ABOUT Samir Geagea
Samir Geagea was born on October 25, 1952 in Ain al-Remaneh, one
of the suburbs of Beirut. He is one of three children of Farid Geagea,
an adjutant in the Lebanese Army. The conditions of his youth wore
modest, though he is part of one major Maronite families based in
Bshari, which is located in the mountains regions of Northern Lebanon.
He completed his primary and secondary level education in Ain
al-Remaneh. Even in youth. He belonged to student branches of the Kataeb
party, the largest Christian party in the country. After high school, he
was able to study medicine at the American University of Beirut (AUB)
due partly to a Khalil Gibran Association scholarship. (Gibran was also
a native of Bshari.) With the out breaking of fighting in Beirut in 1975
and the division of the city, Samir Geagea had to leave AUB after live
years of study. He then transferred to St. Joseph University, located in
the Christian area.
When fighting broke out between Christian militias and
Palestinian-Muslim-leftist alliance in 1976 in Kura region in northern
Lebanon, Samir Geagea interrupted his academic work to help defend the
area. During the next few months, he reorganized the party militia in
the north (Bshari, Kura, Zgharta). However, after the Syrian army
entered the Kura at the end of the summer, he returned to his medical
studies in Beirut.
In 1978, only a few months from his degree, Samir Geagea again broke
away from his studies. At the request of Bashir Gemayel, he agreed to
return briefly to help the newly formed Lebanese Forces-but only a
temporary basis so that he could complete his studies. However, in the
first operation Geagea was wounded in the opening fusillade. He was
evacuated unconscious, moved to a hospital, and later transferred to
France to recuperate.
When he returned to Lebanon, Mr. Geagea, now responsible for the
Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb along northern front, moved to a convent
in the upper mountains of Jbeil where he reorganized the youth, opened
training centers, and began the development of fortifications opposite
Syrian positions. He established a headquarters at Qattara, an extremely
isolated village high in the mountains and cut off from population
centers. He remained in charge of this sector until early 1983.
In January 1983, the Lebanese Forces command council appointed Samir
Geagea, who retained his responsibilities on the northern front,
concurrent of its forces in the Shuf-Aley sector of Mt. Lebanon, an area
from which the Lebanese Forces were forced to retreat in September 1983.
After the "mountain war," Mr. Geagea returned to his headquarters in
Qattara, where he developed, organized, managed, and carried out a
political and cultural education and training program for regional
leader in the Lebanese Forces. It was during this period that his
opposition to the Christian and Lebanese situation began to be
known-most notably his critiques of the traditional Christian
establishment and its dedication to personal profits at the expense of
the public interest. This call for social change led the Kataeb party to
"expel" him. The resulting upheaval in the Lebanese Forces brought
Geagea, Karim Pakradouni, and Elie Hobeika (then the security chief of
the Lebanese Forces) to force the resignation of the then-commander of
the Lebanese Forces, Fouad Abu Nadir. Elie Hobeika was named head of its
executive committee, Geagea chief of staff.
On January 15, 1986, Samir Geagea led a movement that removed Elie
Hobeika and due to the improprieties of the latter and, above all, to
his having signed the so-called "Tripartite Accord" with Syria. Every
sector of Christian opinion was opposed to the accord.
After the January 15 operation, when he became commander of the Lebanese
Forces, Samir Geagea was resorted to full membership in the Kataeb and
indeed elected permanent member of the political bureau of the party.
Within months, he had reorganized the Lebanese Forces and established
standardized bases of recruitment, selection, training, and promotion
and founded the first formal Lebanese Forces military academy at Ghusta.
At the same time, the Lebanese Forces became for the first time a
political movement with clear-cut socio-economic objectives and programs
and with friendly and cooperative ties to many foreign countries. The
Lebanese Forces also began the most ambitious and systemic social
welfare program ever undertaken in Lebanon and intended to help the
disadvantaged and displaced. Although these programs have since been
suspended in deference to government demands, the government has yet to
replace them.
Since 1989, the Lebanese Forces has worked diligently with the national
government and foreign friends to apply the principals of the Taef
Accord intended to facilitate the restoration of national unity and the
reconstruction of the political, economic, and social foundations of the
country. Even in the face of others' continuing and serious violations
of the spirit and intent of Taef, Samir Geagea continued to espouse a
solution to the challenges Lebanon faces that is bad on national
solidarity and consensus. Because he refused to be a partner in the
farce that is ruling Lebanon today, Geagea became a political prisoner.
