Citizens Steal to Live : Lawlessness Reigns in West Beirut

BEIRUT —  Along with constant factional fighting, the people of west Beirut also live with virtually unchecked crime.

A large part of it is traced to Lebanese who normally would never have thought of becoming muggers, car thieves or bank robbers.

In one recent example, a young gunman held up a middle-age woman in an elevator. The woman related later that she handed over her purse with about 5,000 Lebanese pounds ($205).

The gunman peeled off 2,000 pounds and handed the rest of the money back. “I only need this,” the woman quoted him as saying. “I’ve got medicine to buy and I don’t have the money.”

People Robbed Daily

Dozens of people in west Beirut, the Muslim sector, are robbed daily or have their cars stolen, and the police are powerless to stop it. One reason is that many robbers and thieves are attached to militias that rule west Beirut.

The sector’s wave of lawlessness is attributed to the collapse of state authority, an erosion of social values and a crumbling economy that has driven many Beirutis to crime.

Samir Ghanoum, an interior decorating student at Beirut University College, was one four students charged with holding up five banks, six shops and two restaurants in west Beirut.

Police estimated that they stole 1.5 million Lebanese pounds ($70,000) before they were caught trying to hold up the Pakistani Bank.

‘Desperately Needed Money’

Ghanoum told at a news conference arranged by the police after the capture: “I got into this because I desperately needed money. I’m married. My sister has four children. Her husband isn’t around and I have to support her family and my elderly parents.

“It was good to have money. We spent some and then put the rest in the bank and quit school.”

Police said Ghanoum, 22, and his companions were armed with silencer-equipped pistols, Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles, pump-action shotguns and hand grenades.

A detective who worked on the case said: “Youngsters are turning to crime because they believe that in the lawlessness and chaos in west Beirut the police can’t function. They believe they can get away with it, and generally do.”

Militias Control Area

The only effective control in west Beirut are the various militias and the so-called security forces they tolerate as the only symbol of authority.

Across the Green Line that divides Beirut into rival Christian and Muslim territories, the Christians are also ruled by militias, but the army and police still have some authority there.

Lebanon’s prisons long ago ceased to function. Militiamen have emptied them three times over, freeing friends and relatives or usually just letting everyone out.

More than 5,000 convicted murderers, rapists, gunmen and thieves have been freed in that way since civil war began 1975, when Lebanon’s hostilities began. Most of the 27 prisons now are either occupied by refugees or used by the militias.

Judicial Collapse

Lebanon’s judicial system also has virtually collapsed in the civil war. Courts have been idle for years. Most offenders, including shopkeepers accused of overcharging, are tried by militia tribunals and their justice often is stiff.

Last May, Soviet-made Grad rockets hit the central law courts in the Palais de Justice in east Beirut, starting a fire that destroyed all legal records.

Amin Nassar, president of the Higher Judicial Council, said the loss of the records, including police files on criminal trials, was “the greatest disaster in Lebanon since the eruption of the civil war.”

Drugs Are a Factor

Drugs are increasingly a factor in the lawlessness. Lebanon, one of the world’s major sources of hashish and marijuana, for the first time has a thriving domestic market as youngsters who have grown up amid the bloodletting turn to drugs, police say.

The chaos of the war also has brought lesser forms of illegality.

Taxes go unpaid. The poor steal electricity by hooking into overhead power cables. And drivers tear up parking tickets as traffic police officers watch helplessly.