From e.d.wardini@easteur-orient.uio.no Mon Jun 5 21:19:10 1995 Date: Sun, 28 May 1995 16:19:31 +0200 From: Elie Wardini To: borrel@mashallah.ludvigsen.hiof.no Subject: Re: Ancient Beirut vs Beirut development A news report: [ Posted on Wed, 14 Sep 94 6:20:10 PDT ] BEIRUT, Lebanon (Reuter) - The rebuilding of Beirut has begun in a style typical of the Lebanese capital's notorious reputation: tons of explosives and lots of bangs. SOLIDERE, the company entrusted with restoring Beirut's past glory, is blowing up buildings in the war-damaged old Levantine city to make way for futuristic avenues, esplanades and a financial district. Most of the explosives experts learned the trade working at quarries before they were hired to work under the supervision of Lebanese army officers. A few were members of militias which blew up houses and whole villages during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. Now they are blowing up for peace. ``It is a hundred times more satisfying to blow up buildings for the sake of peace rather than in war,'' one said. ``At least once it is done, smiles are seen everywhere.'' Explosives, wrecking balls and bulldozers have demolished 120 buildings, creating a vast empty lot in the heart of the city open to the Mediterranean shore. An estimated three million tons of rubble have so far been cleared and mostly dumped into the sea to create a 650,000 square-yard landfill on which SOLIDERE will build parks and a modern financial district. Smiles were everywhere when SOLIDERE brought down the Fattal building after blowing up its foundations with 1,430 pounds of dynamite. Such explosives had been repeatedly used during the war -- to take out a Beirut street and kill scores of civilians. ``A symbol of war has just crumbled ... It is the most satisfying feeling,'' Hisham Karameh, a SOLIDERE engineer, said after the seven-story building went down with a deafening bang in a huge cloud of smoke and dust. ``This war monument comes down to pave the way for the construction of an avenue; the instruments of war are now used for peace and development'' Karameh added. The heavily-fortified Fattal building was a key part of the defenses of Christian army units defending Christian east Beirut during the war days. But the days of fighting are long gone and central Beirut is becoming a vast construction site. The demolition, which started in early July, is clearing most of the buildings from the 1.8 million square-yard site to make way for infrastructure rebuilding to begin later this month. It will be heralded by an open air concert amid the ruins by the First Lady of Lebanese Song, Feyrouz, and a groundbreaking ceremony sponsored by Lebanese President Elias Hrawi. Then a further 260 buildings will be demolished in the next five to six months. Only 266 of the original buildings of the central district will be preserved and restored to take their place in the new heart of Beirut. Some of the old buildings are being saved for architectural merit and others because they are inhabited. Tiny souks (markets) and a banking district made up most of the downtown area before the civil war broke out in 1975. The then-bustling capital was known as the Paris of the Middle East, its nightlife legendary. The reconstruction plan, billed as the world's biggest urban development project of the 1990s, is expected to take 25 years during which SOLIDERE will build skyscrapers, office blocks, seafront avenues and public parks. Transport Minister Omar Miskawi last month complained that SOLIDERE's dumping of rubble into the sea threatened Beirut port. He said work at the Normandy landfill, which approaches the jetty of the port's first basin, was ``a direct and imminent'' danger to the harbor. Miskawi said the rubble could endanger navigation especially in winter when high waves could carry it into the port basins. He said rubble also threatened undersea telephone cables linking Lebanon to Cyprus and France. But SOLIDERE wrote back saying all precautions were taken and denied navigation at the port would be endangered.