Sen. Henry Jackson (D. Wash.) said today that the American government and people should know more about what the Syrians and the Palestine Liberation Organization are doing in Lebanon. He said their occupation has had a “disastrous impact” on Lebanon and the Lebanese people want to have their own country back.
Jackson described Lebanon as having been at one time the most advanced of the Arab countries. He made his remarks after viewing photographs of civilian casualties in Lebanon inflicted by the Syrian forces and the PLO since 1970; The photographs are part of an exhibit called “Zahle-’81.” Zahle is the largest Christian town in Lebanon which was under siege by Syria for more than 90 days last year.
The exhibit is sponsored by the American Lebanese League, an American group, and by “Help Lebanon,” a non-profit organization in Lebanon which seeks to help Lebanese Moslems and Christians caught in the civil war. It contains pictures of PLO attacks in Beirut and pictures taken during the siege of Zahle. They show victims of Syrian and PLO shelling, including a hospital destroyed by Syrian artillery and the wrecked chamber of the Lebanese Parliament which, as one Lebanese said, was in territory occupied by Syrian forces.
The exhibit was put on display in one of the hearing rooms of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D. Mass.), Rudy Boschwitz (R. Minn.) and George Mitchell (D.Me.). It may be taken on a tour of major cities in the U. S.
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