Etienne Saqr

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Etienne Saqr

Etienne Saqr (last name also spelt Sakr or Sacre, Arabic: إتيان صقر), a.k.a. Abu Arz (translate: Father of Cedars), is a right-wing Lebanese nationalist politician and founder of the Guardians of the Cedars militia and political party ( حراس الأرز, Horras Al-Arz in Arabic). Saqr and his militia participated heavily in the Lebanese Civil War in 1970s and 1980s, and remained militantly active until he was expelled from the country for collaborating with the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli proxy in southern Lebanon during the latter's military occupation until the year 2000.

Saqr was born in Ain Ebel in 1937; his father, Caesar Saqr, was a school principal. He was educated in French schools in Tripoli and Beirut, but his father's death in 1944 left the family in relative poverty, which precluded a university education for Saqr. Instead, he joined the Sûreté générale (General Security Directorate) in 1954 and was involved in fighting against pan-Arab forces in the Lebanon crisis of 1958. He left this group in 1969, went into business, and became politically active in right-wing Lebanese nationalist circles. He opposed the Cairo Agreement of 1969, which allowed Palestinian guerrillas to launch raids into Israel from bases in southern Lebanon.

In the early 1970s, Saqr helped to organize the Lebanese Renewal Party, and in 1974 and 1975 he formed the Guardians of the Cedars under the name-of-honor Abu Arz (father of the cedars). In the Lebanese Civil War, which began in 1975, the Guardians of the Cedars fought under the slogans "No Palestinian will remain in Lebanon" and "Lebanon, at your service". The Guardians of the Cedars joined the Lebanese Front, a right-wing coalition of mainly Christian parties intended to act as a counter force to the Lebanese National Movement of Kamal Jumblatt and others. While Saqr objected to the Syrian intervention in 1976, the Lebanese Front accepted it. Saqr withdrew from the Front and the Guardians retreated to the mountains but continued to fight on the LF side in key battles, including East Beirut (1978 and Zahle (1981).

Saqr welcomed the Israeli invasion in 1982. While some politicians such as Gemayel and the National Liberal Party leader Camille Chamoun) cooperated with Israel semi-secretly and mostly for tactical reasons, Saqr's collaboration with Israel was based on military assistance^{[citation needed]}. Some followers maintain that this was a collaboration of necessity, and not an ideological agreement with the Israelis. Others disagree, claiming that collaboration with Israel was based on the conviction that there was a commonality of interest between the two countries. Saqr also supported the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli-trained and funded militia in the south led by Sa'ad Haddad.

For the sake of national unity, Saqr refused to take sides in the feuding in the 1980s between rival Lebanese Forces factions led by Elie Hobeika and Samir Geagea, even though Saqr was ideologically closer to the latter. From 1988 to 1990, Saqr strongly supported General Michel Aoun, but avoided alienating the Lebanese Forces with whom Aoun was fighting. Saqr supported Michel Aoun's declaration of war on Syria in March 1989, but after Aoun's defeat Saqr fled to Israeli occupied southern Lebanon. He tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Aoun to seek Israeli assistance.

Saqr was placed under house arrest in 1990 by his former allies, the Lebanese Forces, after the latter accepted the Taif Agreement. Eventually, Saqr was forced to leave Beirut for southern Lebanon and upon Israel's withdrawal from the south in 2000, Saqr fled to Israel. In an address to the Knesset a few days later, Saqr rebuked his host country for withdrawing from Lebanon, charging that in doing so, Israel had "made heroes out of Hezbollah."

Saqr is married to Alexandra, with whom he has two daughters (Pascal and Carole) and a son (Arz). He has been sentenced to death in absentia by a Lebanese court on charges of collaborating with Israel.