The Thin Blue Line

The most difficult operation of its kind in U.N. history

The Fiji Islanders and the Irish are still on the way, but already on the ground in southern Lebanon are some 4,500 blue-helmeted soldiers from France, Norway, Canada, Senegal, Nigeria, Iran and Nepal. These polyglot forces make up the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Its mandate: to form a buffer zone between the Israeli army and the guerrillas of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Last week TIME Cairo Correspondent Dean Brelis and Jerusalem Bureau Chief Donald Neff separately visited the region for a glimpse of what U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim has called "the most difficult peace-keeping operation of its kind in the history of the U.N." Brelis' report:

"There's no time for joking here," the Nigerian captain said sternly. Immediately, the men of his company stopped clowning and began to set up their U.N. flags and tents in the town of Deir Kanour. "That's more like it," said the captain. A crowd of children gathered around, fascinated by the tall black soldiers, their faces scarred with tribal markings. "Not much left to some of these places," the captain observed of the bullet-scarred walls and bombed-out buildings. Then, as the children began to applaud, he told a visitor: "That's why we're here. So the people can come back."

Last week, by official count, 70% of the Lebanese refugees were back in the villages and towns from which they had fled during the Israeli invasion two months ago. "UNIFIL has given us back our home life," says Ahmed Majzoub, a shopkeeper in the city of Tyre. "Now we don't wake up wondering how much chance we will have to live through the day."

This is not to say that the south is free of danger and death. Nine members of the UNIFIL force have died and 15 have been wounded by mines and in firefights. In the beginning, too many of the U.N. troops were unfamiliar with mines. Now they are becoming more savvy, and the Norwegians have brought in specially trained dogs that can sniff out the mines.

The troops' job is almost impossible, but they are learning. Before the Israelis pulled back to a six-mile-wide zone along the border, the Norwegians were confronted one day by a group of Israeli soldiers who wanted to come into the Norwegians' camp and look around. The Norwegian commander did not want the Israelis in his camp and told them so. They insisted. Sensing trouble, the commander put an end to the affair by ordering his men to attack the Israelis by using their tent poles as clubs, all the while chanting a war cry. The astonished Israelis grinned and backed away.

"If anyone challenges us," explained the Norwegian commander later, "we tell him, 'You win if you fight us with guns, but you will be responsible for winning.' So far we've been lucky; we've encountered smart soldiers who understand our job."

Last week there was a confrontation between the Senegalese and 60 armed members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who wanted to infiltrate the area alongside the Israeli lines. After a day-long argument, these members of the P.L.O.'s radical wing agreed to take off their combat uniforms and head back north of the Litani River. But they kept their weapons, and there is no guarantee that they will not try again. Says Ghanaian General Emmanuel Erskine, UNIFL's Sandhurst-trained commander: "We have to assist the Lebanese government to establish its own authority in the area. Once that is done, I suppose it will be time for the U.N. to pull out."

Fedayeen on both sides of the Litani seemed particularly bitter about the French troops. 'They came in thinking this was Algeria," complained a young commander of the P.F.L.P., "and that they could knock people around as they pleased." For their part, the French, whose headquarters are just south of Tyre but who are not permitted by the Palestinians to enter the city itself, spoke bitterly about what they called "the lies" being spread about them. Clearly, the French paratroopers have been stunned by the serious wounding of their commander, Colonel Jean-Germain Salvan, in a fight with a Palestinian faction earlier this month. He may be able to walk again in a year's time, but he will never again jump out of a plane.

Outside the French base camp is a hastily built row of canvas shops where the entrepreneurial Lebanese sell everything from cigarettes to transistor radios. A tailor sitting at his sewing machine says he is doing "terrific business" cutting and making tailored summer uniforms. One of the bestselling items is a spiral punk made in China and thought by the paras to be the best defense against the horde of mosquitoes. "C'est la vie," says a French trooper of the punk's nauseating aroma. "Better the smell than the bites."

Gradually the French are learning to make their duty a little more bearable. They send out wine tasters to sample the local vintages and buy the best bottles they can find for their mess. They also have what is known as the "Air France raiding party," a group that drives up to Beirut daily to pick up delicacies, newspapers and mail from Paris.

The highest-paid soldiers are the Norwegians--privates make $700 a month --but they are not happy. They are reservists who never dreamed they would be called up for active duty. "We should have known," says one. "When we went on maneuvers last summer, we had a training exercise about being in southern Lebanon, and here we are. You can't take a walk outside the perimeter here because you could be picked up by the Palestinians. About the only thing to look at is the damned goats, and you wonder if someone is using them as a cover to sneak by you." To celebrate their national day on May 17, the Norwegians flew in 300 bottles of aquavit from home.

The Iranian troops struck me as the most listless of the U.N. forces, and the Gurkhas from Nepal as the most contented. They brought their bugles and drums with them to Lebanon, and an enormous silver bell used both for ceremonies and for sounding an alarm. "Our King believes in peace," says the Nepalese commander, Lieut. Colonel Keshar Bahadur Gantaula. "We came here in that spirit, and we'll give anyone a fair chance. But, of course, if they don't respond, then we'll fight."

Despite some initial failures, the U.N. units seem to be coming to terms with the Palestinians. After a fight in which one of his men was wounded by a band of irregulars, the Norwegian commander, Major Tor Lo/set, went to see the local Palestinian leaders. "I told them we regretted using our weapons," he said later. "They told me they regretted the incident too. They said that none of their regular forces participated. I told them we should have a telephone line direct to their headquarters so we could communicate if there were future attempts to infiltrate our position. They agreed. I now have direct communications with the fedayeen command in this area."

Entering Lebanon from the south, Bureau Chief Neff found the P.L.O. still in control along much of his route. His report:

The Tyre pocket, an area along the coastal plains of southern Lebanon that lies between the Israeli line and the Litani, is under the control of the Palestinians. This became clear when, in response to a request to visit Tyre, a U.N. liaison officer warned: "You could try it, but you might be arrested. They would arrest anyone from Israel." Palestinian troops patrol the pocket, set up roadblocks, question and detain whomever they want. The only way to travel, suggested the U.N. official, was to get rid of anything--papers, money, candy wrappers, that would indicate you were from Israel. And wristwatches, he added, should be set forward one hour to conform with Lebanese time. The time difference was a dead giveaway to Palestinian interrogators.

For three hours we traveled in a U.N. car throughout the whole area without incident: the outskirts of Tyre, the pocket and behind UNIFIL lines. Life appeared to be back to normal everywhere. In the current honeymoon phase, villages are happy to have the Israelis out and UNIFIL in. The troops are now getting voluntary intelligence from the villagers about such things as arms caches and mines in the roads. But as the guerrillas creep back and patience with the U.N. checkpoints wears thin, such cooperation is likely to dry up.

One complicating problem is that the Israelis are continuing to arm the Christian Lebanese along the southern border. When they eventually withdraw from the remaining territory they occupy, the Israelis hope to leave behind them a buffer zone of Christian villages. So, while the Christians are getting stronger, the Palestinians are getting angrier. "What right do all those countries have to be here?" demands one Palestinian. "They are doing Israel's dirty work."

The success or failure of UNIFIL's mission depends largely on Yasser Arafat. The P.L.O. chief has already informed the U.N. that he believes his troops have a right to return to southern Lebanon under the terms of the 1969 Cairo agreement, in which the Lebanese government granted the Palestinians the right to operate in certain areas of southern Lebanon. Arafat has told the U.N. that he therefore believes UNIFIL should assist in the return of his forces to the area. If Arafat should decide to fight UNIFIL, as the U.N. must surely realize, he would have every chance of winning a war of attrition.

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