Lebanese Youth Movement (MKG)

Lebanese Youth Movement (MKG)
حركة الشباب اللبنانية
Lebanese Youth Movement (MKG) ; حركة الشباب اللبنانية
Leaders	"Bash Maroun"
Dates of operation	Until 1977
Headquarters	Dekwaneh, East Beirut
Active regions	East Beirut, Mount Lebanon
Size	500-1,000 fighters
Part of	Lebanese Front; Lebanese Forces
Allies	Kataeb Regulatory Forces; Guardians of the Cedars (GoC); Army of Free Lebanon (AFL); Al-Tanzim; Tigers Militia; Tyous Team of Commandos (TTC)
Opponents	Lebanese National Movement (LNM); Lebanese Arab Army (LAA); Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); Syrian Army
Battles and wars	Lebanese Civil War

The Lebanese Youth Movement – LYM (Arabic: حركة الشباب اللبنانية | Harakat al-Shabab al-Lubnaniyya), also known as the Maroun Khoury Group (MKG), was a Christian far-right militia which fought in the 1975-77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War.

Origins

The LYM was founded in the early 1970s as an association of Maronite right-wing university students, who strongly opposed the 1969 Cairo Agreement and the presence of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrilla factions in Lebanon, by Maroun el-Khoury (nom de guerre "Bash Maroun"), the son of the former head of the Dekwaneh district of East Beirut, Naim el-Khoury.

Political beliefs

Being violently anti-communist and anti-Palestinian, the group's ideology stemmed from the extremist Phoenicist identities espoused by the Guardians of the Cedars.

The LYM in the 1975-77 civil war

The LYM/MKG joined the Lebanese Front in January 1976 and raised its own militia with training, funds and weapons being provided by the Tigers Militia led by Camille Chamoun. It consisted of about 500-1,000 fighters, backed by a small mechanized force made of ex-Lebanese Army Panhard AML-90 armoured cars and gun trucks or 'technicals'. The latter consisted of commandeered Land-Rover series II-III, Santana Series III (Spanish-produced version of the Land-Rover series III), Toyota Land Cruiser (J40), Dodge W200 Power Wagon, Dodge D series (3rd generation), GMC Sierra Custom K25/K30 and Chevrolet C-10/C-15 Cheyenne light pickups armed with heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles and anti-aircraft autocannons. Personally commanded by Bash Maroun, they usually operated in the Ras-el-Dekwaneh, Ain El Remmaneh and Mansouriye districts, manning the local sections of the Green Line, but also fought in other areas (namely at the Battle of the Hotels), earning a reputation of fierce combatants.

Controversy

However, they also became infamous for their brutality. In January–August 1976, a force of 100 LYM/MKG militiamen took part in the sieges and subsequent massacres of the Palestinian refugee situated at the coastal town of Dbayeh in the Matn District, and at Karantina, Al-Maslakh and Tel al-Zaatar in East Beirut. At the latter battle, the LYM/MKG intensified the blockade of the refugee camp by launching on 22 June a full-scale military assault that lasted for 35 days,^[1]^[2] and the cruelty displayed by LYM/MKG members' in this assault and other atrocities, earned them the unflattering nickname "The Ghosts of the Cemeteries" (Arabic: أشباح المقابر | 'Ashbah al-Maqabir) – Bash Maroun's men were normally seen wearing necklaces made from human body parts cut from their victims.^[3]

Disbandement

The LYM/MKG was subsequently absorbed into the Lebanese Forces structure in 1977, thereafter ceasing to exist as an independent organization. Under LF command, they later again played a key role in the eviction of the Syrian Army out from the Christian-controlled East Beirut in February 1978 during the Hundred Days' War.

Notes

^ Kazziha, Palestine in the Arab dilemma (1979), p. 54.
^ Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power, and Politics (1984), p. 73.
^ Kazziha, Palestine in the Arab dilemma (1979), p. 54.

References

Denise Ammoun, Histoire du Liban contemporain: Tome 2 1943-1990, Éditions Fayard, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-2-213-61521-9 (in French) – [1]
Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Liberation Organisation: People, Power, and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN 0521272165
Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon: Second Edition, Pluto Press, London 2012. ISBN 978-0745332741
Jean Sarkis, Histoire de la guerre du Liban, Presses Universitaires de France - PUF, Paris 1993. ISBN 978-2-13-045801-2 (in French)
Jonathan Randall, The Tragedy of Lebanon: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers, and American Bunglers, Just World Books, Charlottesville, Virginia 2012. ISBN 978-1-935982-16-6
Rex Brynen, Sanctuary and Survival: the PLO in Lebanon, Boulder: Westview Press, Oxford 1990. ISBN 0 86187 123 5 – [2]
Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, London: Oxford University Press, (3rd ed. 2001). ISBN 0-19-280130-9 – [3]
Marius Deeb, The Lebanese Civil War, Praeger Publishers Inc., New York 1980. ISBN 978-0030397011
Samir Kassir, La Guerre du Liban: De la dissension nationale au conflit régional, Éditions Karthala/CERMOC, Paris 1994. ISBN 978-2865374991 (in French)
Walid Kazziha, Palestine in the Arab dilemma, Taylor & Francis, 1979. ISBN 0856648647
William W. Harris, Faces of Lebanon: Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions, Princeton Series on the Middle East, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton 1997. ISBN 978-1558761155, 1-55876-115-2

Secondary sources

Moustafa El-Assad, Civil Wars Volume 1: The Gun Trucks, Blue Steel books, Sidon 2008. ISBN 9953-0-1256-8
Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon, Beirut: Elite Group, 2003. ISBN 9953-0-0705-5
Samer Kassis, Véhicules Militaires au Liban/Military Vehicles in Lebanon 1975-1981, Trebia Publishing, Chyah 2012. ISBN 978-9953-0-2372-4