Dany Chamoun
Encyclopedia
Dany Chamoun (August 26, 1934 – October 21, 1990) was a prominent Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

 politician. A Maronite
Maronites
Maronites , is an ethnoreligious group in the Middle East that have been historically tied with Lebanon. They derive their name from the Syriac saint Mar Maron whose followers moved to Mount Lebanon from northern Syria establishing the Maronite Church....

 Christian and the younger son of former President Camille Chamoun
Camille Chamoun
Camille Nimr Chamoun was President of Lebanon from 1952 to 1958, and one of the country's main Christian leaders during most of the Lebanese Civil War ....

, Dany Chamoun was also a politician in his own right, and was known for his opposition to the occupation of Lebanese territory by foreign forces, whether Syrian
Military of Syria
The Syrian Armed Forces are the military forces of Syria. They consist of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Air Defense Force.-Manpower:The President of Syria is the commander in chief of the Syrian armed forces, comprising some 646,500 troops upon mobilization. The military is a conscripted force;...

 or Israeli.

Biography

Dany Chamoun was born at Deir el-Qamar. He became the National Liberal Party
National Liberal Party (Lebanon)
The National Liberal Party is a center-right political party in Lebanon, established by President Camille Chamoun in 1958...

 Secretary of Defense in January 1976, after the death of its predecessor Naim Berdkan. As Supreme Commander of the NLP's military wing, the Tigers
Tigers Militia (Lebanon)
The Tigers Militia , also known as NLP Tigers or Tigers of the Liberals and PNL "Lionceaux" in French, was the military wing of the National Liberal Party during the Lebanese Civil War.- Origins :The NLP militia was first raised in October 1968 by Camille Chamoun at his own home town...

, he also played a major role in the early years of the Lebanese Civil War
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...

.

In 1976, the NLP Tigers under Dany's command along with the Phalangist Kataeb Regulatory Forces
Kataeb Regulatory Forces
The Kataeb Regulatory Forces – KRF or RF , Forces Regulatoires du Kataeb in French were the military wing of the right-wing Lebanese Christian Kataeb Party, otherwise known as the Phalange, from 1961 to 1977...

, Al-Tanzim
Al-Tanzim
The Al-Tanzim, Al-Tanzym or At-Tanzim was the name of an ultra-nationalist secret military society and militia set up by right-wing Christian activists in Lebanon at the early 1970s, and which came to play an important role in the Lebanese Civil War.-Emblem:The emblem of the group, a map of Lebanon...

 and Guardians of the Cedars
Guardians of the Cedars
The Guardians of the Cedars – GoC , also designated Gardiens du Cedre or Gardiens des Cèdres in French, are a far-right ultranationalist Lebanese party and former militia in Lebanon...

 formed a joined militia command under the name Lebanese Forces
Lebanese Forces
The Lebanese Forces is a Lebanese political party. Founded as a militia by Bachir Gemayel during the Lebanese Civil War, the movement fought as the main militia within the Christian-dominated Lebanese Front...

.

By 1980, the Phalangist-dominated Lebanese Forces
Lebanese Forces
The Lebanese Forces is a Lebanese political party. Founded as a militia by Bachir Gemayel during the Lebanese Civil War, the movement fought as the main militia within the Christian-dominated Lebanese Front...

 were under the command of Bashir Gemayel. Rivalry began to arise between Bashir and Dany. Dany's Tigers were eliminated as a military force in a massacre perpetrated on July 7, 1980 by the rival Phalangists.
Chamoun's life was spared and he fled to the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

-dominated West Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

. He temporarily quit politics.

Chamoun was a supporter of the nationalist Christian cause at heart, however, and he soon returned to the cause to which he, like his father, had dedicated his life. He served as General Secretary of the National Liberal Party from 1983 to 1985, when he replaced his father as the party leader. In 1988, he became President of the revived Lebanese Front
Lebanese Front
The Lebanese Front or Front libanais in French, also known as the "Kufur Front", was a coalition of mainly Christian parties formed in 1976, during the Lebanese Civil War...

 - a coalition of nationalist and mainly Christian parties and politicians that his father had helped to found. The same year, he announced his candidacy for the Presidency of Lebanon to succeed Amine Gemayel
Amine Gemayel
Amine Pierre Gemayel was President of Lebanon from 1982 to 1988 and is the leader of Kataeb Party.Born in the Lebanese village of Bikfaya, Amine Gemayel is the son of Pierre Gemayel, founder of the Kataeb Party...

 (Bashir's brother), but Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

 (which by this time occupied some 70 percent of Lebanese territory) vetoed his candidacy.

Gemayel's term expired on 23 September 1988, without the election of a successor. Chamoun declared his strong support for General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 Michel Aoun
Michel Aoun
Michel Naim Aoun is a former Lebanese Army Commander and he is one of the allies of Hezbollah. From 22 September 1988 to 13 October 1990, he has served as Prime Minister of the legal one of two rival governments that contended for power. He declared "The Liberation War" against the Syrian...

, who had been appointed by the outgoing President to lead an interim administration and went on to lead one of two rival governments that contended for power over the next two years. He strongly opposed the Taif Agreement
Taif Agreement
The Taif Agreement was an agreement reached to provide "the basis for the ending of the civil war and the return to political normalcy in Lebanon." Negotiated in Taif, Saudi Arabia, it was designed to end the decades-long Lebanese civil war, politically accommodate the demographic...

, which not only gave a greater share of power to the Muslim community than they had enjoyed previously, but more seriously, in Chamoun's opinion, formalized what he saw as the master-servant relationship between Syria and Lebanon, and refused to recognize the new government of President Elias Hrawi
Elias Hrawi
Elias Hrawi was a President of Lebanon, whose term of office ran from 1989 to 1998.He was a native of the Beqaa valley. He was elected on 24 November 1989, two days after the assassination of René Moawad, who had held office for just seventeen days...

, who was elected under the Taif Agreement.

Assassination

On October 21, 1990, Dany Chamoun, along with his German-born second wife Ingrid, and his two sons, Tarek (7) and Julian (5), were assassinated. Tracy their sister miraculously escaped the slaughter. Dany's rival Christian leader Samir Geagea head of the Lebanese Forces was subsequently tried for the murder. The trial lasted 2 years in which 120 witnesses where heard and Geagea was found unanimously guilty of the murder by all 6 Supreme Court Judges. He was sentenced to death which was commuted to life imprisonment. Geagea was subsequently released from jail 12 years later for political reasons.
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