Beirut court sentences 'collaborators'

SLA members abandon their tank in a southern village

By Christopher Hack in Beirut

A military court in Beirut has sentenced 42 people to prison terms of up to 15 years for having worked with Israel during its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon.

Some 1,000 people have now been tried in the last two months following Israel's troop withdrawal.

The defendants have been variously charged with being members of the South Lebanon Army, a militia Israel armed and trained to support its occupation, or working in civil administration or simply travelling to Israel.

It could be many years before normal life returns to the south

With their heads shaved, defendants are brought before a judge in groups of two or three for a trial lasting less than 10 minutes.

Those who entered Israel to work face several months in prison.

Militiamen who fought alongside the Israeli army received terms of up to 15 years.

When Israel pulled its troops out in May, residents of the south had just minutes to decide whether to remain and face the government or flee into exile.

New home in Israel

Of those who stayed, more than 2,000 have been taken to Beirut for trial, but three times that number fled across the border, leaving everything behind.

Initially welcomed in Israel with gifts and praise, many have become disillusioned.

Some complain they are being treated like prisoners, requiring special permission to leave their temporary accommodation.

Israel is asking western countries to offer a permanent home, but among the exiles are a number of former militiamen suspected of war crimes.

Western governments are privately saying that they are reluctant to take unnamed groups with no idea of the individual backgrounds.

Hope for Lebanon

Facing such uncertainty, several hundred exiles have walked back across the border into Lebanon.

The men are arrested and taken for trial, the families allowed to return to their homes.

But with so many residents now in jail or in exile, many of the once-thriving towns of south Lebanon are largely deserted, with shops closed and houses shuttered.

The end of the Israeli occupation and a quarter of a century of warfare has brought enormous hope to Lebanon, but many suspect it will be many years before normal life returns to the south of the country.