TRANSCRIPT: "THE ACCUSED" Ariel Sharon
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TRANSCRIPT: "THE ACCUSED" Ariel Sharon |
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PANORAMA
"THE ACCUSED"
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 17:06:01
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FERGAL KEANE: On a Autumn morning in 1982 an Israeli soldier walked into a
refugee camp and was
confronted with a scene of desolation.
EMMANUEL ROSEN
Journalist for Israeli Defence Force, 1982
It was very quiet, no one screamed, no one yelled inside the camp. I remember
the smell. I remember the
picture that people were lying one on another and some of them were already
dead, some of them were still
breathing.
KEANE: At least 800 civilians were massacred after Israel's Minister of
Defence, Ariel Sharon, allowed
Lebanese Phalangist militiamen into the camps of Sabra and Shatila.
Ariel Sharon speaking in 1985
Not one of us, no one of our soldiers, no one of our commanders, not myself, no
one of our political leaders
in Israel was involved in that tragic event.
KEANE: When Ariel Sharon says, and other senior Israeli officers, that they
couldn't possibly have
predicted what might have happened...
MORRIS DRAPER
US Special Envoy to the Middle East, 1982
Complete and utter nonsense.
KEANE: Nobody has ever been prosecuted for the killings or for failing in
their responsibilities to the
murdered civilians. This is the story of those who stand accused. In June
1982 Israel's army stormed across
an international border and invaded Lebanon. The Israelis said they wanted to
protect their borders from
Palestinian guerrilla attack and Ariel Sharon's army was soon laying siege to
the capital Beirut with its
Palestinian camps.
MOUNAIR AHMED
It was very scary because you always hear the close bombs by and you always
hear someone just died or
someone just got injured.
KEANE: An estimated 300 people were killed in a single day's bombing.
Dr RANAAN GISSEN
Israeli Prime Minister's spokesman
The threat emanating from Lebanon as far as the terrorism that was launched by
the PLO was such that if
we didn't go to that war, the whole northern part of Israel would have been
depopulated.
KEANE: After two months of war the PLO gave in to the Israeli demand that
they leave Lebanon. For the
civilians in Sabra and Shatila it meant peace. Children swam in the craters
left by bombs. Tens of
thousands of people were crammed into the ghettos of Sabra and Shatila. For
families like the Ahmeds
peace gave them a chance to start work on reconstruction.
NABIL AHMED
Many of the homes that we lived in had no doors, no windows. The ceiling half
messed up is shaky. No
water, no electricity. It was very, very difficult.
KEANE: An estimated 14,000 PLO and Syrian fighters were evacuated from
Beirut. With the fighters
forced out, many left behind in the camps felt afraid.
SUAD SURUR
It was natural to feel afraid after the Palestinian resistance had left, there
was an inevitable feeling of fear as
if we sensed that something even more terrible was going to happen, even though
we had no idea what it
was going to be.
KEANE: The people left behind in the camps had one enemy to fear above all
others. They were a
Lebanese Christian militia who had been at war with the PLO for seven years -
the Phalange.
NABIL AHMED: The impression of Phalange was like they're basically killers.
The minute they would
get hold of a Palestinian they would kill.
KEANE: The Phalange were led by the charismatic and ruthless Bashir Gemayel.
He was Israel's main ally
in Lebanon. Israel's Mossad knew from meetings with him that he wanted
to 'eliminate' the Palestinian
problem, and now he was about to become President of Lebanon. Bashir's
election worried the people of
the camps but they'd been promised security. It was a deal brokered by America
with the Israeli's and the
beleaguered Lebanese government.
MORRIS DRAPER
US Special Envoy to the Middle East, 1982
America said that the women and children and others left behind would be able
to live in peace, as long as
they obeyed the law and Lebanese jurisdiction. It was as simple as that - a
very simple document. I wrote
it.
KEANE: They needed that document because in Lebanon's civil war civilians were
routinely murdered as
witnessed by a British photographer several years earlier.
DON McCULLIN
I remember listening to an old lady protesting to a Phalange and I looked at
him and I looked at her and I
thought well what's it mean to him, this old lady, why is he bothering? Why
doesn't he just let her go? And
what he did, he saved himself the trouble and he emptied a magazine into this
old lady's chest and abdomen
and she just dropped down sighing.
KEANE: On all sides Lebanon's civil war embraced a culture of murder.
McCULLIN: People who committed the acts of murder that I saw that day were
wearing crucifixions and
were calling themselves Christians.
KEANE: But the people in Sabra and Shatila had been promised they'd be
protected from their enemies,
and then everything exploded.
BBC Radio News
15th Sept 1982
The fragile peace in Lebanon is threatened by renewed tension following the
disclosure overnight that the
President Elect, Mr Bashir Gemayel, died in yesterday's bomb attack on the
headquarters of his.....
KEANE: The Phalangists were distraught and enraged by the assassination.
NEWS: The Phalangist militia that Mr Gemayel once headed and the Israeli
forces are said to be on high
alert.
KEANE: A Syrian agent would confess to the killing but many in the camps
feared the Palestinians would
be blamed.
NABIL AHMED: People were scared, people get worried, and I remember my
mother's words that day in
Arabic she said "God protect us from what's coming".
KEANE: Israeli forces were now close by the camps. There was crossfire.
Nabil's mother urged him, as a
fit 16 year old, to try and escape.
NABIL AHMED: When my mother agreed with my uncle to let me go and run away,
everybody in that
shelter... I went down to the shelter, everybody, including my younger brothers
and sisters, started crying
and screaming. They wanted to go with me. Those moments were the most
painful. I'll never forget those
moments.
Wednesday / 15TH SEPTEMBER
KEANE: Ariel Sharon now decided to send his army into West Beirut, breaking a
promise to the
Americans that they would stay out of that part of the city. Israeli military
intelligence claimed there were
2000 PLO and other Muslim fighters in West Beirut. But in the event, the
battle was small.
General YORAM YAIR
Commander, Paratroop Brigade, 1982
There was not fighting. I have seen enough fighting in my life to tell you
this was not similar. It was
relatively very easy, very secure.
KEANE: For the Phalange, convulsed by grief and anger, it was a moment of
crisis. The director of
operations toured the front line.
FOUAD ABOU NADER
Phalange Head of Operations, 1982
I decided to go and visit every one on the front, every soldier, every barrack,
just to boost the morale and to
tell them that even if Bashir is dead, we can go on, you know.. we have the
legacy, we have friends, we are
still very strong you know.
KEANE: Ariel Sharon arrived in Beirut on Wednesday morning insisting there
were PLO forces in the
camps. He'd later testify he didn't want his troops fighting and dying in
Sabra and Shatila. And so after
conferring with his senior officers, including Amos Yuron, the Commander for
Beirut and the refugee
camps, Ariel Sharon agreed a fateful order.
"Only one element, and that is the Israeli Defence Force, shall command the
forces in the area. For the
operation in the camps the Phalangist should be sent in."
KEANE: Ariel Sharon went to see the Phalange at their headquarters to discuss
the Beirut operation.
Among the commanders was a close friend of the murdered Bashir Gemayel, a man
called Elie Hobeika.
His name will appear many times in this story. Now, a day after their leader's
murder, the Israelis were
asking the Phalange to fight in Palestinian camps.
Could Ariel Sharon have been in any doubt about what would have happened if you
sent the Phalangists
into a Palestinian refugee camp, an undefended camp?
MORRIS DRAPER
US Special Envoy to the Middle East, 1982
Well you'd have to be appallingly ignorant. I mean I suppose if you came down
from the moon that day you
might not predict it.
Dr RANAAN GISSEN
Israeli Prime Minister's Spokesman
All the evidence shows, and that was clearly also in the Kahan Commission
report, that first of all we did
not know. None of our officers ever could conceive of that.
KEANE: But you should have expected it surely. These people had been killing
since 1975 between them.
They'd suffered massacres at the hands of the Palestinians. What else did you
think they were going to do?
GISSEN: But under the guidance and control of our forces, we never expected
that that would happen. We
never thought that these kind of forces which trained with us, which were
supposed to take part in the
fighting, would actually go into that area. And under the guidance of their
leader, you know.. conduct a
massacre.
Thursday / 16TH SEPTEMBER
As Thursday, September 16th dawned the Israelis had moved into Beirut in force.
NABIL AHMED
We saw tanks.. we saw Israeli tanks, we saw soldiers. We did not come close to
them, just from a distance
because we would be arrested, taken away.
FERGAL KEANE
For the first time in history the Israelis had occupied an Arab capital. By
Thursday morning Israel's chief of
staff was able to tell Ariel Sharon the whole city is in our hands. There is
complete quiet now. The camps
are closed. Now that's a crucial moment because at that point Ariel Sharon and
his army became legally
responsible for the safety of the civilians in Beirut, and that included the
people of Sabra and Shatila.
Under the long established humanitarian laws which govern the behaviour of an
occupying army in an
international armed conflict, political and military commanders are responsible
for protecting civilians from
harm. Judge Richard Goldstone is the man who led the prosecution of suspected
war criminals in the UN
tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Judge Goldstone is one of the
leading figures helping to
develop war crimes law. He's well acquainted with the concept of what is
called 'command responsibility'.
Judge RICHARD GOLDSTONE
Former Chief Prosecutor
UN War Crime Tribunals, 1994-96
A military commander and a political leader who was involved in giving
instructions would clearly have an
obligation under the law of war, and under the Geneva Convention, to ensure
that innocent civilians were
not murdered or raped or injured in any way. Command responsibility goes
fairly far, it requires obviously
knowledge of the danger to innocent civilians if there's that knowledge then
there's an obligation to take
reasonable steps to protect them.
KEANE: In Tel Aviv Ariel Sharon and his Chief of Staff met with American
diplomats at the Defence
Ministry. The Americans wanted to know why the Israelis had broken their
promise and gone into West
Beirut. The Chief of Staff said it was to prevent a Phalangist frenzy of
revenge.
DRAPER: The whole group of maybe twenty of us altogether fell silent. It was
a dramatic moment.
KEANE: But the Israelis also mentioned the possibility of deploying the
Phalange in West Beirut. Morris
Draper says the Americans were horrified at the suggestion.
DRAPER: We made it very clear, under no circumstances could the United States
tolerate this.
KEANE: Why?
DRAPER: Because it would be a massacre, we knew. Couldn't let those people in.
Reconstruction
KEANE: But at around 7 o'clock the Phalange - about 150 of them - were let in
to Sabra and Shatila. It
was a small force. The Phalange knew there was no big PLO army waiting for
them. In groups they went
to people's homes.
SUAD SURUR
There were thirteen of them. They knocked on the door. My father said "Who is
it?" My younger brothers
were sleeping. The men replied they were Israelis. I whispered to my father
that they weren't Israelis.
Summer 1982
KEANE: The Phalange asked the Israelis to fire flares into the sky to light
their way. The Israelis agreed to
their ally's request.
NABIL AHMED
The sky was completely lighted all night long and after certain time and at
night we could hear noise heavy
coming from the camp.
KEANE: Groups of civilians were herded into the streets, 12 year old Mounair
among them.
MOUNAIR AHMED
They said the men and the older guys to go to the right and the women and
children go to the left. They
kept on telling us "Don't worry, you're going to be okay, you're going to be
okay, nothing going to happen".
KEANE: The Israelis had a forward command post about 200 metres away which
overlooked the camps.
There were Phalangists stationed on the roof with the Israelis. It was around
this time, 7 o'clock on
Thursday evening that an Israeli officer stationed on the roof overheard a
deeply troubling conversation. He
was standing close to Elie Hobeika, the Leader of the Phalange operation. A
soldier inside the camps came
on the radio. He told Hobeika he was holding 50 women and children. What
should he do with them?
Hobeika replied "That's the last time you're going to ask me a question like
that. You know exactly what to
do". There was raucous laughter from the other Phalangists. The Israeli
officer reported this to his
superior, General Amos Yuron. There would be more worrying reports to the
Yuron, but beyond warning
Elie Hobeika not to harm civilians the General took no further action that
night. Ariel Sharon was now at a
cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Ministers heard the Phalange were now in the
camps. Deputy Prime
Minister David Levy was deeply troubled.
"When I hear that the Phalangists are already entering a certain neighbourhood
and I know what the
meaning of revenge is for them, what kind of slaughter, then no one will
believe we went in to create order
there and we will bear the blame."
Reconstruction
KEANE: But the operation was not stopped. The Phalange were now attacking
people in their homes.
SUAD SURUR: Nobody dared look at anyone else. Even the little ones wouldn't
look at the older ones,
except for my little sister. While she was looking at us, a bullet shot her in
the head. She fell from my
mother's arms like a slaughtered bird. My brother Shardie was looking around
and calling out "Father"
calling for his father when he was shot in the head.
KEANE: Suad fell wounded among the bodies of her family. On the streets
groups of terrified civilians
were being shot at point blank range.
MOUNAIR AHMED: I was next to my mother. She was hit first and a lot of people
were crying loud and
little kids screaming, and I remember my sister was still alive and they told
her give us the ring and this..
which she did, and they shot her. There were also other things happening was
the woman telling them like
they would tell each other tell her take her clothes off and that, and that,
and they were hurting them other
ways before they killed them.
KEANE: An American nurse working in a camp hospital saw civilians fleeing.
ELLEN SIEGEL
Nurse
I became aware that people were being killed in the camp when people started
screaming and then running
to the hospital in large numbers and the people were screaming "Phalange" and
they had their fingers and
they were making a gesture across their throat like somebody was slitting
throats.
Reconstruction
SUAD: The men returned for a third time. They spoke to me nicely. "You're
still alive" they said. I shook
my head and smiled at them mockingly. They said "We're going to finish you off
right now." I said "As
you wish, do as you please." They shot me in the arm and they hit my head with
the butt of a rifle. One of
them shot me, the other one hit me. I lost consciousness.
KEANE: Sixteen year old Suad was also raped.
MOUNAIR AHMED: The hardest memories is hearing my mum praying and hear a shot
next to me and all
her blood was dripping on me, and that's the hardest one.
Reconstruction
Friday / 17TH SEPTEMBER
KEANE: Friday morning the Israeli Command in Beirut told the Chief of Staff
the Phalange had gone too
far. At 9am an Israeli tank commander saw the bodies of five women and
children. That morning the
Israelis briefed the press in Beirut.
"Yesterday night we had full control of all the important keys of the city
including the Palestinian camps of
Bourj Al-Barajneh, Sabra and Shatila."
KEANE: A Danish cameraman was one of the few outsiders to briefly capture the
Phalangist terror. The
women and children are being loaded onto a truck. They're terrified. Shooting
continues in the camp. The
Phalangist warns the cameraman. It's not known what happened to this group.
On Friday afternoon a group
of terrified women had escaped the Phalange and made their way to an Israeli
guard post outside the camps.
WOMEN: They shot and buried four families.
GUARD: I swear by God, I didn't see them.
WOMEN: We'll show you where they buried the people they killed. Come with us
to Shatila.
GUARD: I can't leave here.
WOMEN: We'll show you the bodies. Isn't it a sin? A nine-month old baby?
KEANE: The women asked the Israelis to seek the release of their sons and
husbands.
GUARD: When the Phalangists are finished with them, they will release them.
WOMEN: If they've been killing women and children how are they going to
release the young men? They
shot an old man and an old lady. They shot them in front of us.
KEANE: The people who went up to the Israeli soldier begging for help, what
did you feel when you were
watching those images?
Judge RICHARD GOLDSTONE
Former Chief Prosecutor
UN War Crime Tribunals, 1994-96
Well, you know I had the same feelings I had unfortunately too frequently in my
life and in my own country
in South Africa seeing women and children in those sort of extreme situations.
I came across those sorts of
images obviously coming out of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. More recently
in Kosovo where there was
similar ethnic cleansing, and needless to say, in the horror of the terrible
genocide in Rwanda.
KEANE: That Friday morning, concerned about reports of killing, the Israelis
surrounding the camps
ordered the Phalange operation halted. But the Israelis allowed the Phalange
to stay in the camps, and the
killing continued. An Israeli officer encountered a group of fleeing civilians
on Friday afternoon in West
Beirut.
General YORAM YAIR
Commander, Paratroop Brigade, 1982
I saw suddenly about 20 or 30 Palestinian trying to cross this road and they
are very hysterical and we didn't
allow them to pass. There was a young Israeli officer he got his order not to
let any Palestinian to cross into
the northern part of Beirut, and they were hysterical. I asked "What happened,
what happened?" They say
"They kill us." I say "Okay, go, pass."
KEANE: The colonel reported this over the radio to his superior, General
Yuron. Earlier General Yuron
and the Chief of Staff met the Phalange leadership. Though the Israeli command
in Beirut were now aware
of serious questions about the abuse of civilians they didn't raise the issue
with the Phalange. In fact it was
agreed the Phalange could remain in the camps for another 12 hours, and the
Israelis agreed to provide a
bulldozer for the demolition of illegal houses.
SUAD SURUR
Throughout the night I stared at my dead brother, sister and father. I was in
a terrible state of madness. I
even lost my memory. But what could I do? I'd lost the ability to speak and
couldn't shout out.
KEANE: Back in Israel between 8 and 9 Ariel Sharon was told the Phalangists
had harmed the civilian
population more than was expected. They had gone too far. The operation had
been stopped his Chief of
Staff told him and the Phalange would be out of the camps by 5am. Then, at
around half past eleven he
received another phone call.
RON BEN YISHAI
Journalist
I found him at home sleeping. He woke up and I told him "Listen, there are
stories about killings and
massacres in the camps. A lot of our officers know about it and tell me about
it, and if they know it, the
whole world will know about it. You can still stop it." I didn't know that
the massacre actually started 24
hours earlier. I thought it started only then and I said to him "Look, we
still have time to stop it. Do
something about it." He didn't react.
Saturday / 18TH SEPTEMBER
KEANE: An Israeli inquiry found that having heard the Chief of Staff's
assurance, it wasn't Ariel Sharon's
duty to order any additional steps. The Phalange did not leave when they'd
promised. There was another
three hours of killing and burying the evidence before they departed. In the
early hours of Saturday
morning, they arrived at Gaza hospital in Sabra. A panic-stricken Palestinian
medical helper begged the
foreign doctors working there to help him.
ELLEN SIEGEL
Nurse
He started begging, "Somebody give me a coat, please give me a coat. Somebody
help me." And so
somebody gave him a white coat and so of course he was the only person in the
group that was of Semitic
looking dark skin, and he was picked out immediately as we started to walk. We
didn't get very far. We
walked for about a minute and he was stopped. I saw him on his knees begging
and I turned around - we
were told to keep walking - and the next thing I heard was a shot from behind
me and I didn't turn around
and look back.
KEANE: At around 8 o'clock, 38 hours after they'd first entered, the
Phalangists left Sabra and Shatila.
The first Israeli soldiers to enter the camps were confronted with a scene of
horror.
EMMANUEL ROSEN
Journalist for Israeli Defence Force, 1982
In the camps when we entered, people were dead or dying. No one was screaming,
no one was talking.
They were all dead or about to be dead. It was very clear to see that they
were not shot to death, that they
were tortured. When I understood that these were the Phalange, the first
reaction were these people are
killers. They're really the worst people I've ever met. For me immediately
you know you go back to
pictures from the holocaust.
KEANE: In the rubble were children who'd been scalped, young men who'd been
castrated.
NABIL AHMED
I was hoping to find my family alive. Then, when I start seeing the bodies in
the streets, I accepted the fact
then that I'll be grateful to find their bodies. You see what happened, they
put them in a house, they killed
them and they bulldozed the houses on them, so we were digging the rubble to
identify. So we pulled the
hair of my relative and that's when we realised that this is the spot where
they are there.
KEANE: This was the house where Suad Surur had lain among the bodies of her
family.
ROSEN: Most of the soldiers that I knew they felt terrible about it, and they
felt that this is the time to
disconnect all the connections with this Phalange, just go out of this country,
this Lebanon, and go back to
being Israel defence forces.
KEANE: An American diplomat at the scene broke news of the slaughter to his
country's special
ambassador. Ambassador Draper sent a furious message to Ariel Sharon saying he
was responsible for the
area.
MORRIS DRAPER
US Special Envoy to the Middle East, 1982
"You must stop the acts of slaughter, they are horrifying. I have a
representative in the camp counting the
bodies. You should be ashamed. The situation is absolutely appalling.
They're killing children! You have
the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that
area."
KEANE: And you've had no doubt since then or at that time that Ariel Sharon
was responsible?
DRAPER: No doubt whatsoever. Well of course more Israelis have to share in
that responsibility but
absolutely.
KEANE: The Israeli government had first denied there had been any Israeli army
position in the area and
rejected any blame for what had happened at the camps. But in Israel and
throughout the world there was
public and political condemnation. Ariel Sharon was the target of bitter
criticism in Israel's own
parliament. He vigorously defended himself against any suggestion of
responsibility for the massacre.
Ariel Sharon speaking in 1982
Not for a moment did we imagine that they would do what they did. They had
received harsh and clear
warnings. Had we for one moment imagined that something like this would happen
we would never have
let them into the camp.
KEANE: But the pressure inside Israel did not let up. Four hundred thousand
people took to the streets to
demand a public inquiry, the biggest demonstration in the history of the
state. There was unease too in the
army.
General YORAM YAIR
Commander, Paratroop Brigade, 1982
Like always happened, all the politicians are throwing the responsibility as
fast and as far as they can, and it
happened so that suddenly we, the troops in West Beirut, were blamed for what
happened.
KEANE: Eventually and against the wishes of Ariel Sharon, the government set
up a judicial commission
of inquiry. It was for the Middle East a unique inquiry.
Dr RANAAN GISSEN
Israeli Prime Minister's Spokesman
Show me another nation that when two people.. you know.. Arabs kill Arabs or
let's say two different
people, it wasn't that the Jews were involved in, then the country, because we
were there, we conducted.. no
one forced us, we conducted our own investigation.
KEANE: Ariel Sharon faced detailed questioning by the Commission. His lawyers
argued he hadn't been
negligent in failing to stop the massacre, and no reasonable man could have
foreseen the danger. So how
well did Ariel Sharon know Lebanon's culture of murder? After one visit in
February 1982 he said of the
Lebanese "They're the kind of people who kiss ladies' hands and they murder."
Ariel Sharon knew of the
history of hatred between the Phalange and the Palestinians, and he knew that
Christian civilians had
suffered savage slaughter at the hands of the PLO.
NADER: Of course they burnt all the houses, destroyed everything, whatever
they can kill, they can rob,
they can rape, they have done this.
KEANE: Who was the enemy? Let's be specific about that.
FOUAD ABOU NADER
Phalange Head of Operations, 1982
The Palestinians were the enemy at the time, definitely the Palestinians and
all the people who were coming
to help the Palestinians to fight back.
KEANE: Many in the Israeli ranks in Lebanon knew exactly what the Phalange
felt about the Palestinians.
EMMANUEL ROSEN
Journalist for Israeli Defence Force, 1982
Hatred is not enough to say how they treated the Muslims and the Palestinians
in Lebanon. The way they
described what they're going to do to them when they are going to control
Lebanon, they use the
terminology that I never heard before. Terminology that maybe was common in
Lebanon but not in Israel,
even in the most bitter days of terror attacks and everything that we had to go
through all these years.
KEANE: In Beirut one Israeli officer had a shocking request from a Phalangist.
General YORAM YAIR
Commander, Paratroop Brigade, 1982
He say "Do me a favour, make sure to bring me that much." I say what is it?
He say "Listen, I know that
you will sooner or later go inside West Beirut. Promise me that you will bring
me that much Palestinian
blood, I want to drink it."
KEANE: Just six weeks before Sabra and Shatila, Ariel Sharon ordered his
troops to take all steps to stop
the Phalange abusing another group, the Druse. But why, when he talked of the
Lebanese as 'murderers',
did he allow the Phalange into the camps?
Dr RANAAN GISSEN
Israeli Prime Minister's spokesman
Well you know we live in the Middle East so we do not always have the choice of
choosing our allies or our
enemies. We have to take them as they come.
KEANE: Even if they're butchers?
GISSEN: No, I'm saying we had the belief, and I think perhaps a misguided
belief, we thought that after
training them and after going, that they will follow orders, and this is a
disciplined army.
KEANE: But the Kahan Commission, the inquiry headed by the most senior judge
in Israel, said Ariel
Sharon had "disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the
Phalangists against the
population of the refugee camps. He failed to take this danger into account
when he decided to have the
Phalangists enter the camps." And he'd failed to order "..appropriate
measures for preventing or
reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangist entry into
the camps."
DOV WEISGLASS
Lawyer for Ariel Sharon at Kahan Commission
I don't think that anyone disputes that the Commission has done a good faced,
honest and straight work of
the collection of the facts. As much as the conclusion which were drawn out of
these facts, not all of them
are accepted by him. The conclusion that himself and the others had to foresee
this possibility is denied.
KEANE: Ariel Sharon lost his job as Defence Minister but stayed in the
cabinet. He's never accepted the
finding of indirect responsibility. But Sabra and Shatila was a war crime.
The question never asked by the
Kahan Commission was whether there should be indictments. Let us ask that
question first of the Phalange.
None has ever been arrested or charged in relation to what happened in the
camps. Some are now
successful businessmen living in Beirut. Fouad Abou Nader told us he was aware
of Israeli accounts which
implicate him and other commanders in the plan to send men into camps. He
denies any part in the
massacre.
KEANE: Who did do the killing?
FOUAD ABOU NADER
Phalange Head of Operations, 1982
I don't want to comment about that. I told you there is a lot of question
marks on this issue and I'm not sure
I can.. I have myself the real answers to this.
KEANE: Are you worried that this might ever become an issue for war crimes,
that somebody might
pursue people in the Lebanese forces, pursue you for example on the basis of
what's been said by the
Israelis for war crimes?
NADER: I have peace of mind on this issue. I don't think I am concerned at
all in this. I am not afraid at
all of any such kind of inquiry.
KEANE: Do you feel angry then when you hear yourself effectively being accused
of war crimes?
NADER: Oh yes, oh yes I am very angry.
KEANE: Are you a little worried as well perhaps?
NADER: No, not at all. Not at all. Not at all.
KEANE: But the man accused of leading the slaughter is still living in East
Beirut. His name is Elie
Hobeika. Hobeika eventually switched sides, abandoning the Israelis, offering
his services to the Syrians
and becoming leader of the militia. Elie Hobeika's reputation as a ruthless
killer makes him a man still
feared in Beirut. We've asked him for an interview on a number of occasions
and he's refused. But he has
now agreed to a meeting and I'm hoping to be able to record some of our
conversation. How did Elie
Hobeika answer the charges against him?
Voice of ELIE HOBEIKA
Phalange commander, 1982
I'm not a war criminal. I don't regard myself as a war criminal.
KEANE: You're described as a ruthless, cold killer.
HOBEIKA: Yes.
KEANE: Do you think that's all untrue, that description of you?
HOBEIKA: I did the war. I was a soldier. I fought at many fronts. I
survived.
KEANE: You say that you are now a man of peace. Can I just put to you the
other scenario, that you are a
mass murderer who is lying to avoid being brought to justice.
HOBEIKA: Which justice?
KEANE: International justice.
HOBEIKA: I am not afraid of international justice.
KEANE: But what about those whom the Kahan Commission said had indirect
responsibility, those
accused of disregarding the danger to civilians and of failing to ensure the
proper protection of civilians in
the areas under their control?
I understand that as a judge of a South African court you don't want to get
into labelling people in other
countries as war criminals, but in your assessment of command responsibility,
isn't it reasonable to say that
if responsibility goes all the way to the top, to the person who gave the
orders, that potentially makes Ariel
Sharon a war criminal.
Judge RICHARD GOLDSTONE
Former Chief Prosecutor
UN War Crime Tribunals, 1994-96
Well it depends very much on the facts, but if the person who gave the command
knows, or should know on
the facts available to him or her, that is a situation where innocent civilians
are going to be injured or killed,
then that person is as responsible, in fact in my book more responsible even
than the people who carry out
the order.
KEANE: One lawyer who was part of an independent commission that investigated
Sabra and Shatila
argues that Israel's then Defence Minister had clear legal responsibilities.
Professor RICHARD FALK
International Law, Princeton University
Sharon's specific command responsibility arises from the fact that he was
Minister of Defence in touch with
the field commanders, that he actually was present there in Beirut, that he met
with the Phalange leadership
and it was he that gave the directions and orders that resulted in the Phalange
entering the camps in
September.
KEANE: Professor Falk argues that Ariel Sharon's failure to meet the
responsibility to protect civilians
from abuse and death should have legal consequences.
FALK: I think there is no question in my mind that he is indictable for the
kind of knowledge that he either
had or should have had.
KEANE: So let me be absolutely clear, you are in no doubt that Ariel Sharon is
indictable as a war
criminal.
FALK: No doubt whatsoever.
DOV WEISGLASS
Lawyer for Ariel Sharon at Kahan Commission
Never ever I heard that anyone even suggested that this kind of.. let's call it
a professional mistake, a
professional military mistake or a professional political mistake even be
mentioned in the same token with
international crime or with war crime. In a way those people who do say,
unfortunately, abuse, I think, a
very important value of the international community which the intention and the
need to punish war crimes.
But when you take the word 'war crimes' or 'punishment of war crimes'
or 'international trial' and you try to
apply it into this case, you see it's an abuse of these important values and
it's simply totally baseless.
KEANE: The legacy of Sabra and Shatila hasn't damaged the careers of the
central characters. Elie
Hobeika became a minister for refugees in post war Lebanon. General Amos
Yuron, the Israeli
Commander outside the camps, is now Director General of Israel's Defence
Ministry, and earlier this year
Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel. The massacre seemed long
forgotten when Mr Sharon
arrived at the White House.
GEORGE BUSH: Welcome Mr Prime Minister. Glad you're here.
SHARON: Thank you.
Dr RANAAN GISSEN
Israeli Prime Minister's spokesman
People who were there, just because they were there, paid the full price for
that.
KEANE: Did they?
GISSEN: I think so.
KEANE: Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister, Amos Yuron who was Commander at Sabra
and Shatila is now
Director General of the Defence Ministry. What kind of price is that?
GISSEN: Well we paid for something that they were not directly responsible
for, that they did not do.
KEANE: The question of legal justice is on the minds of some of those who
survived the massacre. Suad
Surur was crippled for life and she lost six members of her family including
her father.
SUAD: He is dead. How can I claim justice for him when he is dead. I might
be able to get justice for the
people killed in their own homes, but the people who did this crime might also
be dead by then.
KEANE: If a country launches it's own investigation, it's own commission, for
example the Kahan
Commission which is based really as a moral investigation, is that enough? Can
it be said to have satisfied
the requirements of justice?
Judge RICHARD GOLDSTONE
Former Chief Prosecutor
UN War Crime Tribunals, 1994-96
Well clearly justice requires that criminals should be brought to book and if
people, regardless of who they
are, are shown by an investigation to have been in breach of the law, then
clearly criminal prosecution
should follow, and in the case of Sabra and Shatila, clearly the Kahan
Commission found that very serious
crimes had been committed and I have no doubt any decent person would regret
the fact that not a single
criminal prosecution followed.
KEANE: Ariel Sharon said recently he regretted the tragedy of Sabra and
Shatila, but asked if he would
apologise he replied "To apologise for what?"
_______
If you want to comment on any of the issues raised in tonight's programme you
can visit our website at
www.bbc.co.uk/panorama
CREDITS
Reporter
Fergal Keane
Film Camera
Ian Kennedy
Colin Regal
Richard Atkinson
Sound Recordists
Nick Berry
VT Editor
Boyd Nagle
Graphic Design
Kaye Huddy
Julie Tritton
Film Research
Eamonn Walsh
Production Team
Rosa Rudnicka
Ben Peachey
Production Manager
Martha Estcourt
Unit Manager
Maria Ellis
Film Editor
Bernard Lyall
Assistant Producer, Israel
Yossi Avishai
Associate Producer
Darren Kemp
Producer
Aidan Laverty
Deputy Editors
Andrew Bell
Editor
Mike Robinson
15
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Transcribed by 1-Stop Express Services, London W2 1JG Tel: 020 7724
7953 E-mail 1-stop@msn.com