Скачать или смотреть Bashir Gemayel Interview | Maronite Christian Commander of Phalangist Militia | June 1979

June 1979.

Footage of an interview with Bashir Gemayel, the Lebanese Maronite Christian Commander of the militia of the politically right-wing Phalangist Party (AKA the Kataeb Party).

He told reporters that the continuing state of war in the Ain Rummaneh areas of the capital city of Beirut had disrupted essential services and caused social problems. This, he said, had been brought about by clashes between the local residents and the Syrian troops in Lebanon who were there as a peace-keeping force under a mandate of the Arab League.

Source of footage: Reuters News Archive.

NB.

Educated at a Lebanese Jesuit school and a university in Texas, Bashir Gemayel returned to Lebanon where he built up a large private militia of up to 25,000 guerrillas. He ruthlessly attacked Christian rivals such as Suleiman Franjieh and Dany Chamoun until his Phalangists became the dominant force in the Christian community.

Gemayel was elected President on August 23rd 1982 at a special session of Parliament which was boycotted by many Moslem legislators. They, and some Christians, considered him an agent of Israel, whose invading troops made his election possible. The President in Lebanon is by tradition a Maronite Catholic and Gemayel had been the sole candidate for the presidency.

He was assassinated on Tuesday, September 14th 1982 when a bomb shattered the headquarters of the Phalangist Party in east Beirut.

It was eventually discovered that the bomb which killed Gemayel had been planted by Habib Shartouni, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and like Gemayel a Maronite Christian.

The assassination of Bashir had been planned by Nabil al-Alam, an SSNP security official.Shartouni was captured soon afterwards and imprisoned without trial until he was sprung from his jail cell in 1990 when the Syrian army invaded Lebanon to overthrown the government led by Michel Aoun.

Both Shartouni and Habib were sentenced to death in absentia in 2017 for Gemayel's murder.

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