On the morning of Oct. 13, 1990, Syrian troops swept into the al-Qala’a monastery in the Lebanese town of Beit Meri, arresting two priests – Father Sleiman Abu Khalil and Father Albert Shirfan – along with dozens of Lebanese army soldiers, including Lt. Tanious Zougheib.
The outnumbered Lebanese soldiers happened to be in the vicinity of the monastery and surrendered to the Syrian troops without resistance.
About noon, the Syrian troops forced the Lebanese soldiers in a pit and executed them in cold blood with machine guns and hand grenades.
The priests were transported to an unknown destination and were never heard from again.
Though this incident was documented in Lebanese media reports and by human-rights organizations, and though the bodies of the victims are still at the site of the massacre, no international agencies and no foreign governments have ever demanded accountability for this crime, says a new report by Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile.
In fact, this human-rights abuse is just one of a startling number of such atrocities documented in the report on the systematic campaign of state terror directed toward Lebanese citizens by Damascus.
The report charges “large scores of Lebanese citizens are still arbitrarily arrested, some for over two decades, and remain in prolonged and often secret detention in Syria without charge or trial.”
“Others are said to have been sentenced in secret summary trials where even the charges and the sentences were unknown by the defendants,” the report says. “Scores of those arrested have literally ‘disappeared’ after the arrest by the Syrian security services.”
The systematic kidnapping, murder and torture of Lebanese citizens by Syria has continued since 1975 at the beginning of the civil war. Syria also maintains detention centers in Lebanon – at the American school in Tripoli, the Syrian intelligence headquarters in Beirut, the Beau Rivage Hotel in Beirut, at a Syrian-Lebanese intelligence unit in Hazmieh, in Na’ameh south of Beirut, in Chtoura in the Bekaa Valley and at Anjar, the Syrian intelligence headquarters near the Lebanese-Syrian border.
The Beirut Bar Association has noted that no existing bilateral treaty between the countries permits such conduct. Repatriation agreements between the two nations strictly prohibit the detention of Lebanese citizens. But still it continues.
Syria, along with Iraq, recently came under criticism by the U.S. for its lack of cooperation with the international anti-terrorism coalition. Human-rights activists are hoping the abuse of Lebanese citizens will now get the attention it deserves after 25 years.
Amnesty International and other human-rights groups have complained about the ill treatment of these Lebanese citizens at the hands of Syria. Proper medical attention is frequently denied victims, the group says. Torture of detainees is documented, it says.
Earlier this year, Syrian troops began pulling out of Lebanon, giving hope to some that the occupation of the country might be coming to an end.
In June, about 6,000 troops, or three of the five brigades assigned to Beirut, left the area.
Syria has dominated Lebanon as a virtual client state since 1976, when troops intervened in the Lebanese civil war. The war ended in 1991, but about 30,000 Syrian soldiers stayed behind.
But the recent redeployments do not signal a relaxation of Syrian control. Some soldiers merely moved to new positions. Narcotics production in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley is a huge profit generator for Syria.
Damascus has come under increasing pressure to withdraw its troops since last year, when Hafez Assad died and Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. Maronite Christian leaders have long opposed Syrian occupation but have become increasingly brazen in their criticism in recent months. So has Walid Jumblatt, leader of the small but influential Druze community, who added his voice to the outcry last fall.
Syrian troops are still stationed at Beirut’s airport and its Muslim-dominated suburbs. About 25,000 Syria troops remain in the country.
