THE 'national reconciliation' talks in Geneva between the contending factions in Lebanon look set to conclude an agreement which gravely threatens the future of the PLO as an independent organisation. While the leaders of Druze, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim forces talked in the luxury of the Intercontinental Hotel on the banks of Lake Leman, Syrian and pro-Syrian Palestinian forces were making a huge assault on pro-Arafat forces in Tripoli. Everything looks set for a final annihilation of the pro-Arafat forces.
The proposed agreement would basically signify the Phalangist Gemayel government recognising Syria as one of the main influences in Lebanon and repudiating its peace treaty with Israel. In return the Syrians bring the PLO to heel, ensure that the PLO stays out of southern Lebanon and make sure that the anti-Gemayel forces in Lebanon agree to some form of joint government with the Christians.
To see how the agreement works, it is necessary to establish what the different contending forces are trying to win. The Israelis want a peace treaty with Lebanon, and either a friendly Christian government or a partitioned, weakened Lebanon — with the Syrians out.
The Syrians on the other hand want to be the major force in Lebanon, through which they establish themselves as the influential power in the region which everyone has to deal with and make concessions to. In particular the Syrians want the United States to recognise them as the crucial power in the region.
By Paul Lawson
To do that the Syrians have to avoid being thrown out of Lebanon, and show that they are the real masters of the anti-Christian forces.
Following last year's invasion of Lebanon, the Israelis put Bashir Gemayel, military leader of the Christian Phalange, into the position of President. When Bashir was assassinated, he was replaced by his brother Amin. Once Bashir had been assassinated, his brother was happy to sign a 'troop withdrawal' agreement with Israel which amounted to a virtual peace treaty.
The project of a Phalangist-Christian and pro-Israeli government however broke down. It failed because a Phalangist government naturally excluded the Druze, Sunni and Shi'ite leaders and more fundamentally because it failed to take into account the interests of Syria's Assad.
When fighting broke out between Christians and Druze fighters after the Israeli troop pull-back, the Syrians were only too happy to pour arms and ammunition into the hands of the anti-government forces — not because the Syrians give a fig about the rights of the oppressed in Lebanon, but to weaken the Gemayel government, the better to force it to recognise Syria's interests.
Once the Lebanese army had got a bloody nose at the hands of the Druze and Shi'ite militias — and only US naval bombardments prevented a complete rout — it was obvious that some deal had to be done with Syria and its allies.
Paradoxically, this deal is at the expense of the Israelis in the short term — but even more fundamentally at the expense of the Palestinians.
Assad's regime in Syria has cleverly exploited the divisions in the PLO by backing anti-Arafat rebel Abu Musa. Syria has given Abu Musa victory on a plate, but at the price of sacrificing the political and military independence of the PLO fighters.
The pro-Arafat forces could now be massacred in the latest conflict, a cynical crime against the Palestinian people.
Behind the diplomatic wheeling and dealing in Geneva lies the hand of the United States. It seems likely that the present agreement has been cooked up directly by the US and Syrian governments — with the US delivering Gemayel and the Syrians delivering Walid Jumblatt and the other leaders of the anti-Gemayel 'National Salvation Front'.
It remains to be seen how Israel will respond to the attack on its troops in Tyre, and its exclusion from the diplomatic card-game in Geneva. What is clear however is that its attempt to firmly establish its own hegemony in Lebanon has been an ignominious failure. From the ruins of the invasion, Syria and United States imperialism are picking up the pieces.
In one thing only have the Israelis been successful — striking a savage blow at the Palestine Liberation Organisation. If the new blow against the PLO is being struck by the Syrians, then behind it once again lies imperialism.
The agreement between the different factions in Geneva, if ratified, will once again give the various communal leaders a slice of the governmental action. But working people will get nothing out of such an agreement. It will do nothing to alter the reality of the domination of the country by a ruling class in which the Maronite Christians will always have the upper hand.
The task of defeating the various reactionary forces who do their deals over the heads of the Lebanese and Palestinian masses is made immeasurably harder by the presence of the four nation imperialist 'peacekeeping force'.
Our task is to fight in solidarity for the independence of the PLO and for the unconditional withdrawal of British and all imperialist troops.