REVUE DE PRESSE 1982 – EXTRAITS (ENG)
June 23, 1982 – EXTRACT FROM THE STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. GHASSAN TUENI, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF LEBANON TO THE UNITED. NATIONS, AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY SECOND SPECIAL SESSION ON DISARMAMENT
Ghassan Tuéni est un homme politique et journaliste libanais né le 5 janvier 1926, et mort le 8 juin 2012. Il occupa plusieurs fonctions ministérielles et diplomatiques : il fut notamment ambassadeur du Liban à l’ONU
« (…) In that same debate on Disarmament, we had also suggested a concept of international neutrality, « applicable to countries where external conflicts have projected, and may still project, into internal divisions, and where internal structures inevitably project into external, as well as civil wars. »
Many events during the last four years have demonstrated, at a tremendous cost, the need for such internationally guaranteed neutrality, and for a United Nations prepared, as we pleaded, to « assume a new responsibility: that of providing international shelter for the weak against the powerful, for the poor against the rich, for the under-developed against the over-developed, for the peace-loving against the aggressive »…
DISARMAMENT & NEUTRALITY by Ambassador Ghassan Tueni
The time has come to envisage a new effective, executive role for the World Organization, commensurate with its responsibility, which will transform It into an operational instrument not of a problematic disarmament, but of a practical peace, a real peace.
( . . . ) Events in my country, Lebanon, have compelled the United Nations to undertake Its most recent peace-keeping operation against tremendous odds that we all pray will be overcome. Rarely, in a different context, could such a demand be placed upon the United Nations, Yet, while underlining this reality, one must say how much recent events in Lebanon have inspired greater confider.ce in the international community and in the ability of the World Organization to carry the burden of its responsibilities.
Moderate Lebanese Christian leader calls for Neutral Lebanon, with U.S. guaranteeing the peace, The Chicago Tribune by John Maclean July 13, 1982.
John Maclean : Author and journalist. He has published five books on fatal wildland fires. Maclean began his career in journalism in 1964 as a police reporter and rewrite man with the City News Bureau of Chicago. He went to work for the Chicago Tribune the following year.
Moderate asks Neutral Lebanon
Washington : a moderate Lebanese Christian leader here for talks with US officials called Monday for a Neutral Lebanon with all factions disarmed and the US. Guaranteeing the peace.
Roger Edde said he already has received positive responses from European and Arab governments, including France, and Egypt.
The need is first for the US. To sponsor this idea of neutrality, Edde told a small group of reporters , “ if they don’t we don’t have a chance “.
Edde said, he has received “ discreet positive reactions” from American sources so far but has not yet held meetings with high level U.S. officials. He said he has appointments at the State department and National security council but indicated that the “Neutral Lebanon movement “ is in its infancy.
Edde predicted that Israel would force its way farther into northern Lebanon as Syrian and Palestinian forces withdraw in that direction. He said U.S. efforts so far have borne no fruit because special envoy Philip Habib has no forceful positive strategy.
Edde said a neutral Lebanon, along the lines of neutral Austria, would require.
- The Departure of all foreign troops, including Israeli and Syrian.
- Full disarmament of all the Lebanese factions, including whatever Palestinians remain in Lebanon, and the Lebanese army strengthened to fill the security vacuum.
- An international guarantee of Lebanese neutrality, put forward by the U.S . but also including the support of the Soviet Union.
- Establishment of a multinational force, including U.S military, in the 25 mile area north of Israel’s border, Edde said he favors using US. Marines as the nucleus of a multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon.
- Free elections in Lebanon Raymond Edde told an interviewer in Paris that the question of a new president for Lebanon should be considered only after the Syrians and Israelis withdraw.
BUT WHAT LIES AHEAD? by Philip Geyelin, The Washingtonpost, July 8, 1982
Philip L. Geyelin (1923–2004) was an American journalist and author. Born in Devon, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Yale in 1943. He joined the U.S. Marines and fought at Iwo Jima. In 1946 he joined The Wall Street Journal as a foreign correspondent, serving as the newspaper’s bureau chief in Paris and London and later covering the Vietnam War. In 1967 he was hired as deputy editorial page editor by The Washington Post and soon became senior editor. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1970. By 1979 he was specializing in Middle Eastern issues for the Post. He is the author of Lyndon B. Johnson and the World, published in 1966.
…. So Israel is going to help put together a new Lebanese government by insisting on who should be in and, presumambly, who should be out. And the Reagan administration, by its outward silence, signals consent to concerned Lebanese, both Christian and Moslem, to the French, to the Egyptians, to others with a longer view of Lebanon’s best interests.
The long view sees a neutral, demilitarized Lebanon. with a multinational peacekeepinq force to provide the security. now provided by freewheelinq militias. “The only way to unite Lebanon is by disarminq it,” says one Lebanese advocate of this approach.
FROM LEBANON TO THE WEST BANK TO THE GULF by Henry Kissinger, The Washington Post, June 16, 1982
Henry Kissinger, le 27 mai 1923 à Fürth en Allemagne, est un diplomate américain, politologue et consultant en géopolitique.
… The general position of the administration is wise and statesmanlike: to promote the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, to reestablish a strong Lebanese central government whose authority runs throughout a genuinely neutral country. . .
LEBANON : Army and Navy Club, Washington, D.C. July 22,1982 by Dean Brown, President, Middle East Institute
I think it is for Lebanon to remove itself from the world’s international system to say that its problems and its aspirations are so unique that it seeks a new and different status.Is there a prescription for the future Lebanon? I think so. It is idealistic and perhaps not obtainable.
By this I mean a neutral state. Not just neutral like Switzerland, but neutral and disarmed like Austria.
… It will no longer proclaim itself the capital of any regional group. It will seek United Nations guarantees, it will ask for a multinational force to back up those guarantees –at least for a stated period of years. It will pass legislation preventing the use of Lebanese facilities by any power to attack any other.
In other words, it will seek true neutrality not only in what it speaks but in what it does or does not do.
A neutral, disarmed Lebanon which preaches no lesson other than tolerance could be a shining beacon in the Middle East.
It would also mean that no outside power Syria, Israel, PLO,Libya or the U.S. Gould interfere with internal political working of the new system.
Perhaps some day we will see it happen.
NO PARTITIONING OF LEBANON par Jacques Barrot – Le Figaro, July 7,1982 (translated from French)
Jacques Barrot : Ex-ministre français, député de la 1re circonscription de la Haute-Loire, membre du Conseil constitutionnel, vice-président de la Commission européenne, ancien président du groupe UMP à l’Assemblée nationale, problèmes du Liban. Son souci premier était de consolider le « pont » franco-libanais et surtout le lien Haute-Loire-Liban au sein de l’association qui porte ce nom. La francophonie au Liban était vraiment l’un de ses soucis premiers.
Jacques Barrot (UDF, Haute-Loire): « To be satisfied with neutralizing West-Beirut by igporing the integrity of Beirut and Lebanon is to play with fire. Couldn’t this solution easily become the prelude to the constitution of a new Berlin and to the partition of Lebanon, (as in the case of Korea), into North-Lebanon for the Syrian-Soviets andSouth-Lebanon for the Israeli-American (…).
How can this vicious circle be shattered? Here is where French politics should intervene. It is the only one which can efficiently start an initiative of nature to save the true Lebanon and to reject the basis of an Arab-Israeli coexistence. »
AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEIZE, Le Monde, July 4-5, 1982 (translated from French)
… The resolution that Paris and Cairo are preparing to present to the Security Council is of two-fold interest to the Israelis: to have a neutral Lebanon by strongly recommending the retreat of all foreign forces, and to demand the mutual recognition of both conflicting people. This resolution embodies the Zionist dream to have the Jewish state admitted into the Near-East family.
We must hope that the patriotism of Messrs. Begin and Sharon will surpass their will to settle by force a decades-old problem, and that’only an honorable compromise can resolve.
CLAUDE CHEYSSON EVOKES THE POSSIBILITY OF A NEUTRAL LEBANON, July 23, 1982 (translated from French)
Claude Cheysson est un haut fonctionnaire et personnalité politique français, né le 13 avril 1920 à Paris et mort le 15 octobre 2012 dans la même ville. Il a notamment été ministre des Relations extérieures de François Mitterrand et commissaire européen.
Mr. Claude Cheysson, Minister for Foreign Affairs , evoked the possibility of the neutrality of Lebanon in an interview published on Friday in Paris by the Arab weekly AL MOSTAQBAL.
« One day », he said, « we will perhaps see a Lebanon neutral in its totality ».
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