Michel Aoun

Background

Michel Aoun was born in 1935 in Harat Hurayk in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.

Education

He obtained his bachelor's degree from the Freres school in Jumayza in Beirut. In 1955 he entered the Military Academy in Beirut and graduated in 1959. He specialized in artillery in his military career. He studied at Challonssur-Marne in France and at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. From 1978 to 1980 he had training at the prestigious Ecole de Guerre in Paris.

Career

In 1982 he became commander of the newly established 8th Brigade of the Lebanese Army and in August 1983 he was in charge of the Suk al-Gharb region, which witnessed fierce battles in defense of the Lebanese legitimate authorities against the incursions of Syrian-armed proxy militias.

On June 23, 1984, Aoun, who became a brigadier general, was appointed commander of the Lebanese Army. He was still in that post when he was chosen, on September 22, 1988, as the prime minister of the six-member Interim Cabinet.

The decision by outgoing President Amine Gemayel, just before his term expired, to appoint an interim cabinet was due to the inability of the Lebanese Parliament to elect a new president. This failure was caused by Syrian President Hafiz Assad's insistence that only his candidate should be elected by the Lebanese Parliament and that the meeting for the election must be held in Syrian-occupied West Beirut. When President Gemayel appointed Brigadier-General Michel Aoun he was following the precedent set by President Bishara al Khuri in 1952.

Before he resigned he appointed as prime minister a Maronite Christian who happened also to be the commander of the Lebanese Army, Brigadier-General Fu'ad Shihab. Although the newly appointed Aoun Cabinet was the legitimate government in accordance with article 53 of the Lebanese constitution, pressure was exerted by Syria on the three Moslem members not to accept their cabinet posts.

The Syrian authorities went further by claiming that the legitimate cabinet was that of outgoing Prime Minister Al-Huss. Thus from the outset the interim prime minister, Aoun, was faced with Syrian non-recognition and outright opposition. The more he was rebuffed by Syria the more he became adamant in his stand. In an attempt to avert the resumption of fighting in Lebanon, the foreign ministers of the League of Arab States formed a committee on Lebanon, headed by the Kuwaiti foreign minister, in January 1989.

This committee eventually met both Aoun and Al-Huss in Tunis on January 30, 1989. The Arab League Committee on Lebanon also met during the period February to April 1989 in Kuwait with the most prominent Lebanese leaders (both political and religious), but to no avail.

These meetings were overshadowed by fighting which erupted between Aoun's Lebanese Army and the Christian Lebanese Forces on the one side and the Syrian Army in Lebanon and the Druze and Shi'a militias on the other side.

The fighting was triggered by Aoun's decision, in February 1989, to close all illegal ports, which had adversely affected, among other things, the ports used by Druze and Shi'a militias, which prompted, in turn, the latter to bombard the Lebanese Ministry of Defence and Aoun's headquarters in Baabda in northeast Beirut. Aoun had realized that the conflict was inevitable because of the Syrian attitude toward his cabinet, so he defiantly declared on March 14, 1989, the war of liberation against Syria, hoping to get international support for his cause.

Aoun's appeal was met with the indifference of the West except for France, which supported him diplomatically and provided him with humanitarian assistance. The United States refused to get involved in the conflict between Aoun and Syria, especially as American hostages in Lebanon were being threatened by their pro-Syrian captors. Instead, the United States maintained that the League of Arab States ought to resolve the conflict.

The Arab summit held in Casablanca in May 1989, in which Lebanon was not represented, failed to convince Syrian President Assad to withdraw his troops from Lebanon.

The Casablanca Summit formed a tripartite committee of the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Algeria to mediate the conflict between Aoun and Syria. Although the first statement issued by this committee was critical of Syria, the latter did not budge, knowing that the tripartite committee would eventually accept the Syrian stand as its military power on the ground was superior to that of Aoun.

In the meantime Syria increased military pressure on Aoun by continued bombardment and by imposing a naval blockade on the areas that were under Aoun's rule. Eventually, in September 1989, the tripartite committee called for a cease-fire, which was accepted by both Aoun and Syria. It also called for the convening of the members of the Lebanese Parliament in Ta'if, Saudi Arabia.

In fact, 62 deputies (31 Christians and 31 Muslims) of the total 73 surviving members of Parliament met and agreed upon a blueprint of reforms, known as the Ta'if Accord, which transformed the Lebanese polity from a presidential to a cabinet political system. While Aoun was not enthusiastic about these internal reforms, he was adamantly opposed to the part of the Ta'if Accord that legitimized the presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon.

The accord stipulated that the Syrian troops would be redeployed after two years in the eastern regions of Lebanon but there was no mention of Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The accord paved the way for the election of a new president, and Aoun tried to pre-empt the election by issuing a decree dissolving Parliament, but with no success. Syria's aim in supporting the accord was to delegitimize Aoun, which was not difficult because the latter entangled himself in a violent and destructive conflict with the Christian militia, the Lebanese Forces, during the period January through May 1990.

Aoun's popularity, which had been based on his anti-Syrian stand and his call for free elections, a return to the rule of law, and the end of the rule of corrupt politicians and militia leaders, began to erode. Syria, which joined the anti-Saddam (Iraqi) forces by sending troops to Saudi Arabia alongside the United States troops, exploited the Gulf crisis to launch a major attack against Aoun on October 13, 1990, and occupied the region which was under Aoun's rule. Aoun sought political asylum in the French Embassy, and the Syrian-dominated cabinet that was installed in December 1990 refused to allow him to leave for France.

In August 1991 the Lebanese government granted him a special pardon and, on August 29, Aoun was whisked off to France by French officials, where he continues to live in exile.

Although Aoun's five-year suspension of citizenship decreed by the Lebanese government ended in August 1996, Aoun stated that he did not plan to return to Lebanon It is true that although Aoun lost his bid for power, he remained popular among the Lebanese communities. Many of his Christian supporters refused to vote in the 1992 election and stayed loyal to Aoun and his ideas.

In the United States, the Aounist movement has become a powerful opposition group in the Lebanese emigrant community. Due in part to the lobbying of the Council of Lebanese American Organizations, the United States Senate passed Resolution 24 in July 1994 that condemned the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.

In January 1999 Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said that Aoun could return to Lebanon with the guarantee that he will not be arrested. He is uncertain as to how Syria will react, and remains abroad. On May 7, 2005 Aoun returns to Lebanon. In late May, he participated in the parliamentary elections. He was elected to the National Assembly, and his party, the Free Patriotic Movement, won 21 seats.

In 2008 he participated for the first time in the Lebanese government with five ministers. Then on May 7, 2009 the Free Patriotic Movement wins 19 seats, 5 more seats than in the previous elections. In November, he took part in the new government with five ministers.

In 2011 the 14-month-old government collapsed after FPM ministers declare their resignation, followed by the rest of the opposition. According to Aoun, the priorities of the new government would now be to break all ties with the tribunal, and to stamp out the 20-year-long corruption plaguing the country. The new Government is formed on 13 June 2011, with 6 ministers for the Free Patriotic Movement, up from 3 in the last government, and a total of 11 ministers for Aoun's C&R bloc. However, the loyalties of the five non-FPM ministers of this bloc seem to shift very easily to Mikati depending on their own interests, as did the rest of the 8 March coalition, leaving Aoun's ministers as a minority in the government without even veto powers, as they were in Saad Hariri's government.

On April 2013 General Aoun's parliamentary bloced manage to conclude a consensus around a new electoral law based on proportionality. This consensus is however broken by one of the parties (the Lebanese Forces) and the next parliamentary elections will be held with the amended 1960's electoral law.

In May 2013 Parliamentary elections were reported for September 2014. General Aoun's parliamentary bloc are the only deputies to oppose the decision of the current political class to renew the term of the parliament for one year.

In November 2014 Parliamentary elections were reported up to June 2017. General Aoun's parliamentary bloc deputies oppose again the decision of the current political class to renew the term of the parliament for three years

On July 8, 2015 hundreds of FPM supporters rally in Beirut to denounce the decision of the sunni prime minister Tammam Salam to impose the modification of the decision's mechanism inside the government in absence of a Christian president.

On August 12, 2015 thousands of FPM supporters rally in Beirut to denounce the lack of balance in the government's decisions mechanism between Christians and Muslims as well as the garbage crisis and the boycott of a part of the political class for the election of a strong president.

On September 4, 2015 dozen thousands of FPM supporters rally in Beirut in support for general Michel Aoun's demands : a new electoral law based on proportionality and the election of a strong president.

On October 11, 2015 dozen thousands of FPM supporters rally to renew their support to General Michel Aoun. On October 31, 2016 after a vote by the parliament Michel Aoun is declared "President of Lebanese Republic".

Achievements

• Michel Aoun was appointed as Lebanese Army General in 1984. From 22 September 1988 to 13 October 1990, Aoun served as Prime Minister after being appointed by the then departing Lebanese President Amine Gemayel as head of the Lebanese government and interim prime minister. The controversial decision saw the rise of two rival governments contending for power at that time, one by General Aoun and the other by prime minister Selim Hoss.
  
  Aoun declared a "War of Liberation" against Syrian army forces on 14 March 1989. On 13 October 1990, the Syrian forces invaded Aoun strongholds including the presidential palace in Baabda, killing hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and civilians. Aoun fled to the French Embassy in Beirut, and was later granted asylum in France where he lived in exile for 15 years from 1990 to 2005.
  
  Aoun returned to Lebanon on 7 May 2005, eleven days after the withdrawal of Syrian troops from the country. In 2006, as head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), he signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah, starting a major alliance that has remained ever since. Despite the bloody history with the regime of Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar al-Assad, Aoun visited Syria in 2009.
  
  Aoun was elected a Member of Parliament where he headed the Free Patriotic Movement and the broader parliamentary coalition called Reform and Change Bloc, which had 27 representatives making it the second biggest bloc in the Lebanese parliament. He presented his candidacy for presidential election with main rival candidates being Samir Geagea, Suleiman Frangieh and Henri Helou. After his election, he was sworn in as President of Lebanon in succession to President Michel Suleiman.

Works

More photos

• book

  • General Aoun - Une certaine Vision du Liban- francais

    (language: French Entretiens avec Federic Domont)

  • Une certaine vision du Liban (French Edition)

Religion

A Maronite Christian, Michel Aoun, with family origins from Haret el Maknouniye Jezzine, was born in the mixed Christian and Shiite suburb of Haret Hreik, to the south of Beirut.

Politics

In an unprecedented move, Aoun signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah on 6 February 2006. His present strategy was an alleged "war against corruption".

Since the end of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, General Aoun has been seeking to improve his country's relationship with Syria. He has treated all Lebanese parties as potential partners in the process of change and reform of the country. The Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah enters in this context.

In September 2015, Aoun sponsored the candidacy of his son-in law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, to the FPM leadership post. Bassil was elected by acclamation after his main contender, MP Alain Aoun (Michel's nephew), was convinced to quit the race.

Views

Quotations: In a 1995 interview with Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Quarterly, Aoun expressed his views on the state of affairs in Lebanon and his hopes for its future: "My conception is a new Lebanon, a modern state, a state of law, all the while respecting public liberty; an honesty in the administration of the state, and very good relations with neighbors. "

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• According to an interview given to Gary Gambill and Marie Michel El-Zir of Arab Studies Journal, Aoun was certain his life would be in danger if he did return because the government fears "that with my return the Lebanese will rally around the idea of independence. .. . They know how unpopular they are and how my popularity remains untouched. "

Connections

Michel Aoun is married to Nadia Al Chami. They have three daughters: Mireille, Claudine and Chantal.

Wife:

Nadia Al Chami

Daughter:

Claudine Aoun

Daughter:

Chantal Aoun

Daughter:

Mireille Aoun