16/10 28 years on after the Massacre...please remember

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:24

Accountability, justice and basic civil rights for the survivors are still denied. Its time to commemorate one of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century.



Below are extracts taken from Robert Fisk, journalist at the time for The Times and an eye witness...IF you are able, I URGE you to read the article, it is very graphic...



What we found inside the Palestinian camp at ten o'clock on the morning of September 1982 did not quite beggar description...



But these people, hundreds of them had been shot down unarmed. This was a mass killing, an incident - how easily we used the word "incident" in Lebanon - that was also an atrocity. It went beyond even what the Israelis would have in other circumstances called a terrorist activity.



It was a war crime.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:25

We might have accepted evidence of a few murders; even dozens of bodies, killed in the heat of combat. Bur there were women lying in houses with their skirts torn torn up to their waists and their legs wide apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall.



There were babies - blackened babies babies because they had been slaughtered more than 24-hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition - tossed into rubbish heaps alongside discarded US army ration tins, Israeli army equipment and empty bottles of whiskey.





Just inside the the southern entrance to the camp, there used to be a number of single-story, concrete walled houses. I had conducted many interviews in these hovels in the late 1970's. When we walked across the muddy entrance to Chatila, we found that these buildings had been dynamited to the ground. There were cartridge cases across the main road.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:26

I saw several Israeli flare canisters, still attached to their tiny parachutes. Clouds of flies moved across the rubble, raiding parties with a nose for victory.



Down a laneway to our right, no more than 50 yards from the entrance, there lay a pile of corpses. There were more than a dozen of them, young men whose arms and legs had been wrapped around each other in the agony of death. All had been shot point-blank range through the cheek, the bullet tearing away a line of flesh up to the ear and entering the brain. Some had vivid crimson or black scars down the left side of their throats. One had been castrated, his trousers torn open and a settlement of flies throbbing over his torn intestines.



The eyes of these young men were all open. The youngest was only 12 or 13 years old. They were dressed in jeans and coloured shirts, the material absurdly tight over their flesh now that their bodies had begun to bloat in the heat. They had not been robbed.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:27

On one blackened wrist a Swiss watch recorded the correct time, the second hand still ticking round uselessly, expending the last energies of its dead owner.





On the other side of the main road, up a track through the debris, we found the bodies of five women and several children. The women were middle-aged and their corpses lay draped over a pile of rubble. One lay on her back, her dress torn open and the head of a little girl emerging from behind her. The girl had short dark curly hair, her eyes were staring at us and there was a frown on her face. She was dead.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:29

Another child lay on the roadway like a discarded doll, her white dress stained with mud and dust. She could have been no more than three years old. The back of her head had been blown away by a bullet fired into her brain. One of the women also held a tiny baby to her body. The bullet that had passed into her breast had killed the baby too. Someone had slit open the woman's stomach, cutting sideways and then upwards, perhaps trying to kill her unborn child. Her eyes were wide open, her dark face frozen in horror.



When does a killing become an outrage? When does an atrocity become a massacre? Or, put another way, how many killings make a massacre? Thirty? A hundred? Three hundred? When is a massacre not a massacre? When the figures are too low? Or when the massacre is carried out by Israel’s friends rather than Israel's enemies?

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:31

That, I suspected, was what this argument was about. If Syrian troops had crossed into Israel, surrounded a Kibbutz and allowed their Palestinian allies to slaughter the Jewish inhabitants, no Western news agency would waste its time afterwards arguing about whether or not it should be called a massacre.



But in Beirut, the victims were Palestinians.





Panorama has come under fire for its decision to investigate the role played by Ariel Sharon amongst many others in the infamous massacre.

kaiserphil


Joined: 14/12/2008
Posts: 1096

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:33

It was allegedly a revenge attack for a massacre in 1976 at Damour by the PLO, and other atrocities.

Ballyboffin


Joined: 25/08/2007
Posts: 903

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:34

Truly horrific Gooner.



God Rest Them.



The atrocities committed in every war are unforgiveable and it is the innocent who suffer the consequences.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 19:36

I agree, however other atrocities are investigated, here to this day, the 3,500 that were massacred on 16/9 have yet to see any justice.



Ariel Sharon has to be indited if justice is to prevail...

Ballyboffin


Joined: 25/08/2007
Posts: 903

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 21:52

I do agree with you Gooner. ALL of the terrible 'ACTS OF WAR' should be investigated.



Though, do you think that they will ever be??

Ballyboffin


Joined: 25/08/2007
Posts: 903

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 21:55

Sorry I should have said 'Acts of war or terrorism' should be investigated.

DesiH


Joined: 24/03/2009
Posts: 152

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 22:03

Goonerboy, Thank you for this, many on Cyprus 44 may not be aware of it. The Palestinians and much of the Arab World remember it well.

zerochlor


Joined: 03/04/2009
Posts: 4024

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 22:22

message 9



you say



Ariel Sharon has to be indited if justice is to prevail...



i agree.



But never in a million years would that happen,sadly.

lulubell


Joined: 18/11/2008
Posts: 595

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 22:34

Robert Fisks book Pity the nation is excellent,detailing the Isreali/Palestinian conflict and the role played in it by the Americans and Russians.He is a brilliant writer and totally unbiased tells it exactly as it is,a really good book.Another brilliant book called Beseiged written by one of the medical team members while they worked in the Chatilla refugee camp is a horrendous eye witness report on the attrocieties that were carried out on a daily basis to the palestinians (men,women and children).I cannot remember the name of the author,I will try to find it and post name.

MsGarnet


Joined: 04/01/2009
Posts: 989

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 22:48

No such thing as justice - what horrendous deaths the folk above met - what horror mums must have felt at the last moment, knowing their babes were going to suffer - I always remember reading an article many years ago about mothers and their children being murdered; can't remember what war, what country, just remember reading as the mothers stood on the cusp of the crater into which their bodies would fall, they held their children up in front of them, to ensure they were killed, not wounded.........as they were prepared to be shot at, to fall into the pit - what strength from those women, what a terrible thing they had to do........similar to the protagonists above, Bush and Blair - who surely are culpable for thousands of more deaths, and damaged people and fractured families - altering those families histories for ever...........they are in the lap of luxury - NEVER to be held accountable - yet a person kills another in this country, and are imprisoned - you couldn't make it up.....

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 22:52

Bally,



Unfortunately, I can never see an investigation into this.







Fifteen years later, Robert Fisk, the journalist who had been one of the first on the scene, said:



“Had Palestinians massacred 2,000 Israelis 15 years ago, would anyone doubt that the world’s press and television would be remembering so terrible a deed this morning? Yet this week, not a single newspaper in the United States – or Britain for that matter – has even mentioned the anniversary of Sabra and Shatila.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 22:58

I've just found another eye witness account....



Dr Ang Swee Chai was an eye witness as she worked with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society on the dying and the wounded amongst the dead. What she saw was so unimaginable that the atrocities committed need to be separated from each other to even begin comprehending the viciousness of the crimes. [1]



People tortured. Blackened bodies smelling of roasted flesh from the power shocks that had convulsed their bodies before their hearts gave out, the electric wires still tied around their lifeless limbs



People with gouged out eye sockets. Faces unrecognisable with the gaping holes that had plunged them into darkness before their lives were thankfully ended.



Women raped. Not once – but two, three, four times – horribly violated, their legs shamelessly ripped apart with not even the cover of clothing to preserve their dignity at the moment of death.



Children dynamited alive. So many body parts ripped from their tiny torsos....

Lilli



Joined: 21/07/2008
Posts: 13081

Message Posted:
15/09/2010 23:24

Og God Gonner least we forget. wars or whatever they call them its always the women and children. I have to agree with MrsGarnett and my friend Bally. We forget so quickly but these people never will. thank you. It makes you so glad to be alive and safe. xx

Crumpy



Joined: 05/06/2010
Posts: 419

Message Posted:
16/09/2010 00:47

Re : message 7



"It was allegedly a revenge attack for a massacre in 1976 at Damour by the PLO, and other atrocities."



True the MOSAD were probably stirring up trouble there ... but besides that the Israelis were not affected by the sad incidents in Damour.



I am too young to remember if Israel did actually use Damour as a reason for its actions, but if it did, then it was just an excuse for Israel to (in the opinion of unfortunately most Israelis) kill a few more of those Muslims ... after all their lives are worthless and they get just in the way, don't they ... :-(



No KaiserPhil, I don't condone any atrocities ... but something has to be done to allow the Palestinians to live a normal life ...

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
16/09/2010 09:19

Lilli, Unfortunately it seems like the world has forgotten.



TODAY is the anniversary of the slaughter of 3,500 women and kids at the two camps, yet not a mention on the news at all. Its as though their deaths and suffering has meant nothing to anyone. So very sad.



Thanks for your comments. xx



Crumpy, like yourself, I to am too young however its up to us to ensure massacres such as these are remembered and the guilty even if they are former Presidents, brought to justice.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
16/09/2010 13:57

Lulubell, would love to know the name of the author.

lulubell


Joined: 18/11/2008
Posts: 595

Message Posted:
16/09/2010 14:36

Goonerboy,I have looked but I think that book is still packed in a box,another book called Children of the Siege by Dr. Pauline Cutting is also about the day to day experiences and attrocities that took place in the refugee camps,witnessed and experienced by the author as she worked amongst the refugees.

Goonerboy


Joined: 01/04/2009
Posts: 723

Message Posted:
16/09/2010 19:35

Thanks, will look it up