June Thursday 08-2000:

Introduction

Hizbullah's Head of Politburo MP Mohammad Raad warned that "the clemency for the "Israeli" agents will spark a civil and social crisis in many of the liberated areas, which suffered much at the hands of these collaborators".

Meanwhile, the Islamic Resistance (IR) announced that it will present the booty captured from the "Israeli" enemy and its collaborators to the Lebanese Army hoping that a national museum will be established to expose the spoils.

However, President Emile Lahoud said that "we will call for retrieval of every inch of our land. We want every piece of land back because we paid a dear price for our rights and made precious sacrifices to achieve liberation.

Leniency for collaborators will stir up old hostility, warns Hizbullah…(1)

Hizbullah’s politburo chief Mohammed Raad warned on Wednesday that leniency for the "Israeli"-allied militiamen currently on trial was tantamount to legalizing treason.
Raad’s comments came on the second day of trials of the militiamen, as 22 men received sentences of up to two years, including a stipulation that they remain outside their native qadas for up to five years.
Raad, speaking at a ceremony in Khalde, also cautioned against freeing any collaborators who would just be tracked down and assaulted by others in their villages.
“If we don’t penalize the criminal, we will be legalizing the ideology of treason,” said the Nabatieh MP, a member of Hizbullah’s eight-man parliamentary bloc. “Clemency for these people will spark a civil and social crisis in many of the liberated villages, which suffered much at the hands of these collaborators,” he added.
The remarks came amid a dispute between Hizbullah and the judiciary over the conduct of the collaborators trials, which the party believes are being carried out too swiftly and leniently.
“We’re only thinking of the public good when we demand that they be penalized,” Raad said, warning that any militiaman who was set free would be an outcast in his hometown, and be hunted down, stirring up sectarian trouble.
“We won’t be pleased if a collaborator is set free by the court. He’ll become an outcast … This will have repercussions with a beginning but no end,” he said.
At the Military Court on Wednesday, 23 men were sentenced to prison terms with hard labor ranging between one and two years, except for one man, who will serve five years. Fines of LL200,000 to LL400,000 were also imposed.
After serving their sentences, the convicted men will be banned from visiting the qadas where they come from for periods ranging between one and five years, a measure taken for the first time since the trials began on Monday. Charges were dropped against one suspect because they fell outside the statute of limitations.
On Monday, the court tried and sentenced 77 defendants. Forty-eight of them received one-year prison sentences. The heaviest sentence, five years, was given to one man.
The sentences were regarded as too lenient by Hizbullah.
Also on Wednesday, Elizabeth Hodgkin, the Middle East representative for Amnesty International, discussed legal aspects of the "Israeli" agents trials with State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum.
She also handed him a report by the London-based human-rights group, which held "Israel" and the militia responsible for “war crimes” committed in the notorious Khiam prison, which was run by the militiamen during ""Israel's" occupation.
Addoum told reporters that he had explained to Hodgkin the legal procedure applied in the collaborators cases.
“I said the judiciary is considering each case individually and is discriminating between those who opted to betray their country and those who were forced to do so,” he explained.
Hodgkin said that “all those responsible for the crimes committed at Khiam should be prosecuted, both the jailers and their masters.”
She denounced the “grave breaches of the obligations of the occupying force as defined by the Geneva Conventions,” which regulate the behavior of armies during wars.
Hodgkin noted that the "Israeli" Supreme Court had actually asked the "Israeli" government on May 17 to “decide the fate of the 145 civilians detained in Khiam before its withdrawal from southern Lebanon.”

"Israel", SLA responsible for war crimes at Khiam jail: Amnesty…(2)

""Israel", together with its allied and its militia militia, is responsible for "war crimes" committed at the notorious Khiam jail in the formerly occupied south Lebanon, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

"The crimes committed in Khiam were the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law - in short, war crimes," said a report by the London-based rights organization.

The report was prepared by an Amnesty delegation which visited the Khiam jail after the last 145 detainees were freed by hundreds of unarmed civilians who stormed the prison and forced the collaborators to flee on May 23.

The jail, run by the militia under "Israeli" supervision, was located in the border zone occupied by the Jewish state for 22 years until its troop pullout on May 24.

"Together with the responsibility of the militia, there is the responsibility of the state of "Israel" which is fully accountable for the arbitrary detention, torture and other abuses committed in Khiam," it said.

"Repeated denials of this never rang true and sometimes seemed more of an attempt to dissociate "Israel" from the worst excesses officials knew were being committed in Khiam," it said.

Elizabeth Hodgkin, Amnesty representative, told AFP that "all those responsible for the exactions committed at Khiam should be prosecuted, both the jailers and their masters."

Hodgkin denounced the "grave breaches to the obligations of the occupying force as defined by the Geneva conventions."

"First, it is "Israel" which was the occupying force, not the militia which was a proxy force. Then, it has been proven that there was an interdependence between the Khiam jail and the prisons in "Israel", since detainees from Khiam were transferred to "Israel" and vice-versa," she said.

"Third, the Khiam jailers were paid by the "Israeli" army. Last year, the "Israeli" Supreme Court admitted that "Israel" was paying and training the militia while "Israeli" experts took part in polygraph tests," she said.

Hodgkin noted that the Supreme Court had actually requested on May 17 the "Israeli" government to "decide the fate of the 145 civilians detained in Khiam before its withdrawal from southern Lebanon."

It was therefore an indication from the highest "Israeli" judicial authority that the state of "Israel" was responsible of the fate of the Khiam detainees.

Amnesty recalled figures provided by Lebanon's Follow-Up Committee for the Lebanese Detainees in the "Israeli" Jails which said about 2,000 Lebanese, including 500 women, had been detained arbitrarily in Khiam, some for 15 years, since its establishment in 1985 and until its forced closure.

Twelve prisoners died in prison, two passed away shortly after their release and most suffered illnesses.

According to the committee, many former detainees continue to suffer from blood pressure, skin diseases, stomach ulcers, rheumatism and eye problems because of ill-treatment and the poor conditions of their detention.

Twenty Lebanese are currently held in "Israel", including 18 who who have been sentenced to various terms.

The remaining two, Islamic leaders Mustapha Dirani and Abdel Karim Obeid have been in administrative detention since they were kidnapped in southern Lebanon in 1989 and 1994 respectively, to seek information about "Israeli" servicemen missing in action in Lebanon.

Beirut court tries 24 more collaborators with "Israel"…(3)

" Twenty-four Lebanese appeared before the Beirut military court Wednesday for trial on charges of collaborating with "Israel", court sources here said.

The verdicts were due to be announced the same evening, they added.

The trials of another 44 were postponed to enable the accused to find a lawyer, or for their cases to be examined in greater detail.

The accused face charges of having joined ""Israel's" proxy, of "making contact with the "Israeli" enemy" or entering "Israel".

Three of them are also accused of having "passed on information to the enemy," court sources said.

The accused are among 1,700 people who handed themselves over to the authorities after "Israel" withdrew its forces on May 24 after 22 years of occupation of southern Lebanon.

The military court is holding group trials three times a week.

They started Monday, when the court imposed jail sentences of up to five years on 100 detainees. Most received lesser terms of between 12 and 18 months.

Four minors who had been recruited by the militia were referred to a juvenile court.

"Israelis" spar with UN team over border
Beirut still not happy but will comply with ruling…(4)

A last-minute dispute between "Israel" and the United Nations over the border near the settlement of Misgav Am has delayed the process of confirming that ""Israel's" occupation has ended.
Wednesday’s disagreement prevented UNIFIL teams from traveling the length of the border for the final stage of the verification process. The split came as the UN’s special Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, wrapped up his mission in the region and flew to New York to brief Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the details of the so-called “withdrawal line.”
Before leaving, Larsen claimed that he was leaving with a “smile,” insisting that there was no friction with Lebanese leaders. But the mood in Beirut was different.
President Emile Lahoud made no reference to the difference with Larsen but said that there would be no compromise on any “inch” of Lebanese soil.
Speaker Nabih Berri took issue with Larsen’s “withdrawal line,” saying that the boundary set under the 1949 Armistice Agreement should have been the ultimate guide.
Premier Salim Hoss regretted Larsen’s failure to take the Lebanese position into account, but stressed, like Berri, that Beirut would fully cooperate with the UN. UNIFIL spokesman Timur Goksel said that the disagreement between "Israel" and the UN centered on the location of the UN’s withdrawal line near Misgav Am, which lies on a hill overlooking Odaisseh.
“The "Israelis" accused the mapping team of misinterpreting the available data on the whereabouts of the border,” he told The Daily Star. “The team told the "Israelis" that they should have no objections … as all this has been discussed before.”
Goksel said that a meeting to resolve the issue ended inconclusively at 3.30am on Wednesday. “They got stuck,” he said. “We’re waiting to see what the "Israelis" response will be.”
According to a UN official, the disagreement centers around a piece of land just south of Misgav Am. The official said that there was no "Israeli" civilian or military presence on the hilltop location but that it had “a potential strategic value.”
The official said that it was up to the "Israelis" to comply with the “withdrawal line.”
“If "Israel" isn’t going to come clean on this then the UN isn’t going to verify the withdrawal,” the source said.
Before ""Israel's" unexpectedly hasty departure, Premier Ehud Barak said on several occasions that he would accept the UN’s ruling on the boundary. This approach was part of his strategy to cloak the withdrawal in international legitimacy.
According to Annan’s report on the withdrawal verification process, the 1923 Anglo-French boundary was to form the basis of the line behind which all "Israeli" forces were obliged to retire to comply with Resolution 425. The 1923 mandate line later became the 1949 Armistice Demarcation Line.
Despite the original delineation of the border having been conducted 77 years ago, the detailed written description and accompanying map prepared by the British and French still leave little room for ambiguity. But the UN mapping team appears to have deviated from the 1923 line in a number of places, giving rise to Lebanese complaints of bias.
The most prominent example appears to be at Rmeish, another area where "Israel" pushed the border fence into Lebanon to dominate the high ground. Details of the dispute are sketchy but it appears that the UN team has decided to allow "Israel" to retain some of the incursion zone “for security purposes.”
A Western diplomat said that “there has been a certain amount of unnecessary fiddling.”

IR hands over booty to Lebanese army…(5)

The Islamic Resistance (IR) declared that it had over the past few days paraded the booty captured from the Zionist enemy and its proxy militia "with the aim of enabling our people throughout Lebanon to rejoice over the unmistakable victory over the Zionist enemy, IR said in a communiqué.

After the end of these ceremonies, IR presents the booty to the Lebanese army hoping that a national museum will be established to expose the spoils as an immortal historic emblem and a live evidence for the coming generations to the enemy's defeat and a lesson for the present and the future, the communiqué added.

"Israel" leaves a position and blows up another in Lebanon…(6)

"The "Israeli" army left a position on the Lebanese side of its northern border Wednesday and blew up a nearby redoubt, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The "Israeli" army had remained in the position and at the Abbassiyeh redoubt after it ended its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon on May 24.

At dawn, "Israeli" troops left the position about a hundred meters (yards) from the source of the Ouazzani River, a tributary of the Hasbani which flows into northern "Israel", witnesses said.

The soldiers fell back some 300 meters, to near the village of Ghajar, located between Lebanon and the Syrian Golan, held by "Israel" since 1967. UN cartographers who mapped ""Israel's" border with Lebanon have called for Ghajar to be divided into two.

The "Israeli" army, which put up barbed wire around the Ouazzani River's source, did not disassemble a pump system that pipes water toward "Israel".

Overnight, the "Israelis" dynamited Abbassiyeh, a large redoubt near a destroyed Lebanese village of the same name which remains behind barbed wire.

Bulldozers flattened the dynamited area out Wednesday, while some 100 villagers assembled on the Lebanese side and tried to take down the barbed wire and return home.

Officers of the UN observer mission monitoring the 1949 ceasefire line came to Abbassiyeh to make a survey, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The "Israeli" moves come as the United Nations begins final work to confirm that "Israel" had withdrawn to the international border in compliance with Resolution 425 following its evacuation from southern Lebanon.

‘Withdrawal line’ splits village in two…(7)

Abbassieh is awaiting liberation

Lebanon’s tiny community looks set to increase soon when part of the village of Ghajar village from "Israeli"-occupied Syria is turned over to Lebanese rule under the United Nation’s ruling on the “withdrawal line.”
As furious residents in Ghajar burned tires and blocked roads to denounce the proposed split on Wednesday, "Israeli" troops flattened an earthen outpost 1.5 kilometers northeast of the village in preparation for the move.
A small and patient group of Lebanese watched the bulldozers plowing through the rich chocolate-colored earth from just 200 meters away, separated by a 2-meter-high border fence and a padlocked gate.
Among the group were residents of Abbassieh, a demolished village just the other side of the fence inside "Israeli"-occupied Syria. But typical of the murky ambiguities at this juncture of the Lebanese, Syrian and "Israeli" borders, the residents
all insist that they are Lebanese.
They said that they were expelled from their village in 1967 when the "Israeli" Army invaded the Golan Heights. Since then they have been granted Lebanese citizenship but have been unable to return to their homes.
“We’re very happy to be here,” Hajj Abu Youssef said as he gazed through the border gate toward his village. “But we’d all like to be able to go to our real border.”
Youssef claimed that Lebanon’s “real border” ran 5 kilometers to the south ­ what is presently the frontier between occupied Syria and the Jewish state itself. A hand-written sign attached to the gate read “Attention. Ahead is a Lebanese village that is still occupied called Abbassieh.”
Little of whatever is left of Abbassieh was visible from the border gate, just the remains of stone walls half-hidden by the knee-high golden grass and dark basalt boulders washed down from the soaring Golan Heights to the east.
However, the UN mapping team has decided that the “withdrawal line” should run right through the center of Ghajar village, a move that has sparked incredulity and anger among the residents.
In effect, the line will run 200-300 meters south of the existing fence. The "Israelis" troops were demolishing the outpost beside Ghajar in preparation to retire.
They completed their task at 2pm. As the bulldozers disappeared, "Israeli" soldiers deployed on the flattened ramparts to keep a watchful eye on the crowd beside the border gate.
One of the soldiers settled into a prone position, his sniper rifle mounted on a tripod and pointed in the direction of the crowd.
An "Israeli" television crew arrived on the other side of the fence after filming the protests in Ghajar. They and their Lebanese counterparts spent a few minutes filming each other from a distance of a single meter before a bizarre but good-natured argument broke out in Arabic between the two groups revolving around the historical misdeeds of the "Israelis" toward the Lebanese and the Palestinians.

"Israeli" beer confiscated and crushed in south Lebanon…(8)

" Lebanese State Security agents Wednesday seized and destroyed a container of "Israeli"-made beer in the former "Israeli"-occupied border zone in south Lebanon, an AFP correspondent saw.

The "Maccabi" beer was confiscated in the village of Ibl as-Saqi and was then transported to a field in nearby Borkhosh where a tractor crushed it, he said.

State Security agents, who have the task of checking the payment of customs duty, have in the past several days swooped on a number of shops in the border zone, which was freed from 22 years of "Israeli" occupation on May 24, and confiscated "Israeli" products.

MK Bishara: "Hizbullah victory is sweet"…(9)

" "The Hizbullah has won, and for the first time since 1967 we have tasted the sweet taste of victory. The Hizbullah should be proud of their achievement and of humiliating "Israel"", stated MK Azmi Bishara while speaking before 500 at a victory convention in Um el Fahm.

The hall was decorated with PLO Authority (PA) flags and nationalistic music played in the background. The participants stood for a minute of silence in commemoration on the Arabs killed in "Israel" and Lebanon. MK Bishara repeated that "Israel" had suffered a defeat in Lebanon, despite trying to appear to the world as agreeing with the UN decision on withdrawal from Lebanon.

Footnotes:

1- The Daily Star, 8-6-2000.

2- AFP, 7-6-2000.

3- Same source.

4- The Daily Star, 8-6-2000.

5- Manar TV, 7-6-2000.

6- AFP, 7-6-2000.

7- The Daily Star, 8-6-2000.

8- AFP, 7-6-2000.