. It was at Anjar in 1622 that the legendary Fakhr al-Din II had defeated the Ottoman Empire’s Damascene forces who tried to repress Lebanese independence in the seventeenth century. It was now Sakr’s responsibility, in administrative and security though not in military terms, to control the border against Arab interference in the twentieth century.

Wealthy Arabs from Syria and the Persian Gulf used to spend their summer vacation in the cool refreshing air of the Lebanese mountains. They would line up to cross the border in the heat of the valley. Etienne related the following incidents:

A Saudi or Kuwaiti traveler threw his passport down with money tucked inside. He had no patience to wait his turn in line. I took the man by the neck and hit him. He shouted like a woman. I saw he had a diplomatic passport, and later I learned that he complained about my treatment of him to the authorities in Beirut.

Another traveler also tried to bribe us in order to speed up his border crossing into Lebanon and avoid the uncomfortable heat of the irking summer weather. I beat him too, and he yelled claiming he was a Syrian officer. So I beat him more. This tells you how much I hated Syrians.

Etienne had by now touched the four corners of his beloved land. Having lived in Beirut on the coast, he had already served on the southern, northern and eastern borders of Lebanon. His tours of duty allowed him the opportunity to see the physical contours of his ancestral homeland to which he felt so emotionally and spiritually bound.

In 1961, Sakr was transferred to Shtaura, which served as the headquarters of the Sûreté Générale in the Bekka. Ten people—‘lazy people’ he pointed out— served under him in his new posting. He decided to clean up the valley of criminal and politically related offenders of the law. He took charge of the gendarmerie forces. The same year, the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP), also known by its French name le Parti Populaire Syrien (PPS), tried unsuccessfully to carry out a coup d’état in Lebanon. This party was ideologically committed to Greater Syria within which Lebanon would disappear as a separate national entity. This envisaged Damascus ruling all of Lebanon. The party attracted many Greek Orthodox members who resented Maronite seniority among the Christian sects within Lebanese politics, and many Shiites who resented Sunni primacy between these two Muslim communities. The SSNP was a violent underground movement which used assassination against the Prime Minister of Lebanon Riyad al-Sulh in 1951, and Baathist Colonel Adnan al-Maliki in Syria in 1955, as a political method of struggle. The party constituted a real threat to public order and to the integrity of Lebanon’s fragile independent existence. Etienne Sakr was determined to contend directly with the SSNP:

During the coup manqué in late December 1961, the SSNP [in which there was Syrian involvement] kidnapped senior Army officers. Among them was the Chief-of-Staff himself. Later they were all released. The SSNP was subsequently outlawed in Lebanon and I was ordered to arrest the party members.

I arrested PPS outlaws from Baalbek to Hermel further north in the Bekka. Further south, in the ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
• NAMES AND ABBREVIATIONS
• PREFACE
• PROLOGUE
• INTRODUCTION: THE MYSTIQUE OF LEBANON
• 1: THE EARLY YEARS, 1937–61
• 2: THE INTERVAL YEARS, 1962–1975
• 3: THE FOUNDING AND IDEOLOGY OF HERRAAS AL-ARZ, 1975–82
• 4: THE FIGHTING AND POLITICS OF HERRAAS AL-ARZ, 1975–1982
• 5: LEBANON’S MISSED OPPORTUNITIES, 1982–90: ABU-ARZ FACES RIVALS AND ENEMIES
• 6: BANISHMENT AND BETRAYAL IN SOUTH LEBANON, 1990–2000
• 7: NATIONHOOD AND POLITICS IN LEBANON: THE PLACE OF ABU-ARZ
• EPILOGUE
• AFTERWORD: ISRAEL AND LEBANON
• APPENDIX: THE MASSACRES AND CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE PALESTINIANS AND THE SYRIANS AGAINST THE LEBANESE (1975–90)
• NOTES
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• CASS SERIES: ISRAELI HISTORY, POLITICS AND SOCIETY