There is today a political prisoner, a State prisoner. He is General Michel Aoun, sequestered for the past several months at Villa Gaby, Corniche Kennedy, in Marseille. What was his crime ? We perhaps recall that the former Lebanese Prime Minister did incarnate the democratic aspirations of his people, uniting all religions, between 1988 and 1990.
Despite the shellings, despite the treasons, despite their immense solitude in the midst of the community of Nations, the Lebanese never stopped asking for the departure of foreign forces and free elections. It is seldom that we see in the Orient a people unite and mobilize to restore or defend its citizenry. It is seldom that we see a people refuse to struggle against terrorism with the arms of terrorism. Finally it is seldom that we see a nation stand in front of History wanting only to show the face of its humble dignity.
That was however the fate of the Lebanese people, and this people was defeated and the keys to Beirut were give to Syrian generals. France let that happen and even encouraged such an Anschluss, thereafter representing the annexation as an inevitable outcome, but in reality it is partly the result of our policy. Yet, our Jesuit President - may the Jesuits forgive us - cleverly thought to show himself Lebanon's friend by saving Aoun's skin after having given away Aoun's nation.
Michel Aoun was thus admitted, the morning of October 13, 1990, in rather suspicious circumstances, on the grounds of our embassy. He stayed there several months awaiting President Assad's permission for us to extricate him >from there. Finally after much haggling...Michel Aoun arrived in France at the end of August, last year, without ever having been informed of the terms of his release.
The surveillance of which he is the object in Marseille, legitimate and protective, exceeded rapidly the norms imposed by those organizing his security. As admitted by a minister in the Edith Cresson cabinet: "The policemen protecting Aoun are not there to protect him - as was the case with Bakhtiar who was free - but also to prevent his free speech and outside contacts." Since the beginning of November, Aoun does not have the right to receive some of his friends or the press.
Here he is then, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, not only vanquished but gagged, cut away from him people, forbidden in this banishment of breathing the same air as his friends; exiled twice, away from his country wihtout being totally in ours. Our (French) Constitution states that "Any man who is persecuted because of his striving action to achieve liberty shall have the right of asylum on the territory of the Republic." Francois Mitterand could abide by the Constitution, but he felt the sly need to handwrite a note delivered to Michel Aoun the morning after his arrival. But to tell him what, exactly ? I quote: "The French Government will do what is necessary to have you treated as an eminent guest and friend of France." That's how a French President cheated an honest man with eloquent words... This letter, followed by Aoun's sequestration, points not only to a faulty friendship, but most imprtantly a lack of honor...
We can presently talk at length about the Maastricht accords on the one hand, and the languishing crisis of the French society. With regards to Europe, I want simply to relate the horrible scene told by Hubert Beuve-Mery in his memoirs, Paroles Ecrites: "The night of September 22, 1938, the ambassadors of France and England applied the knife to the neck of Benes saying, 'if you move you will be responsible for World War II and we will do nothing to defend you.' What will become of this famed Europe without a minimum of honor and "unruly courage"? A large German supermarkey not needing the Maastricht accords to exist, where profits and economy will be the masters of politicians, where all responsibilities, individual and collective can all meld together...
I tried to explain, as the events were happening, the vitality and fervor of the dreams of the crowds of Beirut. They were extracting their light from the forces of darkness. They talked, naively, of "moral resistance". A people working for the victory of the lamb over the wolf. The Lebanese were certain that courage would overcome bestiality, communion overcome cruelty, honor overcome vulgarity. I invent nothing. How many times did I hear them reshape the world. They saw themselves offering their future...as an example to other nations. The nations smiled at their efforts and their big words, distant, indifferent, amused, mocking. I remember Aoun telling me: "happy are they who can smile, their ironic lack of concern is the proof that they are free. I think I have always fought so that, in Beirut also, the people may smile then told of democracy."
...Today, Aoun is sequestered in a villa in Marseille; Lebanon is Syrian; and no one wonders what will be the outcome of a nation whose desire of the absolute was so ridiculed by her ennemies and friends...