| Damour massacre | |
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| Location | Damour, Lebanon |
| Date | February 20, 1976 (cc) |
| Attack type | Massacre |
| Death(s) | Between 300 and 600 civilians |
| Perpetrator(s) | Palestine Liberation Organization, Lebanese National Movement |
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The Damour massacre took place on January 20, 1976 during the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War. Damour, a Christian town on the main highway south of Beirut, was attacked by PLO units. Part of its population was killed in the battle or massacred afterwards, and the remainder forced to flee.[1]
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Background
The phalangist militia based in Damour and Dayr al Nama had been blocking the coastal road.[2] The Damour massacre was a response to the Karantina massacre of (18 January 1976), in which Phalangists killed an estimated 1500 people.[3] [4] [5]
Events
The attackers destroyed the buildings in the seaside village systematically and then took revenge on the remaining Christian inhabitants. The Christian cemetery was destroyed, coffins dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the graveyard. The church was burnt and an outside wall was covered with a mural of Fatah guerrillas holding AK47 rifles. A portrait of Yasser Arafat was placed at one end. Other sources claim that the church was used as a repair garage for PLO vehicles, and also as a range for shooting-practice with targets painted on the eastern wall of the nave.
Twenty Phalangist militiamen were executed and then civilians were lined up against a wall and sprayed with machine-gun fire. None of the remaining inhabitants survived.[6] Estimates of the civilian dead is 584[7]. Among the killed were family members of Elie Hobeika, and his fiancé.[8] Following the Tel al-Zaatar massacre later the same year, the PLO resettled surviving Palestinian refugees in Damour. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Zaatar refugees were expelled from Damour, and the original inhabitants brought back.[9]
According to Thomas L. Friedman, the Phalangist Damouri Brigade which carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 Lebanon War sought revenge not only for the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, but also for what he describes as past tribal killings of their own people by Palestinians including those at Damour.[10][11]
Father Mansour Labaky of the Church of St. Elias in Damour gave this description,
"The PLO came and bombed the church without entering it. They kicked open the door and threw in the grenades. An entire family had been killed, the Can´an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms. It was awful. "[12]
Perpetrators
There are a number of conflicting claims as to exactly which militias participated in the massacre. It is clear that it was a Palestinian-led attack, but some sources indicate a heavy participation of Syrian-backed Palestinian factions[dubious ]. This much is clear: the attack and subsequent massacre was carried out by a mixed crew of Palestinian militiamen aligned with the Lebanese National Movement (LNM).
According to Robert Fisk, the attack was led by Col. Abu Musa, a senior commander of the PLO and Fatah, but later leader of the anti-Arafatist Fatah Uprising faction. Cedarland.org however, names Zuheir Mohsen, leader of as-Sa'iqa, a Damascus-based Palestinian faction operating directly on Syrian orders, and claims that he was known in Lebanon as the "Butcher from Damour".
The bulk of the attacking forces seems to have been composed by brigades from the Palestinian Liberation Army[13] and as-Sa'iqa, as well as other militias including Fatah. Some sources also mention the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Muslim Lebanese al-Murabitun militia among the attackers. There are also reports that mercenaries or militiamen from Syria, Jordan, Libya, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan were part of the assault, and even Japanese commandos who were training in Lebanon.[14]
Notes
- ^ Armies in Lebanon, 1985, Osprey Publishing
- ^ Yezid Sayigh (1999) Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198296436 p 368
- ^ Lebanese War Chronology - 1976 on 111101.net. Accessed 18 September 2006.
- ^ Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said (1999) Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians South End Press, ISBN 0896086011 pp 184-185
- ^ Harris (p. 162) notes "the massacre of 1,500 Palestinians, Shi'is, and others in Karantina and Maslakh, and the revenge killings of hundreds of Christians in Damour"
- ^ Fisk, 2001, pp. 99-100.
- ^ Nisan, 2003
- ^ Elie Hobeika killer file
- ^ . http://justworldnews.org/archives/000976.html
- ^ Friedman, 1998, p. 161.
- ^ Friedman, New York Times, Sep 20, 21, 26, 27, 1982.
- ^ http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_lebanon_plo.php
- ^ Some sources name the PLA's Ayn Jalout brigade armed by Egypt and the Qadisiyah brigade from Iraq. This page also mentions the Yarmouk brigade, set up by Syria.
- ^ Nisan, 2003, p. 41.
References
- Abraham, A. J. (1996). The Lebanon War. Praeger/Greenwood. ISBN 0-275-95389-0
- Fisk, Robert. (2001). Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280130-9
- Friedman, Thomas. (1998) From Beirut To Jerusalem. 2nd Edition. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-653070-2
- Nisan, M. (2003). The Conscience of Lebanon: A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-5392-6.
Further reading
- Becker, Jillian. (1985). The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization . New York: St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-59379-1
See also
External links
- Lebanese Civil War 1975 - 1976 Includes pictures of the Syrian-formed and -sponsored groups (Yarmouk and Sai'qa) attacking Damour city (January 1976).
- Phalangist website - contains account and includes a graphic photograph of mutilated children
- Damour Massacre (1976)
- Damour Massacre Slideshow
- Account of Damour massacre at Cedarland.org, a Lebanese Christian website
- Country profile: Lebanon
- Photographs from a page sympathetic to the Lebanese Forces
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