Background Report No Hands Across the Tables

A large round table covered with glittering silverware and an ornate embroidered tablecloth stood empty last week in the center of the Beau Rivage Hotel’s dining room. A dozen waiters in black tailcoats and white ties stood ready to serve the man for whom the main VIP table had been reserved: Syria’s first Vice President Abdel Khalim Khadam.

The restaurant at the hotel where the heads of Lebanon’s warring factions have been meeting since March 12 to try to end their country’s 10 years of bloodshed, has become symbolic of Lebanon’s new political situation. One need only glance at the way the tables are set up at the Beau Rivage to know who and what is what in the Lebanese imbroglio.

The main table has been reserved for the conference’s main political personality: the Syrian “observer” who acts, however, as a sort of viceroy, Lebanon’s new master, Khadam, for whose arrival the conference waited almost eight hours on the opening day before it began. He has never deigned to sit in the dining room with the other participants. He has been too busy conferring with them in his royal suite to come down and mingle with them socially.

On both sides of Khadam’s empty table sit the other participants. On the right, at another large round table, is the Chamoun clan, three generations of the traditional masters of the Shouf mountain Christians: the patriarch Camille, his son Dany, and Dany’s four-year-old daughter. The surviving daughter of Camille’s eldest son, Tony, who was reportedly murdered by the other major Christian clan, the Gemayels, has also made the trip to Lausanne.

At Camille Chamoun’s table, only the family is admitted. The advisers, the aides and the bodyguards sit at a table in the rear of the restaurant.

Next to the Chamouns sits their former enemy and new ally: 77-year-old Pierre Gemayel, the father of President Amin Gemayel and the leader of the Phalangists. The old man sits upright, as if on a throne, with his back to the lake and the surrounding view, one of the most beautiful in the world. His eyes seem to avoid the scenery behind him and the glittering restaurant surrounding him.

Beside him sit about a dozen advisers and “friends,” but Pierre Gemayel does not seem to see them or to listen to them, either. He seems lost in a recent past when, as recently as four months ago at the first Lebanese reconciliation talks in Geneva, he nourished other, vaster ambitions and aspirations for Lebanon, the Christian community and his son.

On the other side of Khadam’s empty table sits a small crowd of “lean and hungry men.” They drink water only and in spite of the hotel’s international gastronomic reputation content themselves generally with bread, salad and cheese. This is the table of Lebanon’s rising personality, Shiite leader Nabih Berri, and his men.

Further back sit the other participants: former President Suleiman Franjieh, who is believed to be more than 80 years old, and his daughter, Franjieh, a Tripoli-based Maronite Christian known for his pro-Syrian sentiments, is a millionaire. His daughter lives in Geneva in a 1001 nights palace. Outside, in front of the Beau Rivage, is her parked car, a huge gilt Rolls Royce.

HOPES AND AMBITIONS

Franjieh is sick, old and, as his friends say, “stinkingly rich,” and yet he still hopes to become Lebanon’s next Prime Minister. He is not the only one nurturing such an ambition, however. Rashid Karame, a former Sunni Prime Minister, also from Tripoli, who sits at a small rectangular table behind Franjieh, has the same ambition.

“Practically all Lebanese politicians, whatever their age or communal background, want to be President, Prime Minister, or at least Minister,” one of the participants commented. “We are all candidate for office whoever may be the next master and whatever the country that holds sway.”

Moving between the table are two elegant men, both wearing blue serge suits. They stop at most of the tables to whisper something in somebody’s ear and then move away to another table where one of the other participants sits and waits for the answer to one of his questions or requests. One of the two men is President Gemavel’s security adviser; and the other is Saudi Arabia’s “observer” at the conference, Rafiq Harari, himself a Prime Ministerial hopeful.

Harari is Lebanese-born and became a naturalized Saudi Arabian only some five years ago. The Saudis back him to the hilt and he has many supporters in Lebanese political circles. It is believed, however that the Syrians plan to veto his appointment which would take him definitely out of the race.

INFLUENCE OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD

The influence of the outside world on the conference can also be easily ascertained in this microcosm which the dining room has become. The French observer, Marc Bonnefous, a former Ambassador to Israel who now heads the Middle East department in the French government with the rank of Assistant Secretary of State, is at a tiny table, close to the corridor.

Bonnefous and his aide are lucky to be in the hall at all and to have a table for themselves. The British and Italian observers are not even in the building and follow the conference’s work from a building next door, a sort of annex to the Beau Rivage.

In Geneva, four months ago, the American observer used to meet with the participants in his office at the American permanent legation. Now, with the marines gone and with most Lebanese politicians considering America’s policy in Lebanon a fiasco, the U.S. observer, David Winn, a counsellor at the American Embassy in Beirut, has to linger in the corridors.

DRAMATIC CHANGE IN ISRAEL’S POSITION

The change in Israel’s position is even more dramatic. In Geneva, Israel seemed to be sitting right in the conference hall. Delegates openly admitted in private conversation that “before we can say something or before we take the slightest decision, we have to ask ourselves how Israel will react. We have the eerie impression that there is an Israeli behind every one of our chairs.”

But at this conference, the Israeli observer, a relatively unknown diplomat, keeps away from the conference building. His rare meetings with third-rate Lebanese officials look like clandestine affairs and take place in third-rate hotels well away from the Beau Rivage.

SYRIA ALONE IS IN CONTROL

Lebanon’s political image has changed during the last four months. The leading politicians are the same, with all their old weaknesses, vices and ambitions, but the facts have changed in depth. The abrogation of the May 17 treaty with Israel has changed the entire atmosphere. It has shown, the Lebanese say, that Israel and America are out of the picture for the time being and Syria alone is in control. Few believe that this situation can change in the foresee-able future.

Syria’s influence is now such that no one, not even Israel’s former allies such as the Chamouns and Pierre Gemayel, is likely to question it in the least. When asked whether they plan to call for the withdrawal of Syria’s troops from Lebanon, even the Christian leaders formerly known for their anti-Syrian sentiments raise their eyebrows in disbelief. When further prodded, they say: “This hardly seems an appropriate time for such a request.”

The talks are continuing, in public meetings and private consultations. They could drag on for days, even weeks without any conclusive results. There may be another round of talks or a series of rounds while Lebanon and its people destroy one another. Total reconciliation is in the distant future. In the interim, the country is like a battered ship in the stormy seas hoping to reach a safe harbor while some of the hands on deck are being washed overboard — like in an esoteric Fellini film.

Meanwhile, in his drawing room at the Beau Rivage, Pierre Gemayel reminisces about the “old days when Lebanon was Lebanon, the Christians were at home and all Lebanese were brothers.” When this correspondent asked him whether these days might return in spite of Syria’s presence, he turned his head in my direction and snapped: “I would not be here unless I was convinced this is the case.” If Pierre Gemayel believes what he says, he is the only man at the Beau Rivage Hotel who does.