Lebanese Reconciliation Talks Are Bogged Down over a Draft Agreement

The Lebanese national reconciliation conference, entering its second week here, was bogged down as leaders of the warring factions continued to wrangle over a draft agreement for a more equitable sharing of political power between Christians and Moslems.

The cease-fire in Beirut, on which all factions were in accord when it was declared last Tuesday, broke down over the weekend in a new eruption of fighting that claimed at least 15 lives. Fear was expressed that the renewed clashes might render meaningless any progress made in the discussions here.

“The conference might be entering many difficulties,” are observer remarked after hours of inconclusive bargaining yesterday. “We want a new historical compromise and if we do not get it, it will mean another 10 years of civil war,” Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Druze community, warned.

ARGUING OVER A WORKING PAPER

The participants are arguing over a working paper prepared by President Amin Gemayel that would grant equal representation in parliament to Christians and Moslems. The Christians presently command 53 seats to 45 for the various Moslem factions. Gemayel’s compromise would also expand the powers of the Prime Minister, who is traditionally a Moslem and correspondingly reduce those of the President, a Maronite Christian.

But conference sources said Jumblatt and Nabih Berri, leader of the Shiite Moslem Al Amal militia, are demanding more far reaching reforms, though they have not rejected Gemayel’s paper entirely.

Berri is said to want an end to the “confessional” system which has governed Lebanese politics since the country was granted independence by France in the 1940s. Under that system, seats in Parliament are allocated in accordance with the numerical strength of the various religious groups.

Former President Sulieman Franjieh, a Maronite Christian allied with Berri against his co-religionists of the Gemayel clan, would like the old system retained in part. Syria’s Foreign Minister and newly appointed First Vice President, Abdel Khalim Khadam, was reportedly mediating between the two.

Khdam is attending the conference ostensibly as an observer. But most observers agree that Syria is running the conference although it seems now to be having difficulties reconciling the anti-government factions that it supports.

ISRAELI REPORTERS OUSTED FROM PRESS CONFERENCE

Meanwhile, three Israeli correspondents were ousted from a press conference called by Berri on Friday. He had invited 50 local and foreign journalists to his hotel suite but the Israelis were blocked by his bodyguards and ordered to leave. Berri explained later, “I do not talk to the enemy. We are now at war with Israel.”

The Israelis immediately lodged a protest with the Swiss Foreign Minister Pierre Auber in Berne, complaining of discrimination for national and religious reasons. A Foreign Ministry aide discussed the matter with the Lebanese Ambassador but the Swiss decided not to pursue it for fear of making matters worse, a spokesman said.

ISRAEL NOT DISCOURAGED BY ACCORD’S ABROGATION

Menahem Savidor, Speaker of the Knesset, who is in Geneva, called his own press conference at United Nations headquarters there Friday. He said Israel was not discouraged by Lebanon’s abrogation of its May 17, 1983 withdrawal and security agreement with Israel. The Lebanese Cabinet declared it “null and void” on March 5, before the Lausanne conference opened.

Savidor said Israel would not pull its troops out of Lebanon unilaterally and not until it has ironclad guarantees that south Lebanon will not again become a staging area for terrorist attacks on Israel. He said that is was possible that after a reasonable lapse of time, conditions might be created for negotiations with moderate parties in Lebanon to ensure the security of Israel’s northern borders.

He said that Israel continues to maintain contact with all parties concerned. “It cannot be ruled out that once more a buffer zone will be established,” he said. Asked if Israel would pull out of Lebanon if the conference demands it, he replied, “How can one trust a written agreement from people who embrace in the morning and quarrel and kill each other in the evening.”

He was referring to the fierce verbal battles and the angry walk-outs that have alternated with demonstrations of amity since the reconciliation conference opened here last Monday and the renewed fighting in Beirut despite the cease-fire ordered by all the factions.