LONDON: A web of evasions and untruths concocted by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), sent 200 Lebanese militiamen into Sabra and Shatila on Sept 16, 1982 to “mop up” 2,000 “terrorists” who Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s defence minister, claimed had remained there after the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO’s) evacuation from Beirut. It is an encounter that shows the intimacy between the IDF and the LF, even after the massacre, and the virtual incorporation of the LF into the IDF structure.

Two almost identical reports of this meeting - one identified as “a transcript of a conversation recorded by an aide to the commander of the Northern District”; the other as “Minutes of Mossad (4222) of a meeting between Israeli chief of staff and Gen Drori with Toto” - are among a stack of documents delivered to lawyers seeking to bring Sharon, now Israel’s prime minister, to trial in Belgium for war crimes committed in Lebanon 19 years ago when he had overall responsibility for the IDF.

The documents cover the period between June and November 1982 - from a meeting in which “the cabinet has decided to have the Lebanese army and the Phalangists participate in the entering of Beirut” to the testimony to Israel’s Kahan commission of inquiry of a senior military intelligence officer, Col Elkana Harnof. Some are in Hebrew; others in English. Michael Verhaeghe, one of three lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the case against Sharon, has little doubt about the documents’ authenticity. They arrived anonymously in June, within 10 days of the suit being lodged under legislation that allows Belgium to prosecute foreigners for war crimes, wherever they were committed.

“The documents give a very detailed account of a number of events which would be very difficult to fabricate - especially in that very short period of time,” says Verhaeghe. Investigations by the Guardian in Israel and Lebanon have confirmed the identity of the intelligence officers named in the documents as well as the dates, times and locations of some of the meetings, those who attended them and some of their content. The typescript of the Hebrew documents matches that used at the time of Kahan. And the voices of many of the protagonists are unmistakable - among them the courtly Pierre Gemayel, patriarch of the Gemayel family, and Sharon, referred to throughout as DM. Thus, from minutes of a meeting on Aug 21 at Gemayel’s home in Bikfaya: Pierre: “I visited Israel several times. I was very impressed.” DM: “How to create power and how to convey its presence is the great test. We were 18 million, six million were exterminated. The use of power is what I want to discuss with you.”

The lawyers say the documents’ importance lies in recurring evidence that the IDF had “command responsibility” for the Lebanese Forces before, during and after the massacre. Thus, according to a summary of a meeting in which “the capture of Beirut” was discussed with LF leaders on July 13, Gen Eitan “explained that the IDF would provide all the necessary support: artillery, air etc as if they were regular IDF units”.

“Under the established law of command responsibility - also known as indirect responsibility - this is watertight evidence of the conscious and effective chain of command,” says Chibli Mallat, one of Verhaeghe’s colleagues.

In February 1983, the Kahan commission found that no Israeli was “directly responsible” for the massacre, but determined that Sharon bore “personal responsibility”. It ruled that he was negligent in ignoring the possibility of bloodshed in the camps following the assassination of the Lebanese Forces’ leader, president-elect Bashir Gemayel, on September 14 - a massacre that Sharon publicly, and erroneously, blamed on Palestinians. Sharon resigned his defence portfolio, but stayed in the cabinet.

In Brussels on Thursday an appeals court met in closed session to decide whether to put Israel’s prime minister on trial. According to excerpts from testimony to Kahan on Oct 22, Mossad chief Yitzhak Hoffi says the Phalangists “talk about solving the Palestinian problem with a hand gesture whose meaning is physical elimination. I don’t think anybody had any doubts about this. They raised the issue of Lebanon being unable to survive as long as this size of population existed there.” Similarly, Col Harnof, in a summary of his testimony a month later: “It was possible to surmise from contacts with the Phalange leaders what were their intentions towards the Palestinians: “Sabra would become a zoo and Shatila Beirut’s parking place.” When they participated in actions east of Bahamdoun (when they operated against the Druze) they ran straight to the villages and committed massacres.”

“I have a very profound belief that it is difficult to have peace in the Middle East without minimal accountability, certainly for the largest crimes,” says Mallat. “We need a day of reckoning for the outstanding crime against humanity committed in Sabra and Shatila.” —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.