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Israel: A Letter to Janet re the Sabra-Shatilla massacre
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn’t Fit
Counterpunch – Sep 14, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb09142007.html
A Letter to Janet About Sabra-Shatilla
At least 1,700 Palestinians were slaughtered on Israel’s say-so, 25
years ago this week
By FRANKLIN LAMB
Dearest Janet,
It’s a very beautiful fall day here in Beirut today. Twenty-five years
ago this week since the massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps at
Sabra-Shatilla. Bright blue sky and a fall breeze. It actually rained
last night. Enough to clean out some of the humidity and dust.
Fortunately not enough to make the usual rain created swamp of sewage
and filth on Rue Sabra, or flood the grassless burial ground of the
mass grave (the camp residents named it Martyrs Square, one of several
so named memorials now in Lebanon) where you once told me that on
Sunday September 19, 1982, you watched, sickened, as families and Red
Crescent workers created a subterranean mountain of butchered and
bullet-riddled victims from those 48 hours of slaughter. Some of the
bodies had limbs and heads chopped off, some boys castrated, Christian
crosses carved into some of the bodies.
As you later wrote to me in your perfect cursive:
"I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists
and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being
lined up against an ally wall; children with their throats slit, a
pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide
open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless
babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had
been thrown into garbage piles.
Today Martyr’s Square is not much of a Memorial to the upwards of 1,700
mainly women and children, who were murdered between Sept. 15-18. You
would not be pleased. A couple of faded posters and a misspelled banner
that reads: "1982: Saba Massacer", hang near the center of the 20 by 40
yard area which for years following the mass burial was a garbage dump.
Today, roaming around the grassless plot of ground is a large old
yellow dog that ignores a couple of chicken hens and six pullets
scratching and pecking around.
Since you went away, the main facts of the massacre remain the same as
your research uncovered in the months that followed. At that time your
findings were the most detailed and accurate as to what occurred and
who was responsible.
The old 7-storey Kuwaiti Embassy from where Sharon, Eytan, Yaron, Elie
Hobeika, Fradi Frem and others maintained radio contact and monitored
the 48 hours of carnage with a clear view into the camps was torn down
years ago. A new one has been built and they are still constructing a
mosque on its grounds.
I am sorry to report that today in Lebanon, the families of the victims
of the massacre daily sink deeper into the abyss. No where on earth do
the Palestinians live in such filth and squalor. ‘Worse than Gaza!" a
journalist recently in Palestine exclaims.
A 2005 Lebanese law that was to open up access to some of the 77
professions the Palestinians have been barred from in Lebanon had no
effect. Their social, economic, political, and legal status continues
to worsen.
"It’s a hopeless situation here now," according to Jamile Ibrahim
Shehade, the head of one of 12 social centers in the camp. "There are
15,000 people living in one square kilometer," Jamile runs a center
which provides basic facilities such as a dental clinic and a nursery
for children. It receives assistance from Norwegian People’s Aid and
the Lebanese NGO, PARD. "This whole area was nothing before the camps
were here and there has been very little done in terms of building
infrastructure," Shehade explained.
Continued misery in the camps has taken a heavy psychological toll on
the residents of Sabra and Shatilla, aid workers here say. Tempers run
high as a result of frustration from the daily grind in the decrepit
housing complex. In all 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon tensions and
tempers rise with increasing family, neighborhood, and sect conflicts.
Salafist and other militant groups are forming in and around Lebanon’s
Palestinian camps but not so much here in the Hezbollah controlled
areas where security is better.
In Sabra-Shatilla schools will run double shifts when they open at the
end of this month and electricity and water are still a big
problem.According to a 1999 survey by the local NGO Najdeh (Help), 29
percent of 550 women surveyed in seven of the 12 official refugee camps
scattered across Lebanon, have admitted being victims of physical
violence. Cocaine and hashish use are becoming a concern to the
community.
There is some new information about the Sabra-Shatilla massacre that
has come to light over the years. Few Israelis but many of the
Christian Lebanese Forces, following the national amnesty, wanted to
make their peace and have confessed to their role. I have spoken with
a few of them.
Remember that fellow you once screamed at and called a butcher outside
of Phalange HQ in East Beirut, Joseph Haddad? At the time he denied
everything as he looked you straight in the eye and made the sign of
the cross. Well, he did finally confess 22 years later, around the
time of his youngest daughters confirmation in his local parish. Your
suspicions were indeed correct. His unit, the second to enter the camp,
had been supplied with cocaine, hashish and alcohol to increase their
courage. He and others gave their stories to Der Spiegel and various
documentary film makers.
Many of the killers now freely admit that they conducted a
three-day orgy of rape and slaughter that left hundreds, as many as
3,500 they claim, possibly more, of innocent civilians dead in what
is considered the bloodiest single incident of the Arab-Israeli
conflict and a crime for which Israel will be condemned for eternity.
Your friend, Um Ahmad, still lives in the same house where she lost her
husband, four sons and a daughter when Joseph, a thick-set militiaman
carrying an assault rifle bundled everyone into one room of their hovel
and opened fire. She still explains like it was yesterday, how the
condoned slaughter unfolded, recalling each of her four sons by name,
Nizar, Shadi, Farid and Nidal. I asked Joseph if he wanted to sit with
Um Ahmad and seek forgiveness and possible redemption since has now
become a lay cleric in his Parish. He declined but sent his
condolences with flowers.
Do you remember Janet, how we used to walk down Rue Sabra from Gaza
Hospital to Akka Hospital during the 75-day Israeli siege in ’82, as
you used to say "to see my people"? Gaza Hospital is gone now.
Occupied and stripped by the Syrian-backed Amal militia during the Camp
Wars of ’85-87. Its remaining rooms are now packed with refugees. One
old lady who ended up there recited how it’s her 4th home since being
forced from Palestine in 1948. She survived the Phalangist attack on
and destruction of Tel a Zaatar camp in 1976 fled from the Fatah al
Islam Salafists in Nahr al Bared Camp in May of this year and wore out
her welcome at the teeming and overwhelmed Bedawi camp near Tripoli
last month.
Most of your friends who worked with the Palestine Red Crescent Society
are gone from Lebanon. Our cherished friend, Hadla Ayubi has
semi-retired in Amman, Um Walid, Director of Akkar Hosptial, finally
did return to Palestine following Oslo, still with the PRCS. And its
President, Dr. Fathi Arafat, your good friend, passed away in December
of 2004 in Cairo less than a month after his brother Abu Ammar died in
Paris. They both loved you for all you had done for their people.
That trash dump near the Sabra Mosque is now a mountain. Yesterday I
did a double take as I walked by because I saw three young girls-as
sweet and pretty as ever I have seen — maybe 7 to 9 years old in rags
picking thru the nasty garbage. Their arms were covered with white
chemical paste. Apparently whoever sent to scavenge sought to protect
them from disease. As I climbed thru the filth to give them my last
6,000 LL ($4) they managed a smile and giggle when I slipped on a
broken thin plastic bag of juicy cactus fruit skins and plunged to my
knees.
In some areas of the camps there are mainly Syrians. Selling cheap
‘tax free’ goods. Still some Arafat loyalists. Mainly among the older
generation. Palpable stress among just about everyone it seems. One
young Palestinian explained to me his worry that with the upcoming
Parliamentary election to choose a new President scheduled for
September 25, there may be fighting and his October 6 SAT exams may
be cancelled and he won’t be able to continue his studies.
When you and I last spoke Janet, it was on April 16 of that year and I
was en route to the Athens Airport to catch a flight to Beirut to be
with you, you told me you were working on evidence to convict Sharon
and others of war crimes.
Twenty years later, lawyers representing two dozen victims and other
relatives attempted to have Ariel Sharon tried for the massacre under
Belgian legislation, which grants its courts "universal jurisdiction"
for war crimes.There had been great expectations about the case among
the Palestinians and their friends, since as you remember, Sharon had
already been found to bear "personal responsibility" in the massacres
by an Israeli commission of inquiry which concluded he shouldn’t ever
again hold public office. But hopes were dashed when the Belgium
Court, under US and Israeli pressure, decided the case was
inadmissible.I regret to report that all those who perpetrated the
Massacre at Sabra-Shatilla escaped justice. None of the hundreds of
Phalange and Haddad militia who carried out the slaughter were ever
punished. In fact they got a blanket amnesty from the Lebanese
government.
As for the main organizers and facilitators, their massacre at
Sabra-Shatilla turned out to be excellent career moves for virtually
all of them.
Arial Sharon, found by the Israeli Kahan Commission Inquiry " to bear
personal responsibility " for allowing the Sabra-Shatilla massacre
resigned as Minister of Defense but retained his Cabinet position in
Begin’s Government and over the next 16 years held four more
ministerial posts, including that of Foreign Minister, before becoming
Prime Minister in February, 2001. Following the Jenin rampage US
President Bush anointed him "a man of peace."
Rafel Eytan, Israeli Chief of Staff, who shared Sharon’s decision to
send in the Phalange killers and helped direct the operation was
elected to the Knesset as leader of the small ultra rightwing party,
Tzomet. In 1984 he was named Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime
Minister in 1996. He currently serves as head of Tzomet and is
jockeying for another Cabinet position in the next government.
Major-General Yehoshua Saguy, Army Chief of Intelligence: found by the
Kahan Commission to have made "extremely serious omissions" in handling
the Sabra-Shatilla affair later became a right-wing Member of the
Knesset and is now mayor of the ultra-rightist community of Bat-Yam, a
little town near Tel Aviv.
Major-General Amir Drori, Chief of Israel’s Northern Command: found not
to have done enough to stop the massacre, a "breach of duty", recently
was named as head of the Israeli Antiquities Commission.
Brigadier-General Amos Yaron, the divisional commander whose troops
sealed the camps to prevent victims from escaping and helped direct
the operation along with Sharon and Eitan was found to have"
committed a breach of duty". He was immediately promoted
Major-General and made head of Manpower in the army, served as
Director-General of the Israeli Defense Ministry and Military Attaches
at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He is currently working for
various Israeli lobby groups as a scholar in ‘think thanks’.
Elie Hobeika, the Chief of Lebanese Forces Intelligence, who along with
Sharon master-minded the actual massacre fell out with the Phalange in
1980s under suspicion that he was involved in killing their leader,
Bachir Gemayal.
He defected to the Syrians, acquired three Ministerial posts in
post-civil war Lebanon Governments, including Minister of the Displaced
(many thought he know a lot about this subject) of Electricity and
Water and in 1996, Social Affairs.
On January 24, 2002, twenty years after his involvement at
Sabra-Shatilla he was blown up in a car bomb attack in East Beirut.
Two of his associates who were also rumored to be planning to ‘come
clean’ regarding Sharon’s role were assassinated in separate incidents.
A few days before Hobeika’s death he stated that he might reveal more
about the massacre and those responsible and according to Beirut’s
Daily Star staff who interviewed him, Hobeika told them that his
lawyers had copies of his files implicating Sharon in much more than
had become public. These files are now is the possession of his son
who, following Sharon’s death, may release the files.
They still remember you in Burj al Buragne camp. A few weeks ago one
old man told me: "Janet Stevens? No, I didn’t know her. He paused and
then said, .Oh!..you mean Miss Janet! She spoke Arabic…I think she
was American. Of course I remember her! We called her the little
drummer girl. She had so much energy. She cared about the
Palestinians. That was so long ago. She stopped coming to visit us. I
don’t know why. How is she?"
And so, Dearest Janet, I will be waiting for you at Sabra-Shatilla , at
Martyrs Square, on Saturday, September 15, 2007.
You will find me patting and mumbling to that old yellow dog. He and I
have become friends and we will pay our respects to the dead and I will
reflect on these past 25 years and we will watch for and wait for
you. You will find us behind the straggly rose bushes on the right as
you enter.
Come to us, Janet. We need you. The camp residents need you, one of
their brightest lights, on this 25th anniversary of one of their
darkest hours. You were always their mediator and advocate…and
until today you are their majorette for Justice and Return to their
sacred Palestine.
Forever, Franklin
Janet Lee Stevens was born in 1951 and died on April 18, 1983, at the
age of 32, at the instant of the explosion which destroyed the American
Embassy in Beirut. Twenty minutes before the blast, Janet had arrived
at the Embassy to meet with US A.I.D. official Bill McIntyre because
she wanted to advocate for more aid to the Shia of South Lebanon and
for the Palestinians at Sabra, Shatilla, and Burg al Burajneh
camps, stemming from Israel’s 1982 invasion and the September 15-18
massacre. As they sat at a table in the cafeteria, where she had
planned to ask why the US government has never even lodged a protest
following the Israeli invasion or the Massacre, a van stolen from the
Embassy the previous June arrived and parked just in front of the
Embassy. Almost directly in front of the cafeteria. It contained
2,000 pounds of explosives. It was detonated by remote control and tons
of concrete pancaked on top of Janet and Bill, killing 63 and wounding
120. Remains of Janet’s body were found two days later, unidentified
in the basement morgue of the American University of Beirut Hospital by
the author. She was pregnant with our son, Clyde Chester Lamb III. Had
he lived he would be 24 years old. Hopefully taking after his mother he
would, no doubt, be a prince of a young man.
[Franklin Lamb's book on the Sabra-Shatilla Massacre, now out of print,
was published in 1983, following Janet's death and was dedicated to
Janet Lee Stevens.Lamb, Franklin P.: International legal responsibility
for the Sabra-Shatilla-massacre / Franklin P. Lamb - Montreuil: Imp.
Tipe, 1983 - 157 S. Ill., Kt.He can be reached at fpl...@gmail.com. ]
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