Scores of Lebanese officials and politicians were quick to blame the assassination of longtime gangster Elias Hobeika on Israel and its prime minister Ariel Sharon. It is being strongly suggested that Hobeika was killed to prevent him from testifying against Mr. Sharon in an eventual Belgian that is so far a product of wishful thinking.

The 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila is commonly, and for good reasons, believed to be the work product of Lebanese Forces/Phalange militia thugs commanded by Elias Hobeika, who was the LF intelligence chief with an enhanced authority after the assassination of the LF founder and Lebanese president-elect Bashir Jumayel. General Sharon took the political blame for failing to prevent it and was stripped of his defense ministry following the publication of the Kahane Report. The massacre, which took the lives of nearly one thousand Lebanese and Palestinian innocent civilians, was reported extensively in the international press at the time. One reporter, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the massacre. There was a consensus among reporters, endorsed by the Kahane report, that none other than Elias Hobeika was in command of the assassins.

Unfortunately, there was never a Lebanese police or judicial investigation of the killings at Sabra and Shatila and Lebanese politicians are relying on Belgian magistrates to do their dirty work, investigate the crimes, and return a guilty verdict against the only suspect they wish to have, i. e. Ariel Sharon.

The 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila was not the only one in the sorrowful events of the seventies and eighties that turned Lebanon from a free country into a satellite of a totalitarian regime. It was preceded, and followed, by a large number of massacres. Karantina, Damour, Shouf, Black Saturday, Dahr Al Wahsh and Beit Meri, are the most notorious among a long list of blood baths.

Elias Hobika was not the only gangster and chief assassin. There were many others. Most of them are alive and well and enjoying the fruits of their bloody exploits. No wonder that a Lebanese investigation is not to be expected. For the suspects constitute the backbone of the post Taef regime under the wing of Syria.

It would be a great pity if the horrendous crimes they are believed to have committed are left to the Belgians or other foreigners to investigate.

The ghosts of Sabra and the other massacres, complete with the spirits of their innocent victims, that count in the tens of thousands, will continue to haunt Lebanon and the international consciousness until the criminals are duly charged, apprehended, tried, and if found guilty, appropriately sentenced.