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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>September 14,
2007<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>At least 1,700
Palestinians were slaughtered on Israel's say-so, 25 years ago this
week</i> <br><br>
<br>
</b></font></h1><h2><font size=5 color="#990000"><b>A Letter to Janet
About
Sabra-Shatilla</b></font></h2><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>
<b>By FRANKLIN LAMB <br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Dearest Janet, <br><br>
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. <br><br>
As you later wrote to me in your perfect cursive: <br><br>
"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.”<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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 daughter’s 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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
As for the main organizers and facilitators, their massacre at
Sabra-Shatilla turned out to be excellent career moves for virtually all
of them.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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'.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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?" <br><br>
And so, Dearest Janet, I will be waiting for you at Sabra-Shatilla , at
Martyrs Square, on Saturday, September 15, 2007.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
Forever, Franklin<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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
<a href="mailto:fplamb@gmail.com">fplamb@gmail.com</a>.
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