Army Regime Rejected by Lebanese Muslims : General Named Premier as Gemayel Steps Down; Prospect of Partition Among Factions Increases

Attempting to head off a constitutional crisis, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel on Thursday announced the formation of a provisional military government to replace him at the end of his six-year term at midnight. But the new government appeared to be stillborn.

And the failure of Muslim religious and political leaders to support Gemayel’s move increased the prospect that Lebanon would be partitioned among opposing factions.

In a brief farewell address televised to the nation, Gemayel said: “I leave the presidency today worried and filled with anxiety. Today should have been a festival in which we rejoice over the election of a new president that would take the helm and the oath of office, as I and my predecessors did. But the people of war were stronger than peace.”

Constitutional Vacuum

On Wednesday, Lebanon’s Muslim and Christian warlords were unable to agree on a compromise candidate for the presidency, leaving the government with a constitutional vacuum because Gemayel cannot succeed himself.

The unprecedented political crisis came to a head in the dramatic final hour of the Gemayel presidency Thursday. He named the army commander, Gen. Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, to the premiership. He also named a six-member Cabinet made up of the six largest Christian and Muslim sects in Lebanon.

Muslim leaders quickly rejected the new government.

“This is a midget coup d’etat. It’s not going to lift off the ground,” said Druze Muslim chieftain Walid Jumblatt in a statement broadcast by Muslim radio stations in Beirut.

Under Lebanon’s unwritten 1943 “national pact,” the presidency is allocated to a Maronite while the premiership goes to a Sunni Muslim. Aoun would thus be the first Christian premier since Lebanon became independent in 1943. Muslim demands to change the delicate balance of power--which is weighted 6 to 5 in favor of Christians over Muslims in all government positions, even though Muslims are now a majority--have been at the heart of 13 years of civil strife.

Gemayel was forced to turn to the military when Muslims balked at accepting or participating in a new Cabinet headed by a Christian, as the president originally proposed. But shortly after the announcement of a military government, three Muslim appointees, responding to a call by Muslim leaders, rejected their posts.

Earlier in the day, Muslim religious and political leaders cautioned that a new provisional government would mean the partition of the former French mandate territory along sectarian lines.

Instead of participating in Gemayel’s interim Cabinet, Sunni and Shia muftis and Druze sheiks threw their support behind Salim Hoss, the Sunni Muslim leader who had served as the last premier in the Gemayel government that expired at midnight. In a joint statement, they said, “We declare that the only legal government in Lebanon is that of acting Prime Minister Salim Hoss until a new president is elected.

“We warn the president of the republic against forming a second government because that will create two rival authorities and consecrate the de facto partition of the country. The three of us warn all Muslims against joining a new government formed by the president before he steps down.”

Gemayel’s unexpected choice of a military government did, however, receive support from the powerful Christian Lebanese Forces militia. Samir Geagea, chief of the right-wing force, called Aoun “a statesman” capable of shielding Lebanon from external threats.

Thursday’s crisis, however, put in doubt the continued viability of Lebanon as a single state. “This is the end of Lebanon as we have known it,” said a confidant of several Lebanese politicians.

Hopes of a last-minute Christian-Muslim compromise on a new president failed when only 12 of Parliament’s surviving 76 members showed up for Thursday’s presidential election.

Meanwhile, the killing Thursday of three leaders of Amal, the Shia militia, also sparked concern about the resumption of full-scale civil warfare after a three-year lull. Muslim sources alleged that the three were assassinated in an attack by machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades after a meeting with Amal leader Nabih Berri.

Among the dead was Daoud Daoud, the influential Amal commander of volatile southern Lebanon who forced most of the pro-Iranian Shia members of the extremist Hezbollah (Party of God) out of the region in a series of battles last spring. No group claimed responsibility for the slayings.

The mounting tension in Lebanon was evident during an intense two-hour duel along Beirut’s notorious Green Line, which divides the Muslim and Christian halves of the capital. The old Parliament building, where the vote was to take place, was hit by several mortar rounds, according to Lebanese sources.