Lebanese Cabinet Finally Meets, Urges Cease-Fire

Christian and Muslim members of Lebanon’s Cabinet met for the first time in nine months Tuesday and issued a call for a “prompt, comprehensive and stable cease-fire” to end the civil war that has claimed more than 100,000 lives in the last 10 years.

Premier Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim, said his 10-member Cabinet also agreed on writing a new national charter to embody political reforms that might pave the way for peaceful coexistence between Lebanon’s Muslim and Christians.

Karami, 65, told reporters the Cabinet has asked a security committee representing the principal warring militias to “enforce the new truce under the direct supervision of the command of the Beirut army garrison.”

The Cabinet meeting to launch a dialogue aimed at national reconciliation got under way at 9:45 a.m. at a race track in the no man’s land along the Green Line that divides Beirut into Muslim and Christian sectors. It ended two hours later.

Karami said another session is scheduled at the same site Friday to discuss the “guidelines of the new covenant and ways to enable the government to take back control of all public utilities and seaports from various militias.”

Communications Minister Joseph Hashem, a Maronite Christian, said he and Education Minister Salim Hoss, a Sunni Muslim, were assigned by the Cabinet to draft the new covenant.

Snipers from rival militias held their fire as the Cabinet members drove up separately in bullet-proof sedans from Beirut’s Muslim and Christian districts and entered the walled and deserted hippodrome.

But about a dozen sniper shots crackled in the distance shortly before the meeting was over.

Two Lebanese army doctors and a military ambulance were present at the conference room on the ground floor of the track’s administration building.

“We have two aged, ailing ministers. No one can take a chance on either of them,” said an army officer on the scene.

He was referring to Finance Minister Camille Chamoun, 86, a Christian, and Defense Minister Adel Osseiran, 79, a Shia Muslim.

The walled track, which has been closed for the last 18 months, had been a symbol of national unity before the civil war broke out in 1975.

The civil war has devastated Lebanon’s economy, left thousands of Christians and Muslims homeless and divided the army into Christian and Muslim brigades.

Christians have dominated Lebanon politically since the country’s independence from France in 1943, when they were considered a majority.