Lebanon’s Aoun Accepts Truce Proposal : Christian Army Chief Agrees to Arab Plan to End Beirut Shelling

Lebanon’s Christian army commander, Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, on Friday accepted a seven-point Arab League truce plan aimed at ending six months of savage shelling between his forces and Syrian troops that has claimed more than 800 lives.

Bowing to intense international pressure to agree to a truce, Aoun, who launched a war to drive about 40,000 Syrian troops out of Lebanon in March, shifted his rhetoric of war to one of peace.

“We declare to our people, all our people in the liberated as well as the (Syrian-) occupied areas, that Sept. 23 is the beginning of the chance to achieve peace,” the grim-faced general said in a two-minute address broadcast on national television and radio.

Syria, which controls 70% of Lebanon, and its Lebanese allies accepted the Arab League plan, which calls for an immediate cease-fire, soon after it was announced last Saturday.

Aoun, wearing his usual army fatigues, said he agreed to the plan after “appeals from the international community, all the Arabs and all the friends, and in line with the Lebanese people’s desire.”

Several previous cease-fires called by the Arab League have failed to end this latest round of fighting in the 14-year civil war.

The population of Beirut appeared to take the call for peace seriously. In Syrian-controlled Muslim West Beirut, gunmen fired in the air in a traditional expression of joy. East Beirut was silent but most exhausted residents said they were relieved. Still other residents drove through the battle-torn streets honking their car horns.

Washington Optimistic

In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Richard Boucher said, “We hope that this will result quickly in a cease-fire by all the parties to the conflict.”

Aoun conveyed his acceptance of the plan to Arab League envoy Lakhdar Ibrahimi during the third round of talks this week in his bunker-office under the bomb-ravaged presidential palace.

After the 40-minute meeting, Aoun told reporters: “We wish success to the peace plan. We’ve given peace a chance and, God willing, there will be peace. The results will be positive if the intentions are sincere. If not, we reserve the right to take proper decisions at the proper time.”

Ibrahimi, assistant secretary general of the 22-member Arab League, said after his meeting with Aoun that the Lebanese “as of now, will be able to reopen their shops, go to schools and return to their homes.” About 90% of Beirut’s 1.5 million people have fled the city.

Ibrahimi said he would set up a security team to consolidate the peace, as proposed in the Arab League plan.

Following Aoun’s announcement, Salim Hoss, a Sunni Muslim who heads a Syrian-backed government rivaling Aoun’s, said, “We are all eager that the cease-fire be consolidated and the political process started.”

The plan’s first six points focus on the cease-fire and steps to enforce it. The last clause calls for a meeting of the 99-seat Parliament on Sept. 30, outside Lebanon, to discuss political reforms to satisfy Muslim demands for an equal share of power with the Christians.

The plan also defers the issue of a Syrian troop withdrawal, but Aoun said that Ibrahimi assured him the need for foreign troops to be withdrawn was recognized. Syria maintains its troops in Lebanon under a 1976 Arab League peacekeeping mandate.