U.S. Pressed for Beirut Truce, Gen. Aoun Says : Lebanese Christian Leader Says His Decision to Yield, ‘Give Peace a Chance,’ Is Paying Off

Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, leader of Lebanon’s Christian government, declared Monday that heavy American pressure had been put upon him to accept the cease-fire now in effect and that he thinks his decision “to give peace a chance” is paying off.

“We are negotiating now” in the Christian-Muslim talks at Taif, Saudi Arabia, explained the general, who is also commander of the Lebanese army.

He said the discussions there have included his prime issue: the demand for a Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon. “It’s an achievement in itself” to force consideration of the demand, he declared.

Effect of Artillery War

The diminutive, plain-spoken general seemed less assertive, however, when asked in an interview what was gained by the six-month-long artillery war between Christian and Syrian forces that took the lives of more than 800 Lebanese before the still-tenuous truce took hold Sept. 23.

Aoun admitted that the ruinous conflict had been hard on both sides. However, he also insisted it had focused international attention on Lebanon and, he said, exposed the Syrians as sponsors of terrorism and drug trafficking in Lebanon.

Sitting in a ground-floor office of the shell-shattered presidential palace in Baabda, on a bluff overlooking the southern suburbs of Beirut, the general spoke with confidence of the staying power of his government, which shares disputed authority with a rival Muslim regime based in West Beirut.

“I am here. We are living by ourselves, by our own means,” he told a small group of foreign reporters. In a nearby entry hall, a cement mixer was preparing fill for another protective layer on Aoun’s underground bunker, where he ran the war and met the press before Arab League negotiators worked out the cease-fire.

“I accepted what was positive,” he said of the truce. He noted that the Bush Administration had lined up with the Arab League approach for a permanent settlement and political reforms that appears to favor the Syrians more than a previous plan aborted in July.

“They (the Americans) sent a message to our embassy in Washington” and pressed him through other avenues, Aoun disclosed. “I studied it closely and decided to accept . . . but I am keeping my rights to continue my liberation war (against the Syrian military presence in Lebanon).”

Other world and regional powers, principally France, the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia, are known to have urged Aoun to agree to the cease-fire on terms that he described Monday as one-sided and “not fair.” Under questioning, however, he specifically mentioned the American pressure.

Since the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon in early September, which Washington officials laid to threatening protests by right-wing Christians, the political line from the presidential palace has been tinged with anti-Americanism. The evacuation, for instance, was labeled by Aoun as an overreaction by the State Department and the White House.

International criticism of the suspended artillery war has pushed both Aoun and Syrian President Hafez Assad to the negotiating table. But little confidence has been expressed by either side in Lebanon that the conflict, in many ways a test of wills between the two men, can be ended by diplomacy at this point.

According to Aoun, Syria continues to mask its true intentions in Lebanon.

“Many people think that Syria is willing to deal,” he said. “They don’t understand. Syria wants to annex Lebanon.” That alleged intention is the reason that his government has demanded that Syrian military withdrawal be set in place before consideration of political reforms here, he pointed out.

“They were ready to write the death certificate” on Lebanon, Aoun said of his Syrian foes, boasting that the strength of his support among all Lebanese factions has strengthened his hand.

Shrapnel-Pitted Wall

The general, wearing camouflage fatigues with the pants legs flapping loosely over a pair of black loafers, sat with his back to a wall pitted by shrapnel in the heavy Syrian bombardment of the Baabda palace. The room opened--literally, for the window glass was gone--onto a courtyard where a rubber tree stood scorched and twisted by shellfire.

When the questioning turned to government reform, which is the priority of the Muslim side in the 14 years of intermittent civil war in Lebanon, Aoun seized the opportunity to sound more political than in many past meetings with foreign correspondents.

Speaking of the tradition that allots most powerful government posts to Lebanon’s Christians, a half-century-old formula that the Muslim majority finds particularly galling, Aoun declared firmly: “For me, the system is completely dead. I have ideas that will be discussed in time.”

Would he seek the presidency--vacant for more than a year now--if elections can be arranged?

“If the people want it, why not?” the general responded.