The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Lebanon -- Gemayel Elected

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JIM LEHRER [voice-over]: More gunfire in Beirut today, but this time it's in celebration of a new president for Lebanon.

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LEHRER: Good evening. Contradictory winds of war and peace continue to blow out of Lebanon today. There was an election. Bashir Gemayel, the leader of the rightist Christian militia known as the Phalange was elected by the Parliament to a six-year term as president. His supporters heralded his election as the dawning of a new peaceful, unified day for Lebanon. But his detractors among the left and the Moslems called him a puppet of Israel, and predicted a new civil war would soon erupt as a result. Those predictions took an ominous turn when, shortly afterward, the homes of the speaker of the Parliament and two members who voted for Gemayel were rocket-bombed. This was happening, ironically, as the just-finished war between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization continued its peaceful wind-down with another 1,000 PLO soldiers evacuating West Beirut and boarding a ship for South Yemen. Tonight, the new president and the new prospects for Lebanon. Robert MacNeil is off; Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, at 34, Bashir Gemayel is Lebanon's youngest president, but his roots are part of an old order that has been in the forefront of Lebanon's divided politics for years. Gemayel's father, Pierre, founded the Phalange Party in the 1930s and is today the country's foremost Christian leader. His son Bashir emerged on the scene in a major way in 1975-76 when he led his right-wing forces against Moslem and leftist leaders during the country's bitter civil war. In 1980, his private militia of some 10,000 men fought an equally bitter battle. This time it was Christian against Christian in a battle for internal domination. A lawyer by training, Gemayel has predominated since then, and was generally regarded as the likely choice to succeed Elias Sarkas, Lebanon's current president. But in a country where nothing is certain, Gemayel's election was in doubt until the very end. The election was postponed once, delayed a second time for lack of a quorum. For more details on today's vote, we go to John Simpson of the BBC.

REPORTER [voice-over]: The election should have been held at the Parliament building, yards away from the PLO front line, but the danger was such that it had to be switched to the safety of an army camp. Thecentral question was whether or not the MPs, many of them old and infirm, would venture here and make a quorum. Even in wartime the Lebanese stick to their complex constitution. That constitution says the president must be a Maronite Christian, and Bashir Gemayel was the sole and controversial candidate. At 34, he is the head of the right-wing Christian militia. By noon they were still eight MPs short of a quorum, and some of the missing MPs weren't staying away just because of the danger, but because of the man himself. Mr. Gemayel had to use his car telephone to see if he could get the vote out. But the quorum was eventually achieved, and as the MPs voted it became clear that Mr. Gemayel was after all going to be elected President. As the news spread round the Christian areas of Beirut, there was an immediate frenzy of joy, and people started celebrating in their preferred way [volley of gunfire].

HUNTER-GAULT: When Gemayel assumes the presidency on September the 23rd, he takes over a sharply divided country. Israeli and Syrian forces face off around the Bekaa Valley. Various Christian militias with varying ties to Israel control broad sections of the country. The Syrians dominate the Bekaa Valley and around Tripoli, and PLO forces not covered by the Habib agreement are within Syrian lines outside West Beirut. For more on the problems facing the Gemayel government, we turn to Ghassan Tueni, Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Ambassador, is this election going to be accepted in Lebanon?

Amb. GHASSAN TUENI: Well, in the Lebanon we have had a democracy that was particular, if I may use the word, because it is not only a democracy with a bipartisan system, but also a democracy that represents a pluralistic society, a society born out of what one may call a communal contract. So every election has been contested. We are used to that. To this I want to add that one must remember that after 12 years of violence one can with difficulty expect a country where there are two or three foreign armies still waging war, one can hardly expect a country in this situation to transcend the violence of past years instantly, as it were, and go into the normal democratic process. What we are very proud of today is that we have been able to safeguard our institutions, to go by the constitutional process, to elect a president with a comfortable parliamentary majority, and, I am sure, as he himself has said, that with dialogue in the interregnum, he will be able to bridge the difficulties that separate him from the other groups.

HUNTER-GAULT: But you do see some difficulties ahead?

Amb. TUENI: I see difficulties, of course, but I don't see them as unbridgeable and unmanageable.

HUNTER-GAULT: You just heard in the taped piece, John Simpson's report, that the Parliament members were not staying away because of the danger but because of the man, and possibly some because of the danger. But why was it that 30 members of the Parliament did in fact boycott the election?

Amb. TUENI: Well, may I remind that this is the second time this happens. When President Sarkas, the actual President, was elected back in 1976, we had almost the same phenomenon, and it was end of shelling that he was elected one week after the date set for his election because Parliament could not meet the first time. And there was also some boycotting. May I repeat that in war it is already a miracle to hold presidential elections, and I think it is a tribute to the Lebanese attachment to democracy that we should have been able to hold such a democracy -- such an election.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you see the boycotting and opposition developing along religious lines? I mean, the Moslems and the leftists against the Phalange and so on?

Amb. TUENI: Well, not unlikely, but not necessarily so, because among those who voted for Mr. Gemayel there was a large number of Muslims as well. I have the figures here. I think about no less than 17 or 19 Muslims voted for him. In previous instances this has happened, and among those who have opposed him, there are some very prominent Christians as well. And I think that it is a mistake to continue to look at Lebanon as a country where party divisions must necessarily follow religious divisions.

HUNTER-GAULT: I see. There were predictions today that a new civil war is likely.

Amb. TUENI: Yes.

HUNTER-GAULT: What's your feeling about that?

Amb. TUENI: Well, I certainly hope it shouldn't be the case. I doubt that it should be the case because already the so-called civil war that we have survived -- and rarely has any country of our size been able to survive such wars and revolutions and remain in one piece. I think that civil war was not really so civil; it was rather a confrontation between parties regional as well as probably international confronting through the conflictual structures of Lebanese society. Grant you, using Lebanese against Lebanese, and differences that we are not the only county in the world to have.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We'll come back. Jim?

LEHRER: Next, the view of a close friend and strong supporter of the new President. He is Robert Basil of the American Lebanese League, a group of Americans of Lebanese descent who support Bashir Gemayel. Mr. Basil was the deputy undersecretary of defense for international activities in the Ford and Carter administrations. Are the varied factions going to submit to the leadership of Mr. Gemayel?

ROBERT BASIL: Yes. I believe that there is much more agreement in Lebanon, and has been over the last several years, than disagreement. I have been to Lebanon several times during the last three years and talked with leaders of all the major religious and political parties, and they remember their glorious years of just seven or eight years ago, and realize that the massive intervention by foreign armed elements -- the PLO and Syrians in particular -- causing the disintegration of Lebanese society and its government was very bad, and that they had actually agreed and were working behind the scenes together. There is very much agreement.That is why in this election, for example -- and I am surprised to hear even earlier on this program the report from Mr. Simpson, which had several inaccuracies. First of all, it had his brother, Amin Gemayel; it didn't even have Bashir, and they don't look alike. Secondly, the --

LEHRER: Wait a minute. You mean the man who was going to the car on the phone was not the President?

Mr. BASIL: That is correct. It's not the President at all; it's someone else. Secondly --

LEHRER: Well, that is both the BBC's error and it's also our error for not catching it and not correcting it, obviously, and our apologies to all concerned.

Mr. BASIL: The second error Ambassador Tueni corrected: it has not been a civil war at all; it has been -- the '75-'76 war was a war between armed Palestinians and Lebanese Christians, and the war in '78 through '81 was between Lebanese and the Syrian army.

LEHRER: Well, let's go to the future, though. What is it that Mr. Gemayel is going to be able to do to get the Moslems and the leftists? Now,you know what they were saying today. They were calling him a thug; they were calling him a fascist; they were saying that the country was going to erupt in civil war, and there was no way they were going to submit to his leadership. Now, what is he going to do? You know the man. What can he do? What will he do to overcome that?

Mr. BASIL: Well, first of all, I'd like to point out that the election results was a rather sizeable endorsement by both the Christians and Moslems for Mr. Gemayel. It was misleading also today -- I should point out that 67% of the Shiite Moslem deputies voted for Mr. Gemayel; over 50% of the Druse, and about 25% of the Sunni Moslem deputies voted for Mr. Gemayel. And as a matter of fact, in overall numbers, an immense majority, compared to most Lebanese elections. So I am really puzzled as to why the media keep saying that the Moslems boycotted it. That is really not detected.

LEHRER: Well, 75% of them did. I mean, you say 25% of them did vote for him; 75% didn't --

Mr. BASIL: No, no. No. Seventy-five percent did not boycott the election.

LEHRER: No, no. But I mean did not vote -- only 25% voted for him.

Mr. BASIL: Of the Sunnis.

LEHRER: Right. That's what I mean.

Mr. BASIL: Sixty-seven percent of the Shiite Moslems, the largest single group of Moslems in Lebanon -- 67% voted for Mr. Gemayel.

LEHRER: All right. All right. You will agree, though, that there are people in Lebanon who do not support Mr. Gemayel's leadership as President?

Mr. BASIL: Just like in the United States there are people who don't support Mr. Reagan's ledership.

LEHRER: My question to you is, what is -- you know the man. To repeat the question: what is he going to do to bridge those who oppose him and who apparently -- at least, if you read their statements today -- are going to oppose him in a military way, through violence. What can he do to overcome that?

Mr. BASIL: Well, first of all, I believe Mr. Gemayel has the broad base of support of all of these communities, and they have great confidence in his ability to lead, and even his detractors will say that probably the most honest and direct man in Lebanese politics, the one with the most integrity, is Bashir Gemayel. He is highly respected for that. Secondly, I believe that you will see a policy that will be strongly pro-Lebanese. One of the ingredients of the last seven years has been the notion of internationalism fighting the notion of nationalism. Bashir has supported or been the distillate, the encapsulation, of the nationalist concept. Anyone that is for Lebanon deserves to stay in Lebanon; those that will dabble for various international parties should not be called Lebanese, and not lay a claim to any influence within Lebanon. So what you have here is a victory for the nationalist concept, and throughout the Moslem community as well as the Christian community, that has tremendous support after people realize the wreckage that has been caused throughout the body politic by this enormous influence of international parties. So I think you will find, as the election indicated, even, a broad-based support based upon, first of all, very strong dedication to Lebanon; second of all, very pro-West and pro-U.S.; third of all, pro the peace initiative that the United States is supporting in the region generally; and with the suport, I might add -- Mr. Gemayel has the strong support of Saudi Arabia and the moderate Arab states.

LEHRER: Thank you very much.Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: There may be some debate on this issue, as we just heard, but there were some leftists and Moslem forces in Beirut who regard Gemayel as a tool of the Israelis. For more on that, we turn to Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Mr. Ajami, is there this broad base of support among all communities, and how do the Moslems and leftists specifically regard this election?

FOUAD AJAMI: Well, Charlayne, Mr. Basil didn't even add that actually Bashir Gemayel likes classical music as well. He emerges from Mr. Basil's account as a very cultured and refined man with a tremendous popular base in Lebanon. The reality is different. This election was more like a coup d'etat than an election, except in this case it takes the form of a parliamentary game. I mean, there is a fix here, and the fix is to give this man a parliamentary sanction. And mind you, you also want to know that this Parliament was elected 10 years ago, that it has lost touch with the aspirations and the base and the changes in the country. The last time the Lebanese held a parliamentary election was in 1972. So had Bashir Gemayel really wanted the risks of a real, genuine election, he would have held a parliamentary election first, then he would have proceeded to hold a presidential election.

HUNTER-GAULT: But you just heard Mr. Basil say that 67% of the Shiites, a percentage of the Sunnis -- that there was just an immense majority of support. Are you saying that they are out of touch?

Mr. AJAMI: Well, look, you know, how do you get the majority? First we know that several deputies were brought in at gunpoint. Second, massive amounts of money -- as is always the case in Lebanon --

HUNTER-GAULT: Excuse me. How do you know that?

Mr. AJAMI: Well, I think, you know, the reports that we've heard -- I mean, the -- on the wires, and so on, is that several deputies, one Yousef Skass in particular, who is from near the Bekaa, was brought in at gunpoint to vote for Bashir Gemayel. I mean, Bashir Gemayel's politics are well known. In 1981, Bashir Gemayel had a massive bloodletting even within the Maronite community against both Svlayman Franjiyah, the former President, as well as against Camil Chamoun, who is another figure in the Maronite community. So the politics of Gemayel are well known, and this election took place in the shadow of Israeli occupation. I mean, I notice that Mr. Basil said nothing about Israel. He said nothing about the presence of Israeli troops, which made it possible to elect Mr. Gemayel President.

HUNTER-GAULT: You think if they had not been there this election wouldn't have come off, or what?

Mr. AJAMI: Look, the last time the Lebanese elected a president, due to internal Lebanese forces, was in 1970. The last two elections reflected the power of the foreign power that was dominating Lebanon. In 1976, when President Sarkas was elected, he was acceptable to Syria, then the dominant power in Lebanon. In 1982, the election of Bashir Gemayel brings to power a man who is acceptable to Israel because this system is a reflection of larger, more powerful interests.

HUNTER-GAULT: So your sense is that the larger population of Moslems and leftists do not support this election?

Mr. AJAMI: Not just, you know, Moslems and leftists, but even many within the Christian communities don't feel that Bashir Gemayel has the talent and the historical background, has the psychology to bring about a national reconciliation within Lebanon. This is -- you know, electing Bashir Gemayel President -- I'll use your cowboy analogy. Is like electing the toughest man on the block sheriff, and hoping that he will keep and enforce the peace.

HUNTER-GAULT: What do you expect his relationships with Israel to be?

Mr. AJAMI: Well, I mean, Bashir Gemayel is supported by Israel. Had it not been for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, I don't think Bashir Gemayel would have been elected President. He is not the most prominent of Lebanon's Christians. He is not the most educated; he is not the most politically skilled.

HUNTER-GAULT: So at this point, what do you think? Will be there a relationship?

Mr. AJAMI: Well, he is, you know, they are his patrons.

HUNTER-GAULT: What do you expect the relationship, then, to be between the Phalange and the remaining Palestinians in Lebanon after the pullout of the PLO?

Mr. AJAMI: I mean, I can't look into my crystal ball and wonder whether Bashir Gemayel will or will not try to somehow deal with his opponents in a humanitarian fashion. All I know, and all I have is Bashir Gemayel's own history. This is the head of a militia; it's the head of a militia who have committed large atrocities in the country; and this is someone who really believes in military solutions, and his history bears this out.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Basil, do you read the history of Mr. Gemayel the same way Mr. Ajami does?

Mr. BASIL: Not at all. Not at all. I think, first of all, for this gentleman to even refer to anyone else as uncultured in light of his own insensitive remarks has to be the convoluted talk of the year. I think Mr. Gemayel is highly regarded as an enormous personality, one of vision. His speeches are hallmarks in democratic vision. It's much like an American president who would say, first of all --

LEHRER: Let's get Mr. Ajami's response to that.

Mr. AJAMI: Well, I mean, I wouldn't want to use the American analogy. I mean, this is a far-fetched analogy. You are dealing with a man who was elected in the shadow of a foreign occupation, and you know that.

Mr. BASIL: Oh, I think --

LEHRER: What about his point that if Israel had not invaded Lebanon and not been occupying Lebanon at the time, there was no way Gemayel would ever have been elected President?

Mr. BASIL: There would have been -- it would have been an election controlled by the armed PLO and the Syrians -- themselves the occupying force of Lebanon. And you must remember that 50,000 armed Palestinians and 40,000 Syrians -- and the Syrian army is the equivalent of five million armed Palestinians and four million armed Syrians in the United States -- a massive force. I would also --

LEHRER: You agree with that, do you not, Mr. Ajami?

Mr. AJAMI: Oh, I would agree with that. See, I mean --

Mr. BASIL: I would also like to point out --

LEHRER: Just a moment, let --

Mr. BASIL: -- if I may --

LEHRER: Well, you may in a moment, all right?

Mr. AJAMI: Yes. See, I would have conceded his point, and I already in effect predicted his point. Indeed, I did say that the president in the last two elections always reflected the dominant outside powers in the country.

Mr. BASIL: Not so, because he dwelled upon the point of Israel, whereas Mr. Gemayel has the support of the United States and the moderate Arab states. It's well known that Saudi Arabia and the moderate Arab states, in addition to Israel, support him.

LEHRER: Let's talk about Israel --

Mr. BASIL: So to me it's rather absurd to say that it's only Israel that supports him.

LEHRER: Well, let's talk about Israel for a moment. Mr. Ajami says that in fact theIsraelis are Mr. Gemayel's patrons.

Mr. BASIL: Mr. Gemayel -- as a matter of fact, just within the last week it's been out on the wires that there has been some sharp disagreements between Mr. Gemayel and the Israelis, as there have been sharp disagreements between Mr. Gemayel and other Middle East states. Mr. Gemayel stands for a strong nationalistic position for Lebanon, and there will be times when that will collide with the interests of Israel, with the interests of Syria, with the interests of Jordan, with the interests of Saudi Arabia. And in each case Mr. Gemayel will, in representing purely Lebanese interests, likely to come into confrontation with that.

LEHRER: You don't read it that way, right, his strong nationalist feelings?

Mr. AJAMI: No. I mean, you know, this is the politics of clans, and this man who has just been elected is the head of the dominant clan now within the Christian community in Lebanon.

LEHRER: Let's go back to the Ambassador in New York.Mr. Ambassador, you've heard what these two gentlemen have said. What is your analysis of where this thing goes, hearing what -- these two men have looked at the same situation, the same man, the same politics, and look at it entirely differently.

Amb. TUENI: Well, I would be tempted to suggest that we should discuss the future rather than analyze the personality or dwell on analyzing the personality of the President-elect. I think all elections have, of course, a positive and a negative, and we could indulge forever in this. Bashir Gemayel has taken three major stands yesterday and today and in the past two weeks. I'm not necessarily defender of Bashir Gemayel, but I want to look into the future. He is the President-elect, and we are keen, whatever Mr. Ajami says, keen to preserve the constitutional process because we have no alternative, and I don't think that a coup d'etat or a revolution would have brought us nearer to legality or legitimacy.

LEHRER: Well, he says this was in fact a coup d'etat.

Amb. TUENI: Well, he probably can say that, but I shan't discuss it. First, I think Mr. Gemayel has offered in his first utterances after his election to be a man of dialogue. He said that he was not the partisan man he was before, that there is no winner and no victor in this election. He wants to be the president of all the Lebanese, and to dialogue with all the Lebanese, and restore national unity.

LEHRER: Mr. Ajami, why not take him at his word?

Amb. TUENI: If I may finish. We have seen very often -- we have seen very often in the past the law of the pendulum, which Mr. Ajami knows very well. People of the right following a policy of the left, and people of the left following a policy of the right. And we have no -- we have to give Mr. Gemayel a chance. Secondly, Mr. Gemayel has asked for the withdrawal of Israeli forces, of Syrian forces, and of the PLO. If he is asking for the withdrawal of the Israelis and the Syrians and the PLO, he is thus summarizing the position which has been the position of legitimate government in the Lebanon for the past few years.

LEHRER: Mr. Ajami, I meant to come back to you, but we're out of time. I'm sorry. Mr. Ajami, Mr. Basil, thank you; Mr. Ambassador, in New York, thank you. Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night. Again, our apologies for the foul-up on the film from Lebanon. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.