TRIBUNE PHOTOS — SEAN GRIFFIN

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‘ The Greek-born Canadian doctor has
oy for a brighter future in the Middle

The Surgeon who patched up the

wounded while risking his own life and limb
during the recently ended siege of Shatila,
the Palestinian refugee camp with a name
that 1s a byword for tragedy and outrage, is
Optimistic these days about the chances for
unity in the Arab world.
But Peace and a just settlement of the
Palestinian question won’t-come until the
United States recognizes that it can’t impose
Its will on the region, Dr. Chris Giannou
asserts.

_ These days, he’s likely to be considered a
kind of modern-day Dr. Norman Bethune,
but It wasn’t always that way.

,, Ye years ago, I was the terrorist doc-
tor,” says the person who since 1980 has
headed hospitals in several Middle East
countries on behalf of the Palestinian Red
Crescent Society (PRCS)..

Today, Canadian society has grown
much more sophisticated about the ques-
tions of Israel, the PLO (Palestine Libera-
tion Organization) and the Middle East in
general. In six years | haven’t changed, but
Canadian opinion has changed a lot.”

Giannou, currently on a tour of Canada
to “sensitize” Canadians to the reality of
Middle East conflicts, first went to
ee as an avowed PLO supporter, in
_ During an interview he offered fresh
insights into the complex political and reli-
g10us’ struggles in the region, eclipsing
accounts of his own experiences.
__ He was captured by the Israeli forces who
invaded Lebanon in 1982. He and two
Norwegian volunteers were released after 10
days after their respective governments
intervened, and the doctor returned to Can-
ada to relate his experiences.

“T told about the use by Israel’s military
of phosphorous bombs, cluster bombs and
the like. I informed Canadians about the

' fact that whole refugee camps were being

wiped out about the thousands of dead.

“I mentioned the mistreatment of pri-
soners kept in a convent school in Sidon.
Fourteen of them died, some through de-
hydration, some through beatings by the
soldiers, some by heat stroke. I came back
as saying all that and the shit hit the
an.

But in the last five years, Canadians have
seen examples of everything he and others
speaking on the Middle East have related,
says Giannou.

Cnr.

That year he returned to the Middle East,
setting up another Red Crescent hospital in
North Yemen before going to the Palesti-
nian refugee camp Shatila, outside Beirut in

Lebanon.

That was when the Amal militia — Shiite
Moslems financed in part by Syria and by
right-wing Lebanese Christian forces —
surrounded the camp and held it under a
cruel siege for 27 months, and subjected its
residents to a barrage of shells for six
months between fall, 1986 and spring, 1987.

During that time, Giannou and other
international Red Crescent volunteers
worked with Palestinian staff around the
clock with makeshift equipment and a
dearth of medicines to save the lives of
hundreds of besieged camp dwellers.

Shatila and the refugee camp, Sabra,
were the site of the infamous 1982 massacre
by Phalangist (the fascists who controlled

‘ Lebanon’s army and government after the
Israeli invasion) militia of thousands of
undefended men, women and children.
Israel was condemned for allowing the mas-

Five years agol was the terrorist doctor. Today, I’m some-

times called a modern Dr. Norman Bethune. In six years!

haven’t changed, but Canadian opinion has changed a
lot. Everything we’ve said about the Middle East has

been corroborated.

sacre after forcing the PLO defenders to
leave. 4%
Gianno says the Amal fired more than
250,000 shells into Shatila.

The Amal militia were backed by Syria,
which is part of the Arab national move-
ment and maintains troops in Lebanon. In
the complicated — to outsiders — tangle
of politics and religion in the Middle East,
Syria had broken with PLO leader Arafat
and was hindering the organization’s re-
establishment in the camps.

Sabra was bulldozed and some 700
young men “disappeared and were never
heard from again,” said Giannou. In Shat-
ila, 3,500 residents crammed into the camp’s
200 square metres, faced possible starva-
tion.

Most of the world supports the PLO call for a conference
and negotiations leading to a secular, democratic state
in the occupied territories. But the United States still
wants to impose a Pax Americana on the region.

“Even today, you have the photos of
Israeli soldiers breaking bones, shooting
young men in the occupied territories. So
everything we’ve been saying has been cor-
roborated.””

In 1983 Giannou returned to Lebanon,
where he became director of the PRCS hos-»
pital in Tripoli. But the infighting that

_ erupted within the PLO — a fight by a fac-

tion against the leadership of chairman
Yasser Arafat — forced the evacuation of
the hospital to Cyprus, and many of its
patients to socialist countries and Egypt.
He became director of the society’s hos-
pital in Cairo the next year, and in 1985 was
the PRCS representative in Cuba, where he

organized a group of Cuban-educated

Palestinian doctors to work in Nicaragua.

During the intense six-month battle that
lasted from November, 1986 to April the
following year, the Shatila residents, armed
again thanks to a resurgence of both the
PLO and the Lebanese national movement
the previous year, excavated a system of
tunnels under the rubble and managed to
maintain food supplies.

“They dug six kilometres of tunnels in 10
days. So they were able to pop up right at
the front lines and stop the military
assaults.” There were 27 frontal assaults
during the battle, Giannou says.

The end result was that the Amal made
no inroads into the camps. “‘If fact, by the
time the siege was lifted the camps had
increased their boundaries by a few build-
ings,” he remarks.

When the siege ended, catching the
defending forces by surprise, in January this
year, it heralded far more than a victory for
the refugee camps, Giannou says.

“The uprising (in the Israeli-occupied ter-
ritories of the West Bank and Gaza) learned
from the camp resistance. The camp
defenders proved that resistance is possible.

“Tt raised the morale of the people in the:
occupied territories. Because of it a new
grassroots movement is developing and
we’ve been able to overcome much of the
factionalism among Palestinians,” Giannou

relates. :
Unlike the previous armed insurrections

against Israeli rule, the current West Bank
and Gaza protests are a “popular uprising,”
says Giannou. :

“Tt involves all classes — workers, pea-
sants, the liberal professions and even the
bourgeoisie. You have women, children, the
elderly and young people involved.”

Giannou compared the uprising to the
liberation movements in Algeria, Iran,
Nicaragua and Soweto.

“It is the point people reach where they
say, ‘We prefer to die rather than continue
to live the way we are.”

While Palestinians still dream of a secu-
lar, bi-national state in all of Palestine —
that includes present-day Israel — the goal
today is a state in the occupied territories.
That state would have an agreement of
mutual recognition with Israel, Giannou

relates.
Most of the world — many West Euro-

pean governments, the socialist countries
and the non-aligned nations — support
this aim, and the PLO’s call for an interna-
tional peace conference under the auspices
of the United Nations, with the participa-
tion of the PLO and the Soviet Union, he
points out. ?

Unfortunately, Canada keeps such com-
pany as South Africa, Israel and the United
States in opposing that route, Giannou
notes.

The reason for U.S. opposition to the

“Modern Bethune’ sees hope in Mid-East

TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAN KEETON

Dr. Chris Giannou (top photo, left) with
David Cadman, president of United
Nations Association in Canada which
co-sponsored his Vancouver talk with
Medical Aid for Palestine. (Inset) Pal-
estinian youths in occupied territory.

proposed solution is simple — it wants to
prevent the Soviet Union from playing a
role in the Middle East, he says.

The U.S. “does not want real peace in the,
Middle East. It wants to impose a ‘Pax
Americana’ with everything subjected to
American imperialist interests,” Giannou
asserted.

“The Soviets do have a role to play. What
we need is a minimum consensus between
the U.S. and the USSR, because both have
strategic interests in the region.”

But developments are running counter to
U.S. interests. The upcoming June summit
between President Ronald Reagan and
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will be
followed in a week by a special summit
conference of Arab nations in Algiers. And
there has been a reconciliation between the
PLO leadership and Syria.

Giannou agrees there is reason to be
Er aaa about the future of the Middle

165

Things may change in Canada, too, he
notes. A Canadian delegation that visited
the West Bank and Gaza under the auspices
of the International Centre for Worker
Solidarity — a project of the Quebec trade
union centrals, CSN and CEQ — is com-
piling a report it wants to present to the
House Standing Committee on Human
Rights. ; :

Giannou says he is uncertain where he’ll
go next. It could be back to the Middle East,
“or maybe Namibia (Southwest Africa), El
Salvador or Nicaragua. Anywhere I’m
needed.”

Pacific Tribune, May 11, 1988 « 7