Communist Action Organization in Lebanon

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Lebanon

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The Communist Action Organization in Lebanon (COA) or Organization of Communist Action (Arabic munażżamatu-l-‘amali-sh-shuyū‘ī fī lubnān, French Organisation de l'Action Communiste du Liban, OCAL) is a Marxist-Leninist political party and former militia group in Lebanon.

Contents

Membership

It was one of Lebanon's few multi-sectarian parties, incorporating Christians, Muslims and Druze, but its main base was among Shi'a Muslims.[1] In the 1980s, it had a membership of about 2000.[2]

History of the COA

The COA was formed through the merger of the Organization of Socialist Lebanon and the Movement of Lebanese Socialists in 1970, under the leadership of Muhsen Ibrahim. These groups included veterans of the Lebanese branch of the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), a radical Pan-Arab group which had splintered into national factions in the late 1960s. The COA criticized the Lebanese Communist Party led by George Hawi for 'reformist tendencies'[3], but held unsuccessful talks on a party merger in the mid-1970s.

The COA was involved in the Lebanese Civil War, on the side of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM), of which Ibrahim was Executive Secretary. However, the LNM dissolved after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the expulsion of the PLO from Beirut in 1982. As the Syrian occupation of Lebanon[1] strengthened, the COA was forced underground, since it refused to give up its alliance with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) of Yassir Arafat, who was opposed to the Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. The COA had strong relations to the Marxist Palestinian faction of Naif Hawatmeh, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and was involved with that group's party newspaper al-Hurriya (Liberty).[4]

During 1982-2000, the COA allied to the Shi'a Islamist Hizbullah movement in its campaign of guerrilla warfare against Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.

Notes

  1. ^ Occupied from 1976:
    • "Syria, a supporter of Hezbollah, has occupied Lebanon since 1976." Talbot, Stephen. "SYRIA/LEBANON: The Occupied/Occupied", PBS FRONTLINE/World, Dispatches from a small planet: Elections 2004. Retrieved Oct 27, 2006.
    • "1979-1981 Syrian opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, launches guerrilla attacks and armed uprisings against the government to protest Syrian oppression of Palestinian peoples in occupied Lebanon." In depth Syria: Timeline, CBC News Online, October 12, 2005. Retrieved Oct 27, 2006.
    • "Syria... occupied Lebanon for the last 30 years". Rice, Condoleezza, "Interview on NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert", August 6, 2006. Retrieved Oct 27, 2006.
    • "Syria occupied Lebanon for 30 years." Rice, Condoleezza, "Interview With Israel Radio One", August 12, 2006. Retrieved Oct 27, 2006.
    • "Hours after the 17 May agreement was signed - Draper's signature represented the Americans - Syria announced that Philip Habib, Reagan's senior negotiator in the Middle East, was no longer welcome in Damascus. For more than a day, all roads through the Syrian lines in the mountains above Beirut were closed. The implications of this were obvious: if Gemayel ratified the treaty with Israel, then he would have no influence in Syrian-occupied Lebanon." Fisk, Robert. Pity the Nation, Oxford University Press, Oct 1, 2001, p. 483. ISBN 0192801309
    • "In October 1976 the various parties achieved a cease-fire in the civil war... This force was mainly Syrian in composition - 25,000 out of a total of 30,000; so that new arrangement amounted in effect to another form of Syrian occupation. The cumulative effects of these events was a drastic loss of Lebanese independence, and what amounted to a partition of the country between the Syrian-occupied north (the major part of Lebanese territory) and an area in the south where the Palestinians, Phalangists, and Israelies fought sporadically with one another." Bell, Philip M. H. The World Since 1945: An International History, Oxford University Press US, Jun 1, 2001, p. 409. ISBN 0340662360
    • "...Syrian forces entered Lebanese territory in 1975 and incrementally spread the net of their military control and political occupation across the country...". Nisan, Mordechai. "The Syrian occupation of Lebanon", NATIV, Ariel Center for Policy Research, Volume Thirteen, Number 3 (74), June 2000.
    • "The Syrian occupation of Lebanon began nearly a quarter-century ago... On October 13, 1990, as international attention was focused on the Kuwait crisis, Syrian military units forced their way into east Beirut, routed Lebanese Army troops, and ousted the last remnant of Lebanon's beleaguered constitutional government. This event completed a Syrian occupation that began over a decade earlier". Pipes, Daniel & Abdelnour, Ziad. "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role", Middle East Forum, Report of the Lebanon Study Group, May 2000. Retrieved October 31, 2006.
    • "In March 1976 Syrian troops entered Lebanon to restore the military balance between the Lebanese and the Palestinians... Although Israel tacitly approved the Syrian intervention, Israel was concerned that Syrian occupation of Lebanon did not extend to its border..." Long, David E., and Reich, Bernard. The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa, Westview Press, 2002, p. 243. ISBN 0813338999
    • "Against this backdrop, 'Awn launched a "war of liberation" from Syrian occupation." Stedman, Stephen John & Rothchild, Donald & Cousens, Elizabeth M. Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002, p. 570. ISBN 1588260836
    • "Due to such military-mercantile collusion, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, which lasted nearly thirty years...". Brandell, Inga. State Frontiers: borders and boundaries in the Middle East, I.B. Tauris, 2006, p. 93. ISBN 1845110765
    • "The Palestinian presence had been a major contributing factor to the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, which caused the country to decline into chaos and had triggered the Syrian occupation." Pollack, Kenneth M. Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991, University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 524. ISBN 0803237332

See also

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