Catalogue of Horrors Grows : More of Middle Class Are Deserting Beirut

Over lunch in a still-fashionable West Beirut restaurant the other day, a prominent Lebanese businessman struggled to explain his feelings about staying on in Lebanon.

The week before, he said, bandits had placed a gun at his head and relieved him of a new car, his watch, money, even his wedding band.

His partner of the last 10 years announced not long ago, after a particularly bitter paroxysm of the fighting known here as the “Flag War,” that he could no longer take it, and moved to Washington.

‘Nothing Sacred’

But the businessman who stayed remains oddly philosophical. Pushing back from a meal of Dover sole and a dry white wine, he said, “Beirut is still the nicest place in this part of the world, but I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. Nothing is sacred any more.”

Indeed, Topic A at dinner parties seems to be the growing roster of friends and acquaintances who have just left Beirut. Everyone seems to have two kinds of friends--those who have already left and those who are thinking about it, very seriously.

“There’s a lot of psychological pressure to leave,” a U.S.-educated Druze businessman said. “Every time somebody moves out of my building, the pressure increases. I don’t want to be the last guy here.”

Beirut is divided into Christian- and Muslim-dominated halves, but there has always been a large number of Christians living on the Muslim west side. Now, however, unofficial figures collected by church groups show that the Christian population of West Beirut has dropped from about 250,000 before the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 to about 35,000.

Gloomy Mood

“The plot is not just to eliminate the Christians from West Beirut,” said Dr. Mounir Shammaa, a Christian who was kidnaped by Muslims in early December and held nearly a week before being released. “It is aimed at eliminating anyone who is dealing with civilization.”

Christian businessmen were so dispirited by the prevailing mood in the capital that Nabih Berri, leader of the Shia Muslim militia known as Amal, issued formal orders permitting Christmas decorations in the city’s fashionable Hamra shopping district.

So far the only favorable response has been a single, puny, plastic Santa Claus.

Beirut is still a city of remarkable contrasts. The latest Parisian fashions adorn mannequins in shop windows overlooking mountains of uncollected garbage and disfigured war victims scuttling for food. Nightclubs and restaurants are beginning to fill up as residents venture out again at night, although most get home early.

Catalogue of Horrors

The reasons for the exodus are painfully obvious. With every passing month, Beirut’s catalogue of horrors gets longer and more inventive.

Robberies have become commonplace in a city where street crime was once almost nonexistent. Cars have been stolen in broad daylight by children armed with automatic rifles.

Even Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian Party of God, has been blamed for a spate of bank robberies because organizational funds have been running low.

Kidnaping for ransom has added a new dimension to the political abduction.

Increasing everyone’s unease, a “Jack the Ripper” killer, still at large, has slain four young women in the past two weeks.

Strikes have become a weekly event. Earlier this month, there was a strike to protest the high price of gasoline, which the bankrupt Lebanese government had raised to just under $1 a gallon. This is not high by world standards, but it was a major increase to the Lebanese, who are trying to cope with inflation of 300% a year.

‘Everyone Will Leave’

“I come here because I have to, not because I want to,” said one businessman, who has moved his family to Switzerland. “Unless this trend is reversed, everyone will leave.”

65 Dead in Fighting

In November, the Flag War left 65 people dead, mostly civilians, in fighting between Amal and the Druze militia, which is called the Progressive Socialist Party.

The fighting was touched off by a Druze attempt to tear down the Lebanese flag near the city’s television station; the Druze hold the Lebanese government in contempt. Soon the fighting took on the proportions of a neighborhood gang war, with the parties battling over protection payments from shopkeepers. The payments range from $500 to $1,000 a month.

“No one thinks this will be the last of the fighting,” a Shia banker said.

A prominent doctor, a liver specialist, said the incidence of alcoholism in West Beirut, where alcohol-related liver disease had been virtually unknown before the outbreak of civil war in 1975, has increased markedly. There has been a tremendous surge in the use of tranquilizers as well, he said.

Won’t Be Driven Out

Some people stay stubbornly behind, refusing to be driven out of their homes. Curiously, two Christian academics who were recently kidnaped announced after being released that they would stay on here despite the experience.

“There is no reason why I should stay here,” said Joseph Salameh, an economist at the American University of Beirut. “But I was born here, I was raised here, and I’m not about to be pushed out by these people.”

At first it was believed that the two men were kidnaped to trade for kidnap victims in the Christian East Beirut area. But officials later concluded that the targets were chosen as a warning.

“If they kidnap these two, it means that no one is safe,” a Lebanese army officer official said. “It means only one thing: If you are Christian, you have to leave.”