The rise and fall of the Lebanese National Movemen

Scan page 6

HOW did the Movement develop and what were the conditions of its collapse?

There is a long history of alliances in post-war Lebanese politics. This history of the alliances of the left reads rather like a political history of Kemal Jumblatt, father of the present leader of the Progressive Socialist Party.

When Jumblatt started his political activity in 1943, he was not on the left but in the centre. Nor was he then a pan-Arabist. He became in time a good friend of Nasser's and his main political ally in Lebanon.

In the middle sixties there was an alliance between the Socialists, the Communist Party, the Ba'athists and the Arab National Movement. The leaders of this last group were George Habbash and Mohsin Ibrahim.

Habbash went on to form the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Ibrahim, atter the split with Habbash in 1968, continued as leader of the ANM, but later the group fused with the Lebanese Socialists, a group led by Fawaz Trabulsi, to form the Organisation of Lebanese Socialists, which atter two years changed its name to Urganisation of Communist Action.

This alliance lasted two or three years - until the late '60s. Then Jumblatt broke the alliance because of Mohsin Ibrahim's dispute with Nasser. For two or three years there was no alliance in any formal sense.

If there was an alliance of sorts, its members were simply those who met in Kemal Jumblatt's home. In the early '70s there were really two alliances in one: on one side you had Jumblatt, the Communist Party, the pro-Syrian Ba'athists and the Nasserites; on the other side there were the PLO, the OCA, the Iragi Ba'athists and the Lebanese linked with the PLO.

In 1974 things: re-shaped. Kemal Jumblatt was once again the undisputed leader of the left, but there was no organised body until the beginning of the civil war, which I would date as the bus incident of 13 April 1975. Heffer and Kinnock the Middle East.

The fight in Fatah. 10p plus postage frol IMCfP, 28 Carlton Mansions, Holmleigh Rd., London N16.

Conclusion of an interview with Mohammed Kabbani, a left wing Lebanese Muslim politician.

In 1976 the Lebanese National Movement was formalised, and a Central Political Council, its Executive, set up. This was composed of 13 parties and seven independent political personalities.

What were the parties?

There was the Progressive Socialist Party, which I have described before.

There was the Lebanese Communist Party led by George Hawi. This is in general a pro-Moscow CP but has consistently had better positions than the CP USSR in relation to the Palestinian question.

The Organisation of Communist Action, which generally stands to the left of the CP.

Then there are the Ba'athists: at the beginning there was only one group, but in 1981 the Movement also included the pro-Syrian Ba'athists as yet another grouping.

The Syrian Nationalist Socialist Party (PPS, after its French name, Parti Populaire Syrien) was a member, too, although in 1958 it had been with Chamoun against the left. Ideologically it had been a party of the right, but after the arrest and imprisonment of its leaders following an attempted coup d'etat in 1961 the party turned somewhat to the left in practice.

There were several Nasserite groups: Morabitoun, who are close to Fatah, the Arab Socialist Union, who are closer to Libya, and the Arab Battalions, which are also close to Fatah.

In addition there was the Lebanese Movement in support of Fatah, the Organisation of Leftist Kurds, which was allied to the CP, the Arab Social Action Party which is the Lebanese counterpart of the PFLP, the leftist Lebanese Democrats who are not really a party at all, and the Makhassad Alumni Organisation. This was the graduate association of a network of Sunnite schools, which today is controlled by Sa'eb Salam, but was then further to the left. How did the executive function? Was it democratic?

In theory it was. In practice the Lebanese National Movement followed Kemal Jumblatt' ideas.

This was not a matter of force - everything was properly discussed and debated - but, you see, Jumblatt had the majority of the Druze behind him and consequently was a decisive In practice there seems to have been a united front with the Palestinians, despite official PLO statements that they would not involve themselves on domestic affairs. Did PLO representatives participate in these discussions?

From time to time there were meetings with Palestinians present. From the list of parties you will see that in any case a number of members of the Movement had close relations with the PLO or its constituent organisations, above all Fatah.

As to the declarations of noninvolvement, these might have been meant seriously and had some consequences in Jordan in 1970, but there can be no doubt they were just polite formulae as far as Lebanon was concerned.

The Palestinians played a particularly important role on the military level because the militias of the right were generally better trained than those on the left, many of whom were quite inexperienced.

You see, the Christians had already started their militias in the late '60s - the Phalangists had a long militaristic tradition and they intensified this build-up after 1973 when the Lebanese army failed to occupy the Palestinian camps. There had been leftist militias in 1958, but these had quickly disappeared.

What was the programme of the Lebanese National Movement?

Of course, the individual groups making up the LNM each had their own programmes, but the common programme of the LNM can be summarised under three headings: unity of Lebanon, its Arab identity, and its democratic progress.

We wanted an end to confessionalism and a move towards secularism. We changed the way we posed this last question after the entry of the Arab Deterrent Forces.

Then we called for a 'nonsectarian political system' • a slogan which, it was felt, would be acceptable to right-wing Muslims who rejected or were confused by the slogan of 'secularism' or 'laicism'

----- pull-quotes -----

LABOUR MOVEMENT • CAMPAIGNforPALESTINE NEWSLETTER New issue now out!