TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081991/0819001.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.3 KB | 180 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

COVER STORIES

Deep in Kidnapper Country


Hizballah meets its newest and perhaps most potent enemy: tourists

By LARA MARLOWE/BAALBEK


    Baalbek is the most schizoid of Lebanese towns, home to
both ancient beauty and modern terror. Dominating the landscape
are the magnificent, 2,000-year-old ruins of three Roman
temples, their stone pillars rising high above the Bekaa Valley.
Since 1983, Baalbek has also been under the control of the
Shi`ite Muslim fundamentalist group known as Hizballah (Party
of God), whose members claim allegiance to Iran. Operating under
several different names, Hizballah is believed to have plotted
the 1983 bombing of Marine headquarters in Beirut that killed
241 Americans. Since 1982, groups tied to Hizballah have
kidnapped more than 30 Westerners in Lebanon, including more
than a dozen Americans.

    Lebanese kidnappers still hold 13 hostages, six of them
American. Though the whereabouts of the captives are unknown,
rumors often place them in Baalbek or surrounding villages. Yet
at the moment, Hizballah's grip on Baalbek is threatened by the
advent of peace. Lebanon's 15-year civil war ended last October,
when Syrian troops ousted General Michel Aoun, the renegade
Christian leader, from his power base in Beirut. Over the past
few months, thousands of Lebanese tourists have begun to return
to Baalbek, and both their dress and behavior are anathema to
Islamic fundamentalists.

    Slowly, Hizballah is losing its influence over daily life.
The Iranian flag still flies from the watchtowers of the former
Lebanese Army base, but its red, green and white stripes have
faded to a uniform pastel. Many of the hundreds of Iranian
Revolutionary Guards who lived inside the barracks have
reportedly left. Many women used to wear chadors, but now
relatively few do; over the past 18 months, the Iranians stopped
paying them to wear the long black veils.

    But the fundamentalist Shi`ites will not give up their
capital without a struggle. When 20,000 people, mostly
schoolchildren, gathered in the ruins for a Peace Day sponsored
by the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism in June, Hizballah fired its
antiaircraft artillery and the celebration ended in panic. The
ruins had been transformed, complained Hizballah in a
communique, "into a market where women show their flesh and
where obscene proposals are exchanged."

    The condemnation was accompanied by a warning: "If peace
signifies debauchery and delinquency, it won't see the light of
day. And if tourism means lust among the ruins, we will destroy
these temples on the heads of the evildoers."

    Hussein Musawi, 48, leader of the Islamic Amal wing of
Hizballah and the most powerful man in the city of 150,000,
smiles when the communique is mentioned. "The young men who
wrote this are a little hotheaded," he says. "We advised them
to exercise moderation. The ruins are ours. Why would a man bury
himself in his own house?"

    But the campaign of intimidation has continued. In
mid-July a grenade exploded in one of the Roman temples, again
routing the tourists. When three buses from the Christian
coastal town of Jounieh arrived during the Muslim feast of
Ashura last month, Hizballah followers blocked the road and told
the visitors to leave on the grounds that the Muslims were
mourning the martyred 7th century Imam Hussein.

    "Hizballah put up banners saying `Leave Our Town Alone'
and `Whoever Wants to Come to This Town Must Respect Its
Customs,' " says a Baalbek housewife who witnessed the incident.
"That night the Hizballah TV station showed a videotape of the
tourists, and the commentator said, `Look at this corruption,
this sinful behavior.' But the tourists weren't dancing or
singing. They just came to look." The city's several thousand
Syrian troops tolerate Hizballah's activities but would probably
intervene should the culture clash escalate. "The Syrians could
make this place free," says a Baalbek merchant. "But this is
Syria's gift to Iran."

    According to Musawi, Baalbek's Islamic leaders have no
objection to non-Muslims' visiting the ruins. "But we cannot
accept drinking in public places, men walking with women or
public displays of affection," he adds. Nor does Musawi welcome
the Lebanese government's plans to resume Baalbek's summer
festival. From 1955 until the outbreak of war 20 years later,
some of the world's leading talents performed under the stars
on the steps of the temple of Bacchus. Ella Fitzgerald, Cole
Porter, Ginger Rogers, Claudio Arrau and Mstislav Rostropovich
are but a few of the celebrities who have signed the guest book
now locked in the safe of the Palmyra Hotel, across the street
from the ruins. Says Musawi: "The people of this region no
longer want this loose living."

    But a few miles from Musawi's well-guarded office,
visitors to the archaeological sites are pestered by the keepers
of five camels with brightly colored saddlebags. "Have your
picture taken on a camel. Only $1!" they shout in Arabic and
French. Hucksters offer cold soft drinks, small brass replicas
of the temples and postcards.

    A Kalashnikov in his lap, a Syrian soldier sits on a lawn
chair in front of the monumental staircase leading into the
ruins. The soldier smokes cigarettes, chews watermelon seeds,
and jokes with the Syrian plainclothesmen who, like him, are
there to keep peace.

    The ancient porticoes and 70-ft.-high granite columns
dwarf the tourists wandering among them. From the esplanade of
the temple of Jupiter -- once the world's largest Roman temple
-- Anita Tarossian, 19, and her fiance, Hagop Bedrossian, 23,
stand gazing at the temple of Bacchus below them. The
Armenian-Lebanese couple have returned from Toronto this summer.
They epitomize all that Hizballah objects to. A
gold-and-turquoise crucifix hangs from a chain around Anita's
neck. Both wear shorts and stand with their arms around each
other. "We don't care what Hizballah thinks," says Bedrossian.
"Let them object if they want to."

    But the battle of wills in Baalbek is about more than a
question of shorts and hand holding. It is about the refusal to
relinquish territory. "Baalbek was left to rot by the Lebanese
government," says Musawi. "The Maronites are supposed to be the
rulers in this country and everyone else their slaves. Hizballah
rose up out of Baalbek to fight against Israel. Baalbek is the
capital of the Islamic resistance."

    Lest anyone doubt it, the main road into Baalbek bears a
sign saying "Martyrs of Islam Street, the road to Jerusalem."
A 15-ft.-high replica of Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque stands in
the middle of the highway. Nearby, the side of a building is
painted with the face of Ayatullah Khomeini and the words ISRAEL
MUST BE WIPED OUT OF EXISTENCE.

    Residents admit that the Iranians did many good things for
the city. The Khomeini Hospital, still under Iranian direction,
provides the best medical care in the Bekaa at half the cost of
other hospitals. The Path to Faith discount supermarket is open
to all. The Iranians dug wells, installed electric generators
and even built a fishery.

    Yet despite these good works, the people of Baalbek resent
the Iranian accents affected by their local sheiks, the ban on
alcohol and the isolation of their economy. "Lebanese Shi`ites
are a joyful people," says Hussein, 40, a shopkeeper. "We don't
mind Hizballah fighting Israel, but they're not fighting Israel
from Baalbek. Whenever there is an Israeli attack anywhere in
Lebanon, they turn on the air-raid siren. It's a good way to
politicize people. But if they hear people are dancing in the
park at Ras-el-Ain, they also turn on the air-raid siren."

    In the late afternoon, as the sun god worshiped here by
the ancients transforms the acropolis to a glowing pink,
visitors clamber beneath friezes of grapevines and laughing
fauns. Zeinab, 26, a Shi`ite woman from Baalbek, trudges down
the dusty road past the temple of Venus carrying a bag of bread
and an empty bucket. She is eight months pregnant and wears a
long, loose-fitting dress. "The tourists should wear what they
want to. I like to see them," she says. "Since they started
coming, it feels a lot freer."