Beirut yesterday rejected a blanket amnesty for collaborators once Israel's forces withdraw from the occupation zone in south Lebanon. The Lebanese Prime Minister, Dr Selim Hoss, dismissed the pardon demand put forward on Monday by the head of Israel's client South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia, Gen Antoine Lahad.
"It is strange that Lahad asks for general amnesty while he is still attacking his own country, its civilians and even its army alongside its enemy," Dr Hoss said.
Gen Lahad, who has been sentenced to death in absentia by a Lebanese court, said the SLA's 2,500 members had only three choices: emigration, submission to Lebanese law or defending themselves against a government which refuses to pardon them.
Gen Lahad's attempt to equate SLA members with Lebanese who were granted amnesty for taking up arms in the 1975-90 civil war has been rejected on the ground that the SLA is the creation of an enemy state, Israel, while the militias which fought each other were Lebanese-founded and -funded.
Israel is under pressure from the UN and France to disband and disarm the SLA ahead of the pullout scheduled to take place by early July. Israel has, reportedly, given up the idea that SLA troops will return personal arms but has not decided the fate of Soviet-made T-55 tanks, artillery pieces, machineguns and mortars supplied to the SLA.
Concern has been expressed that the SLA could use the heavy weapons to wage war against Beirut, putting at risk UN peacekeepers moving into the evacuated border zone, including the men of Irishbatt manning the exposed central sector. It has even been suggested that angry SLA members could use their arms to retaliate against Israel.
