Plight Overshadowed by Foreign Hostages : Thousands of Lebanese Kidnaped in War-Torn Region

Suad, an 80-year-old widow, has not locked the front door of her West Beirut house for 2 years, hoping that her missing son Adel will walk in at any moment.

Adel, 40, a Muslim, is one of thousands of Muslim and Christian Lebanese who have vanished in a vicious cycle of sectarian tit-for-tat kidnapings during 13 years of civil war.

Their plight has been overshadowed by the international publicity given to foreigners missing in Lebanon, most thought to have been kidnaped by pro-Iranian militants.

About 23 foreigners--including nine Americans, according to the State Department--are still missing and believed kidnaped.

Hoping for News

Suad rarely ventures from her home, praying the telephone will ring with news of her son, who vanished in August, 1986, while driving to East Beirut through the Green Line battlefront splitting the capital into Christian and Muslim sectors.

“I wish they would tell me he is dead. It would be easier than this daily agony,” she said, weeping.

The relatives of the missing Lebanese on both sides of Beirut’s battlefront are angry over their plight but say their pleas for help to militias and politicians fall on deaf ears.

Most don’t know whether their kidnaped fathers, brothers and sons are alive or dead.

Nayfeh Najjar, 26, a Muslim, committed suicide by drinking poison in December, 1984, 10 months after she lost hope of finding her 13-year-old son, Ali. He is still missing.

Rival Christian and Muslim militias deny holding any kidnaping victims, but accuse one another of continuing to hold captives.

Relatives in Beirut--east and west--who have set up separate committees to speak on their behalf say 3,000 people are still missing.

The militia officials believe most of those kidnaped since the start of the war were killed but their deaths were never announced or relayed to their families.

A Christian woman pounded her fist on a table as she recalled the kidnaping of her 30-year-old brother by Muslim militiamen in 1976. “All we feel at this point is anger, rage, pain and frustration,” she said.

“The whole world talks about the foreign hostages in Lebanon. Policies of world countries change for hostages, but no one really cares for thousands of kidnaped Lebanese.”

Felt More Desperate

The woman said most relatives felt even more desperate after Parliament’s failure to elect a new president in September.

The political crisis, the worst since Lebanon’s independence from France in 1943, led to the creation of two rival governments, which threaten the country with partition.

“Who will listen to us now when the country is collapsing? Which officials should we appeal to?” wailed 75-year-old Um Zakour.

Her only son, 50-year-old Zakariya Najari, was kidnaped in 1982 by Christian gunmen. Up to 3 years ago she was receiving word through middlemen that he was alive.

“I slept in the streets, met the country’s deputies, prime ministers and the former president to get my son out.

“All those people have to know I will not let them have any peace of mind until I get my son out,” the old woman said, kissing a crumpled photograph of her son.

She said she recently sent a letter to Gen. Michel Aoun, the army commander who heads the interim Christian-led military government, pleading for information on her son.

For many years relatives of the missing have held sit-ins, burned tires, screamed insults at politicians and hurled stones at ministers’ cars to express their outrage.

Christian and Muslim alike, they plead daily to militia leaders, politicians, journalists or anyone who will listen in the hope of winning freedom for their kidnaped relatives.

A Muslim mediator said their desperation makes them easy prey for extortionists, who persuade people to pay large amounts of money by offering the hope of contact with a missing relative.

The mediator said: “I don’t try to give hope to these people because it would only increase the deception.”

“You would be willing to pay anything if you really believe a person can help you,” said Um Zakour, whose son is missing.

The abductions started in the first months of the civil war. Thousands of Muslims and Christians were kidnaped--some later killed--on sectarian grounds.

A 4-man committee led by an army officer and made up of Muslim and Christian militia officials receives reports on the kidnaped Lebanese and has succeeded in releasing scores over the years. The releases usually take place in a trade-off in which an equal number of Christians and Muslims gain their freedom.