LEBANON / THE ENFORCERS : Syrians Bring Order but Cause Hard Feelings

A Syrian soldier stoops near the front wheel of a red Peugeot parked across from the American University of Beirut. Large square stones mark the area as a no-parking zone, a security measure to safeguard the university from Beirut’s best-known weapon, the deadly car bomb.

The soldier knows that this car has been hastily parked by a student late for class. Nevertheless, the violator will be punished.

The Syrian, part of a contingent assigned to the American University, flips the bayonet on his Kalashnikov rifle into position and uses the point to release the air from a front tire.

When the student returns, he doesn’t argue with Beirut’s “law and order army.” No one does.

Before the Syrian presence was established here in the capital in February, 1987, various militias ran roughshod over West Beirut, including the university area. The chaos was sufficient to allow the kidnaping of the university’s acting controller, Joseph J. Ciccipio, from outside his campus residence in September, 1986. The 59-year-old American is still held captive by Lebanese terrorists.

With streets basically free of militias, security control in Beirut now consists of joint Lebanese-Syrian army checkpoints at major intersections. Drivers are given a once-over and some are interrogated on the spot, forcing dozens of cars to wait in the heat.

“The (Syrian) soldiers know the Lebanese don’t like them,” said a Syrian professor who teaches in West Beirut. She and others have heard the Lebanese drivers respond courteously to the soldiers, only to curse them once out of earshot.

The Syrians’ reputation for toughness is deserved. Drivers who have assumed that a checkpoint is unmanned and do not stop have been shot and killed.

Most of the 12,500 Syrian soldiers stationed in West Beirut serve here for a year and a half. A private receives a salary equivalent to $6 a month. Unfinished apartment blocks serve as home, and food is delivered daily by supply trucks. Bread, tea, sugar, potatoes and cabbage are the standard fare, with a cooked meat dish on the menu only once a week.

Street-side vegetable sellers complain about freeloading Syrians. “Watch him,” said a man selling potatoes, nodding his head toward a Syrian filling a bag with lemons. “He won’t pay,” he predicted accurately.

Fruit, film, clothing, even appliances are items that Lebanese merchants “donate” to the Syrians.

Soldiers must pay their own way back to Syria when on leave, and consequently the Beirut-to-Damascus road is often lined with hitchhiking Syrians. Many of the items the soldiers carry back, such as sugar, are in short supply in Syria.

“The soldiers view the Lebanese as spoiled,” said a Syrian secretary employed in Beirut. “Syrians don’t lead a life of luxury in normal times, and the Lebanese lead it in times of war.”

Beirut’s reputation as “Sin City,” predating the 15-year-old Lebanese civil war, causes some concern for Syrian families back home, according to a Syrian professor at the American University.

Some of Beirut’s go-go bars, it is true, have clustered near Syrian posts; but the motivation is more the desire for protection from radical Muslim groups than the expectation of business.

Lebanon’s violent character too gives Syrian mothers reason for fear. “They are afraid their sons will die here,” the secretary said. “They haven’t been sent here for peace, after all, and sometimes things blow up.”

Last year’s “war of liberation” declared by Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, commander of the Lebanese army, against the Syrian troop presence in his country led to heavy fighting and left an undisclosed number of dead soldiers on each side.

One Lebanese explained the rancor between his countrymen and the Syrians. “The (Syrian) boys are basically good, but they don’t have good manners,” he said. “They demand respect in a rude way, which is not to the Lebanese liking.”