-Caveat Lector-
Linkname: From Israel To Damascus - Mideast news
URL: http://www.israeltodamascus.com/middeast.htm
An Open Letter to Human Rights Watch
We Have Hundreds of Eye Witnesses to the Events at Sabra and Chatilla,
Will You Call Them?
Mr Hanny Megally
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor
New York, New York, 10118 USA
Telephone: (212) 216 1230
Facsimile: (212) 736 1300
Dear Mr Megally,
I feel it's my moral obligation to address your latest remarks on the
Sabra & Chatilla affair asking President Bush to urge Prime Minister
Sharon to cooperate with any investigation against him. I must take
issue with your accusations that there is abundant evidence that war
crimes and that crimes against humanity were committed at the Sabra
and Chatilla Palestinian camps. You should know better, for as one of
Egyptian origin who is expert in Arabic you realize the problem within
the Islamic world of the problem in seeing events, truths, that have
no significance to Islam and of the Islamic world ignoring other
crimes of larger gravity that are not significant to the Muslim world.
Did you really assume that the Palestinians were attacked for no
reason or that groups of civilian Christians suddenly developed a
blood lust for Palestinians? Why did the Christians attack only
Palestinians and not the Lebanese Muslims with whom they lived
peaceably for centuries? The Christians have historically been a
peaceful people who preferred to live in Lebanon in a historical
balance with their Muslim neighbors, a friendly and respectable
balance that existed until Yasir Arafat and his killers entered
Lebanon.
Your myopic vision of the Sabra and Chatilla massacres ignores the
massacres perpetrated by Yasser Arafat and his murderers against the
Christian Lebanese. Let me remind you of some of Arafat's actions (I
am an eye witness):
* The distribution of arms and money to the Islamists in Lebanon for
the express purpose of subjecting the Christian Lebanese to ethnic
cleansing.
* The massacre of the town of Chekka, in northern Lebanon, by Arafat
forces, dozens of civilians, mostly Christians, were murdered and
tortured by Arafat's hoodlums.
* In the massacre of the town of Damour, South of Beirut, dozens of
Christians civilians were slaughtered, along with numerous rapes
of young girls, were done by forces that came from those same
Palestinian camps that you are defending.
* The massacre of the towns of Aintoura and Mtein, where groups of
Palestinians murdered innocent Christian civilians solely because
they were Christians .
* The daily assaults by the PLO forces against the Christian towns
of Hadath, Ain-el Remmaneh, Jisr el Bacha, Dekaouneh, Beirut, and
the Southern Metn, that resulted in hundred of Christian
casualties murdered for defending their hometowns and existence.
This was at a time when the Lebanese Government was paralyzed and
could not send the Lebanese Army to halt the Palestinian
atrocities due to Arab intervention in internal Lebanese affairs
by the "Cairo" accords.
No, Mr Megally, Palestine's path to the submission of Lebanon does not
begin at the Lebanese Christian Port of Junieh as stated in the famous
phrase of Abu Ayad, Yasser Arafat second in command. There were no
Israelis in Mount Lebanon to murder, they were all innocent Christian
civilians massacred in hundreds of low intensity incidents (as in
Israel today) just because they were Christians. The barbarism in
Lebanon was an Arafat speciality. Christians were decapitated, girls
were raped, parents and kids were murdered in the streets due to
Palestinian military attacks against the Christians areas, as they
refused to distinguish between adult men and women and children. All
Christians, despite age or sex, were Palestinian targets. These were
the same Palestinians we welcomed with open arms in 1948 with charity
and our reward was death and torture.
Sabra and Chatilla was not a peaceful area where strangers entered for
no reason and murdered innocent civilians. Sabra and Chatilla were one
of the largest training centers for international terrorism. Most of
the terrorists of the world visited the Sabra and Chatilla Camps in
Beirut, received extensive training in terrorism, ranging from the use
of plastic explosives to booby trapping cars, and special,
assassination techniques given by well experienced followers of Yasser
Arafat.
For example, the terrorist Red Brigades from Italy trained there, the
terrorist Basque ETA movement, Carlos, Islamist mercenaries from Iraq,
Libya, Yemen, Egypt, all came to those camps to be taught how to
hijack planes, prepare bombs for use in Europe and elsewhere against
US and Israeli embassies and missions. Sabra and Chatilla became known
as the terror center in Beirut, whose mission was to export terror and
subversion to the world. Many Lebanese were kidnaped to these camps
and never returned alive.
The Christian Kataeb militias are no murderers Mr. Megally. They
realized that the destruction of Lebanon by Palestinian hands could
not continue and Lebanon could not be a training ground for
international terror and murder. There was no proportionality in the
two events as Sabra & Chatilla experienced about 800 executions, yet
the Palestinians murdered 200,000 Lebanese on different occasions and
places. Could you help open an investigation into the matter? Lebanese
families, eye witnesses, will thank you and are eager to get their
rights back in court from Arafat murderers if they have the chance.
Can you arrange in the interests of justice to hear in the court in
Belgium from hundreds of cases of Lebanese victims of Palestinian
terrorism? Will you call as a witness Elias Hobeika a known Lebanese
traitor and Syrian operative who incited the event without the
knowledge or consent of Ariel Sharon in order to embarrass and blacken
Ariel's Sharon's name?
Additional information you should be aware of is that sensitive
information from Lebanese intelligence army sources show that
Brigadier General Ghazi Kanaan, head of the Syrian Secret Service in
Lebanon, is now pursuing a path of intimidation and threats through
many channels against former Lebanese forces leaders to force them to
testify in Lebanese courts against Ariel Sharon so as to relieve the
pressure on Elias Hobeika.
No Christian Lebanese will apologize for the deaths of assassins and
murders as their continued existence was at stake, and the Palestinian
executions occurred with a deep revulsion for the taking of lives;
however, these Palestinians were the victims of Yasir Arafat who
precipitated the killings by supporting an existential evil that
threatened the world. No Palestinian ever apologized for the
destruction of Lebanon a country that hosted them with a friendly and
open hands.
Sabra and Chatilla was no mistake, it was the Christian Community's
inability to continue to suffer their extinction and their planned
genocide that forced them to decide to halt once and for all
Palestinian terrorism in Lebanon, a country that has suffered terribly
from PLO terror while the world ignored us, making them willing
accomplices. Don't blame the Christians or General Sharon. The
Palestinians under Yasir Arafat and Elias Hobeika are responsible as
well as a world that doesn't care.
Sabra and Chatilla is a nothing more than a political attempt by
Yasser Arafat, backed by Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia, to undermine
and weaken Israel's Prime Minister Sharon. By doing so, they hope to
force Israel to return to the concessions given by former Prime
Minister Ehud Barak, an inexperienced, political player as compared to
Prime Minister Sharon. This is a failed tactic that will lead nowhere
as Sharon's political position is to encourage a meaningful peace in
the Middle East and is much stronger than these failed maneuvers and
lost attempts.
Mr Megally, your call to President Bush was inappropriate, as you
failed to present the full picture of the past events by
inappropriately judging one side and disregarding the offenses of the
other party involved in the events, not to mention that Arafat who
succeeded through the weakness of the Israeli left to import the chaos
and revolution from his Tunisian exile to the heart of Israel.
Thank you,
Nagi N. Najjar
Director of the Lebanon Foundation for Peace
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=================================
>From Israel to Damascus -The Internet Edition-
http://www.israeltodamascus.com/thebook.htm
>From Israel To Damascus: Back cover
This story is about the secret life of three powerful
men in Lebanon's history. The three
friends who began as brothers: Elie Hobeika, Bashir Gemayel and
myself, Cobra. We were
brothers fighting for a Christian Lebanon until the lust for
power and money corrupted the
mind and heart of Hobeika resulting in the betrayal of his
country to Syria.
Three friends: One man lost his life due to the
betrayal from his own house that lead to
his death. Bashir Gemayel only ruled for a short period of time
as president of Lebanon.
One man became a powerful politician protected by the Syrian
mechanism that currently rules
Lebanon. His name is Elie Hobeika. And I, Cobra, his closest
bodyguard and friend, defected
to France to live in exile fearful from any unknown retaliation
by Hobeika because I knew too
much about him to live in Lebanon. This is my story about
Lebanon's political underworld.
This is my experience, one man who witnessed the betrayal of the
Christian society by a leader
who switched sides from Israel to Syria for individual power and
position. I was the closest
man to Hobeika during his Syrian adventures. I followed his
every move and went anywhere
he went. I faithfully watched his back and followed him blindly
as he positioned for power in
the highest inner circles of Damascus.
My autobiography also depicts the story of a straight
soldier who believed in the
Christian cause. It tells how I grew up believing in my leaders
and followed orders even when
they contradicted the morals of life. I know now that I
committed wrongs and I ask God to
forgive me for my acts. When I realized the extent of my
wrongdoings, Ileft Lebanon and
decided to write this book to tell the unknown truth of what
really happened.
Today, I am a hunted man in Europe. My former leader,
Hobeika, his Syrian masters and
allies, are tracking me to keep me from exposing the truth.
Hobeika once burnt be many years
ago with the United States government because I obeyed his
orders. I now ask the United
States to read my story and consider my value as a human being
because of my mixed loyalty
as a faithful soldier under H.K.'s command. I plead that the
United States reconsider my entry
into the United States to live out the rest of my days in peace,
far and free from any threats of
death.
Today, I am a broken and weak man fighting against powerful
giants who have millions of
dollas and military forces behind them, they did not miss the
chance to use terrorism to
combat democracy in the world to gain their own political
purposes.
The United States is a superpower that protects the weak
nations of the world defending
freedom and democracy. Do not orget Lebanon. Today Syria is
ruling Lebanon through
terrorism. The Syrians have killed most of the Lebanese
leaders through assassination and
car bombs, exiled some of the leaders and jailed the leaders who
posed threat on them.
They imposed their candidates into Lebanon's politics so they can
govern it forever and make
it part of Greater Syria. I decided to expose my story so that
everyone will know that freedom and democracy does not currently exist in
Lebanon.
Robert M. Hatem
-Cobra-
Copyright (c) 1999 - Pride International Publications
CHAPTER 8
On the morning of Wednesday, September 15, 1982, the Lebanese
forces met at the Gemayel house
in Bickfaya. The house was crammed with mourners, and the
attendees decided to run Amin,
Bashir’s brother, for the president. While all of Lebanon’s
religious, political, military and civilian
leaders and Minister Sharon and the Head of the Mossad passed
through the room where
condolences were extended, an invasion of West Beirut was being
planned. It went off 12 hours
later.
In the afternoon of Wednesday September 15, 1982, Bashir’s
military and Intelligence lieutenants
met with the Israeli chief of Staff Lieutenant General Rafael
Eitan, and Major General Amir Drori, in
charge of the Lebanese operation.
I was later told by Hobeika that there were about 2,000 PLO
«terrorists» still hiding in the Sabra and
Chatilla camps. Hobeika advised me that he was in charge of the
organization of an operation to
clear them out. He also disclosed that the Israeli forces had
taken up positions in West Beirut and
expected us to supervise the evacuation of the Palestinians from
the camp. We were to sort out the
armed terrorists and hand them over to the Israeli troops at the
Cite Sportive, Al Madina Al
Ryadieh, cleaned up and fixed to serve as a rally point.
Meanwhile, the whole country stood
breathless and at a standstill, half of it drowned in deep
despair, and the other half paralyzed with
fear. So ominous was the tragedy.
Hobeika had 24 hours to prepare his elite key force composed of
200 men. The men were allotted
in several units respectively under the command of Joseph Asmar,
Michel Zouein, G. Melco, and
Maroun Mashaalani. General Shar¿on besieged the camps and the
Cite Sportive.
By noon on Thursday, September 16, 1982, the «Shababs» started
advancing through the Beirut
Airport Road. By 4:30 p.m., the Lebanese Forces had crossed the
Israeli lines surrounding the
camps. Sharon had given strict orders to Hobeika to guard against
any desperate move, should his
men run amuck. They were to behave like a real dignified, regular
army not like «chocolate soldiers»
and coordinate with the Israeli command. Their mission was to
exert pressure an the Palestinians to
drive them all out of the camp, and pick out the PLO agents left
behind after the evacuation of the
Palestinians in August, 1982. They were rallied at the Cite
Sportive and held prisoners. After
inspection the civilians would be sent back to their homes.
However, Hobeika gave his own
instructions to his men: «Total extermination ... camps wiped
out.»
It was Maroun Mashaalani’s men, undaunted by their regular and
immoderate use of heroine and
cocaine who perpetrated the most ghastly slaughters in the camp
bordering Ghaza Hospital at the
entrance of Sabra. That is where foreign nurses and doctors were
shot down in cold blood. The
minute General Ariel Sharon had been informed that something odd
and unwanted was going on, he
summoned his commanding officers and Hobeika.
At 7:30 p.m. on September 16, 1982, Hobeika and I arrived at
General Ariel Sharon’s
Headquarters. We climbed up to the terrace of the tall building
next to the Kuweity Embassy. From
there we could plunge right into the camp and have an overhead
view. Besides the Israeli officers,
Assaad Shaftari, Michel Zouein, Elie Hobeika «H.K.» and myself
were poised and ready.
The Israeli officers were jealous and filled with rage, blaming
Hobeika for actually ordering the
massacre of Palestinian civilians. Hobeika coldly retorted that
it was because of the darkness he
could not tell who they were. General Sharon, being too fat to
climb up the flight of stairs, waited on
the second floor to see Hobeika and have it out with him
personally. The minute he saw him he
roared out: «You were not supposed to do this. I didn’t ask you
to commit massacres. If I wanted, I
would have done so with my tanks. You’ll pay dearly for this
blunder!» Hobeika replied that he
would handle it with his men. Hobeika and I went back on the
terrace. Hobeika got a walkie talkie
message from a guy called «Paul» saying, «There are women and
children, what should we do?»
Hobeika answered, «It’s your lookout and don’t call me back
again, you shit.»
Hobeika, Zouein, Shaftari and I ran back down to the second story
where an Israeli officer drew a
map of the site with a piece of chalk on the floor, pointing to
where the massacres were taking place.
That is when we had confirmation that it was Maroun Machaalani’s
unit which was involved at the
entrance of Sabra Camp.
Hobeika went back to report to General Sharon his account of
events. General Sharon ordered his
men to fire flares from that moment on until 4:00 a.m. to avoid a
further blunder. It was too late. The
harm was done. All the victims were civilians killed with
grenades, hatchets, assault rifles, knives.
Some of the corpses were even boobie-trapped.
At around 6:00 a.m., the Lebanese Forces, arrived to inspect the
butchery. Fadi Frem, Fuad Abou
Nader, Steve Nakkour, Elie Hobeika and I inspected the premises.
Hobeika instructed Nakkour,
who was in charge of Logistics, to send tractors to clean up the
camps and leave no traces of the
massacres, wiping out incriminating evidence.
The Israeli officers prevented the Lebanese Forces from getting
into the camps with their chiefs. At
9:00 a.m., artillery fighting broke out between Maroun
Mashaalani’s men and gunmen from Moslem
shia Mekdad family members. The Mekdad families came to inquire
about their relatives who were
among the camp inhabitants. A Lebanese army officer ordered
Mashaalani to get off to stop the
skirmish. He complied.
By now, news accounts of the massacres had leaked out. The
reports became amplified, confused,
and mixed-up. Some witnesses claimed that it was actually Major
Saad Haddad’s men who had
perpetrated the slaughter because of the South Lebanon accent.
Not one single man from Saad
Haddad’s Free Lebanon Army took part in the operation. The
Christian militia was unchained and
blinded by rage after the assassination of their Chief,
President and martyr.
Once again, the mastermind, Hobeika had toyed with the lives of
young patriots, committing them to
carry out reprehensible actions which could serve only Syria’s
interests! It was the Syrians not the
PLO who had never accepted Bashir’s election. It was later
discovered and proven that Bashir’s
actual assassin, Habib Tanios Shartuni, was a secret member of
the pro-Syrian, anti-Kataeb Party,
Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SNSP). The SNSP was represented
by Assaad Hardane via Nabil
Al Allam Chief of Intelligence and Security of the SNSP. Syrian
Army Intelligence «conducted» by
Ali Douba assisted Shartuni in providing and stashing the bomb.
How could Hobeika claim that he
had received orders to massacre the Palestinians from the
Israelis? I did not know where his two
ultra secret meetings with Abdul Halim Khaddam during the first
half of 1982 fit in.
I was Hobeika’s field man always present on the premises with my
chief wherever he went. I can
state under oath, that General Sharon would never have lit up the
area the way he did had he planned
for any butchery. He would not have cleaned up the Cite Sportive
to house all the Palestinians
pending their return to their homes after verification. He would
not have placed his tanks and armored
cars all around the camps to capture the remaining armed
Palestinian agents. One thing was certain,
the Syrians had their men within the ranks of Lebanese Forces
leaders.
Reflecting back on the events of my life, all the facts led me to
believe that Hobeika was the man,
who in 1982, provoked the Sabra and Chatilla massacres. This
is my own assumption of what was
behind it because there are no real facts to support my claim.
After killing Bashir Gemayel, in secret
coordination with the SNSP and Syria, I also suspected Hobeika
was instrumental in the fall of the
Likoud Government. Prime Minister Begin and General Sharon
resigned, allowing the Labor Party in
Israel to come to power. This rise reversed the process and
destroyed everything the Likoud
Government had worked to establish with the Lebanese Christians.
Bashir’s death and the massacres were pivotal in the fall of the
Likoud Government. It is alleged that
Hobeika contributed to the destruction of the Likoud Government
plan for Israel and Lebanon
because of his participation in the events. While Syria was
working for a new consensus with the
United States, Hobeika became a pro-Syrian and a Hafez Assad
hero. Hafez Assad personally
placed a protective umbrella over Hobeika’s head to avert any
assassination attempts on Hobeika’s
life following the massacres of the Sabra and Chatilla camps.
The assassination of Bashir and the attacks on Sabra and Chatilla
also led to the fall of power for
General Sharon and Prime Minister Begin. Hobeika’s actions
changed the course of events. Israel
lost power and Syria gained it. It was the same mechanism that
destroyed the courageous Israeli
Government’s plan to save Lebanon and restore peace through a
solid and strong Christian state.
Following Bashir’s death and the failed Likoud/Israeli plan, the
United States then entered the
Middle-East conflict with a new consensus and perspective
different from the original Israeli
perspective. The Labor Party took control of the Israel
government and compromised the Lebanese
Christians with Syria. Rabin stated many times, he would not
mind for Syria to stay in Lebanon
should Syria sign the peace treaty with Israel. When Netanyahu
took office, the whole middle
eastern peace plan changed.
Five years after Hafez Assad kidnapped the American and western
hostages through the Hizballah in
Beirut, and released them later in Damascus. He did so to gain
the blessings of the United States
political power. The United States attempted to a deal with the
Labor Party, headed by Rabin in
Israel, Assad released 5,000 Syrians Jews from Damascus and
authorized them to leave Syria and
travel to the United States. The United States was blessing a
naive peace between Rabin’s Israel
and Syria. The Labor Party leaders believed this naive peace
with Syria. Rabin backed by United
States support sought a peaceful resolution to the Middle-East
conflicts. What Hafez Assad and
Syria wanted was the return of the Golan and Lebanon and to be in
a position of strength in the
balance of power in the Middle East.
Assad was loosing time. The United States Secretary of State,
Warren Christopher, traveled
numerous times to the bargaining table to resolve the terms of
the agreement, but was unsuccessful in
his diplomatic attempts. He failed because Syria never believed
in Israel. Assad was counting on a
change that might occur with the New World Order, perhaps a new
revolution with Russia that
would topple the pro-United States regime and establish the Old
Soviet Union, thus returning to the
Cold War. Assad could then take a power position in the
Arab-Israeli conflict. This never
happened. The Labor Party failed to understand the ideology that
prevailed in Damascus, a denial of
Israel to «exist» as a Nation in the Middle-East. Therefore, the
only peace that could dominate in the
region was the peace through strength. Hobeika succeeded in
playing Syria’s political game and
Syria was fooling the United States of signing a peace treaty
with Israel. The political perception of
President Reagan for the Middle East was the best. Peace through
strength. What Syria really
wanted to do was waste time and swallow Lebanon for its own. By
doing so, Syria gained economic
and political strength in the region.
On October 2, 1982, 17 days after the assassination of President
Bashir Gemayel, the Kataeb Party
Radio Voice of Lebanon announced that the man who perpetrated the
outrage, the assassin, Habib
Tanios Shartuni, age 26, was captured. Strange coincidence
indeed, Shartuni, his sister and
grandparents occupied the top floor of the small three-story
building which accommodated the
Kataeb Party’s Ashrafieh headquarters. A friend of mine, then in
West Beirut, overheard two SNSP
party leaders commenting that one of the greatest assets Hobeika
gave to the Syrians was the Bashir
story. One can only infer that Hobeika was behind Bashir’s
assassination.
Speculation of Hobeika’s participation in Bashir’s assassination
was wide spread. Hobeika had been
Syria’s man inside the Lebanese Forces. Hobeika had travel
numerous times with Bashir. Hobeika
made many contacts there, but it was speculated that he was
secretly working for the Syrian
interests. The last trip Bashir made to discuss the treaty,
Bashir got into a verbal conflict with Prime
Minister Begin. What followed was the Syrian leader’s plan to
assassinate Bashir with the help of the
SNSP. After the success of the operation, the leaders then
devised a cover for the operation. It is
reported that the Syrian Moukhabarat began circulating news that
the Israelis had killed Bashir
because he had gotten into a conflict with the Prime Minister
Begin during their last visit in Naharia.
The plan was to remove suspicion from the Syrians and color the
Israelis with the crime.
Many in Lebanon do not understand why Israel would kill a man
they had devoted and invested so
much time and energy into gaining peace for their country. The
whole Israeli project was built on
Bashir. When Syria succeeded in eliminating Bashir, the whole
Israel plan for Lebanon was lost.
There was no leader to fill Bashir’s place. Hobeika took
advantage of the situation by averting the
attention from the Bashir assassination to the massacres at Sabra
and Chatilla. Everyone forgot the
crime against Bashir and focused their attention on the camp
massacres. It was well planned and
successfully carried out. Following these events, the Likoud
Government collapsed, Prime Minister
Begin and General Sharon resigned. Alexander Haig, now the
United States Secretary of State, was
the man who gave his blessing to the «Peace Accord», who went
home without any success.
Everything in Israel collapsed and Syria was getting out of the
game victorious following Bashir’s
death.
If Bashir had continued forward with his plans in Israel, Lebanon
would have been the second State
in the Middle East to sign the peace treaty with Israel after
Egypt. This move would have ensured a
friendly government to Israel in Lebanon. The Lebanese Forces
were considered the Israeli
mechanism in Lebanon, with the tripartite agreement and the
Intifadas, Hobeika sliced the Lebanese
Forces into two pieces and took the half of it to the Syrian side
when he went to Zahleh. He
converted them working for the Moukhabarat Sourieh sending car
bombs and executing
assassinations in the Christian enclave for Syria’s interest.
Assad himself placed a protective umbrella
over Hobeika because the Palestinians wanted to kill him and gave
him a residence in Damascus and
protection for the «favors» he did for Syria.
CHAPTER 9
snip>
Chapter 10
CHAPTER 11
snip>
Karim Pakraduni, Bashir’s close political adviser, is one of the
rare Armenians to take an active part
in the Lebanese war. He and Nazo, Nazir Najarian, a Kataeb
Party military commander who had
led Kataeb troops in the downtown area of Beirut, Al Assouak,
were instrumental in the Lebanese
war. In the beginning, Nazo was a decent guy who never accepted
the predatory instincts of the
Lebanese military chiefs. However, he too did nothing to stop
the looting of the ports and watched
as $700 million United States dollars were stolen.
Nazo was quoted as telling the boys down on the front, « We must
resist material temptation. If we
become corrupt, we will lose the war. We will be submerged and
liquidated, not just here in
Lebanon, but as Christians throughout the Middle East!» Nazo
during the two-year war carried and
expressed our dreams for a strong Christian presence in Lebanon.
After Nazo’s brother was killed on the front and Nazo was
appointed as Commander of the Eastern
Saidon area. He too began filling his pockets and paved the
ground for the fall of this area and the
massive Christian depopulation from this part of Lebanon.
Contrary to Nazo character, who was once a pure and idealistic
field man, totally and whole
heartedly devoted to the Christian «Cause», Karim Pakraduni was
strictly a clever politician and a
manipulator. From the beginning of his involvement with the
Kataeb Party, Pakraduni promoted his
own personal interests. Pakraduni always operated in the
shadows.
Although an active Kataeb Party member since his early days,
Pakraduni simply could not pocket
what he called «the hegemony» of the Party’s founder and
President Sheikh Pierre Gemayel and
tacitly of his two sons, Bashir and Amin. Pakraduni admitted it
in one of his books. Sheikh Pierre,
the Rock, remained the rock indeed, to the end of his life, even
after the heaviest blow a man can
take, Bashir’s violent death, at the peak of his glory.
After Bashir’s assassination, Pakraduni intuitively and cleverly
sided and backed the «strong» man of
the moment Elie Hobeika. Pakraduni found Hobeika ambitious,
ruthless and underhanded.
Pakraduni enjoyed the love and admiration of the Kataeb Party
leaders, including Sheikh Pierre and
Bashir. He enjoyed the admiration of the power base that only
sought his approbation and marks of
favor.
Hobeika held an iron grip on the Kataeb Party’s Intelligence
Service and Security Affairs. He was a
full timer, apparently loyal, and devoted to the Family, the
Kataeb Party and the Christian «Cause».
The Kataeb Party, with all its might and supremacy, committed
itself to his «care», and he simmered
his way up undisturbed, striking secret alliances and luring
supporters blindly devoted to him into
believing in him and following in his footsteps. In the end, he
double-crossed everybody, friends,
foes, allies, and supporters!
Hobeika is a middle-class maronite townsman. Though born in his
mountain village of the Kessrouan,
he grew up in the Ashrafieh neighborhood of Gemeyzeh close to
Marty’s Square, Sahet Al
Shohada. In 1975, when the war broke out, he quit school, joined
the Kataeb party and carried
arms. He was soon admitted in the «Bejin» Group, close to Bashir,
under the command of Sami
Khouery and George Ferides. Although he was not in the lineage
of the «clan» of college-educated
high society boys, such as Fuad Abou Nader, Fadi Frem, Poussy
(Massoud) Ashkar, Elias Zayek,
Toni Kessrouani, Sami Khouery, Gaby and Jo Tutunji, Hobeika
forced himself into the elite circle
and commanded attention, because he out shone them.
Tough, ruthless, secret, and a strong supporter of muscular ways,
he threw himself headlong in every
front-line and killing ground. He participated in every bloody
and savage deed, mayhem and
maelstorm, starting with the December 6, 1975, Black Saturday
massacre of Moslems staged by Jo
Saade.
After the two-year war, his assignment to South Lebanon and
Israel and his return to Beirut, the
Kataeb Party assigned him to the Sin-el-Fil branch of the
Libano-Brazilian Bank as a ghost-office
boy. The branch manager was a prominent Kataeb Party member, Mr.
Kahaleh. However, with
the succession of military and security events, he was called
back and appointed chief of Military
Affairs and Third Bureau Operations and hardly ever showed up at
the Bank. Since then, he got his
salary check regularly until 1982, a check which I personally
picked up for him for years.
It was Hobeika who created the three Elite Force Units for
operations under the command of his
most loyal hardline followers: Maroun Mashaalani; Joseph el Hajj,
known as Abou Halka; and,
George Melco. By then, Hobeika had it made.
===============================
ELIAS JOSEPH HOBEIKA
(Elie Hobeika)
- Born in Kleiat in the Kessruan in 1956.
- Successive war names: Edward in 1977/78; Then H.K, after a
sophisticated a mighty
effective and powerful automatic machine gun called a « Heckler
and Koch» which we
used in the battle of Beirut and the Karantina in 1978.
- He married Gina Raymond Nachaty in 1981.
- He had a baby girl Sabine in 81, and she died in tragic
circumstances in 1982.
- He had a boy Joseph in 1983.
- He was placed at the Banco Di Brazil in Beirut in 1978 as
an office boy. He had
stopped school at the end of the complementary cycle (Brevet).
The Israelis made a
strong and influential man out of him... a legend, and what a
legend!
- He learned English and French and Computer in Damascus
during his exile after the
"Intifada" against him.
- He was humble and loved by his "boys" before 1982. He
changed completely after
Sabra and Chatilla and since then became money and power seeker.
- He believed that his halo of mystery and introversion
scared off people and helped
him build up his power and strong influence.
- He has no social activities whatsoever and shuns people except
for a bunch of slaves
for fear of being uncovered.
- He hasn't got a single friend.
- He has no love or respect for his family; how could he love
or respect his country?
- He has no political program and the day the Syrians withdraw
their backing to him, he
plans to flee to Brazil.
- His one and only hobby is peeping, and family shattering. It
is best if no one opens his
heart or house to him for he is a born traitor.
HOBEIKA'S LEGAL POSSESSIONS TILL 1986
- The Second floor in his father's house in Adonis, built by
Elias Shartuni as a gift.
- Seventh floor in Sfeir Building in Junieh right behind the
Equinox Night Club. half the
price was paid as a Present by Elias Shartuni again.
- An apartment in Kfar Hbab, the rent of which was fully paid by
Mario Simonides.
- An apartment house in Adma, on the third floor, while
Assaad Shaftari occupied the
second. The two flats were paid cash by Al Amn ( Security and
Intelligence).
- A Villa in Adma. Michel El Muarr offered him the plot of land
and Bank Al Mashrek
provided the loan for the building.
- A luxurious beach chalet in Halate, a present from Elie
Michel Murr.
- A bullet-proof silver-gray BMW car stolen from the Iranian
Embassy and repainted
navy-blue.
- A yatch (Cigarette- Hawk) formerly owned by (E.A.) and
anchored at the A.T.C.L.
(Automobile and Tourist Club of Lebanon in Kaslik).
HOBEIKA’S EXECUTION OF FIVE L.A. COMMANDOES
Sheikh Bashir Gemayel, in his conflict with the Lebanese
Army had kept the
Commando Units, (Al Mukafaha) off, from all Eastern regions.
Elie Hobeika seized this
opportunity to « liquidate»
any of them, the Amn guys would come across, whether in Dora,
the Northern Matn
(close to Galerie Matta) or in the Kessruan.
As a proof that the killing of a Lebanese Army commando had
really been carried out,
the gun of e
ach of the elements shot down, a five-bullet Smith and Wessen had
to be handed over to
Hobeika personally. In this framework, Hobeika received and kept
as a « souvenir» five
guns, representing five L.A commandoes killed.
===============================
I, Robert Hatem, known as « COBRA», certifies that I am ready
to appear before a Lebanese
Court of Justice to testify, when justice in Lebanon will be
stable and not corrupt on two conditions:
1. A general amnesty is granted to the power base that only
carried orders to the letter and
the arraignment of the
Leaders. And this only after a Syrian withdrawal from
Lebanon.
2. That I stand trial, side-by-side, with Elie Hobeika, so he can
face the truth far from
Syrian interference in the
Lebanese Judicial system, so everybody will know nothing but
the truth about what
happened. Then and only then
will the truth that is still hidden today by the Syrian and
Lebanese authorities in Beirut be
exposed.
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