Fouad Abou Nader

Fouad Abou Nader
فؤاد أبو ناضر
Fouad Abou Nader ; فؤاد أبو ناضر
Leader of LF
	In office; 1984–1985
Preceded by	Fadi Frem
Succeeded by	Elie Hobeika
Personal details
Born	June 27, 1956 (age 68); Baskinta, Lebanon

Fouad Abou Nader (Template:Lang-ar) is a Lebanese Christian politician and former leader of the Lebanese Forces. A grandson of the Kataeb Party founder Pierre Gemayel, Abou Nader became a Kataeb party activist and head of the elite Kataeb troop called the "BG" and later on head of the Lebanese Forces after the union of various Christian military groupings. After an internal revolt in the Lebanese Forces led by Elie Hobeika and Samir Geagea against his leadership, he relinquished his power to them, refusing to fight in what he considered a fratricide venture.

Abou Nader remained active in the Lebanese Forces veterans group and return briefly to the Kataeb party. The party was marred at the time by deep divisions between various factions, and Nader eventually left. He later established his own political movement, Liberty Front, that he heads as general coordinator.

Nader was seriously injured in 1975, 1976 and 1983 in fights against Palestinians and Syrians. In 1986, he survived an assassination attempt but was severely wounded. In the late 1980s, he also established a medical and paramedical engineering firm.

Early life

Nader was born in Baskinta, (Metn, Mount-Lebanon, Lebanon) on June 27, 1956 to Antoine Abou Nader and Claude Pierre Gemayel, a family of Christian Maronites.

After attending school at Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour and Collège Mont La Salle, he joined the American University of Beirut. Because of the war, he continued his medical studies at the Université Saint-Joseph, and graduated as a doctor in 1982.

Kataeb Party

He joined the Kataeb Social Democratic Party (led by his grandfather Sheikh Pierre Gemayel) in 1974. He was an active member of both the paramilitary and the students’ organization of the party. At Dekwaneh, he participated in his first fight against the Palestinian organizations.

Role in the Lebanese Forces

When war started, he was part of the “BG” (or “BE GiM”), the elite division of the Kataeb regular forces. When the Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF), the Tigers Militia (“Noumour”) from the National Liberal Party, the “Guardians of the Cedars” from the National Lebanese Movement and the “Al-Tanzim” (“the Organization”) from the Lebanese Resistance Movement united to form the “Lebanese Forces” (LF), he became the head of the operations division of the LF (called the “Third Bureau”). He sustained serious injuries in 1975, 1976, and 1983. In 1986, he was severely wounded in an assassination attempt but survived.

In 1982, Bachir Gemayel, commander in chief of the LF, was elected president of the Lebanese Republic. Following his election, Fadi Frem became commander in chief of the LF, and Nader became the LF's chief of staff. In 1984, he was elected as commander in chief of the LF. He was involved in most of the battles fought by the LF and the Resistance against various Palestinian organizations and the Syrian army.

Power struggles and withdrawal from the Lebanese Forces

Beginning in 1985, an era of “intifada” (revolts) shook the “free regions” and developed into a struggle for power. Nader refused to engage in the struggle, and did not attempt to quell the intifada led by Elie Hobeika and Samir Geagea to remove him from power. He said:

"When I offer my condolences to the family of a martyr as head of the LF, I feel bad even if their son was sacrificed for the noblest of causes. What do you want me to say tomorrow to all these mothers? How [will I] explain the martyrdom of their children? Just to remain in my position as head of the LF?”

In 1986, he refused to recognize the tripartite agreement signed in Damascus by Elie Hobeika, and became responsible for the Kataeb regional. In 1989, he rejected the Taef agreement signed by Georges Saade, the head of the Kataeb Social Democratic Party and approved by Samir Geagea. He supported Michel Aoun’s liberation war against the Syrian army but rejected what he considered a fratricide war between the Lebanese Army soldiers loyal to General Aoun, and Geagea’s militia. Nader participated in the mass demonstrations in Baabda (where the presidential palace is located) against the Taef agreement and the invasion by the Syrian army.

Lebanese Forces Veterans Group and return to Kataeb

During Syrian occupation, he helped the student Resistance, participated to their main demonstrations and was part of the "Kataeb Opposition" led by Dr Elie Karame, former head of the Kataeb, against the pro-Syrian direction of the party led by Dr Georges Saadeh then Mounir El Hajj and Karim Pakradouni. After Rafic Hariri assassination, he participated to the mass demonstrations in Beirut downtown for the departure of the Syrian army.

After Syrian withdrawal, he restarted his public activities in launching, with his former companions, the "Lebanese Forces Veterans Group". He decided to return to the Kataeb in the hope of initiating the necessary changes to avoid the repetition of the mistakes of the past. These necessary changes were: making the party more democratic to avoid fratricidal struggles for power and redefining the Cause. Quickly, he clashed with the direction of the party who refused any change about the feudal, hereditary and therefore anti-democratic structures.

Establishment of the Liberty Front

Consequently, in collaboration with his companions from the Kataeb Social Democratic Party, as well as from other parties and movements, Fouad Abou Nader launched the “Liberty Front” in April 2007. The Liberty Front is a Lebanese political movement, social-democratic & independent, heir of the “Front for Freedom & Man” founded in 1976 by Dr. Charles Malik and the political offspring of the Resistance of the Front's parties & movements fighters who cooperated in the “Lebanese Forces Command Council”. Starting 1976 before uniting their guns in 1980 in the “Lebanese Forces” under the leadership of President Bachir Gemayel and fought against the Palestinian organizations & the Syrian army between 1975 and 1986.

The Liberty Front calls for the Christian unity rejecting the division of the Christians. In October 2008, Abounader was re-elected as general coordinator of the Liberty Front.

Positions

Dr. Fouad Abou Nader thinks that friendly relations with both Syria and Israel will maybe not start in the near future “but definitely in the end we have to find a resolution. Why can’t we achieve peace between our countries? Our peace has to be fair between the Israelis and us and between Syria and us as well.”

He is “100% for keeping this coexistence between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, but the political formula of how to implement it must be changed. We would like to find a final solution for the problems of the country. Otherwise we are going to stay in this situation. We cannot go on like this for all of our lives. We have to try a stable solution for the sake of our kids. We don't want our kids to continue the war we have fought. We want to find a final solution. Rule number one is that we have to stop lying to each other. Number two, we have to start thinking Lebanese only. And, rule number three, we need to sit together and find a solution – without a hidden agenda from either side. Everyone in Lebanon, Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, Druze, Alawi, Jews, etc. can live free with dignity and enjoy security, equality and freedom.”

About the Memorandum of Understanding between Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement & Hezbollah, his position is: “It's a positive step although I don't agree with the objectives of Hezbollah and its foreign agenda.” As “defence strategy” option, he is for the creation of a “national guard”, an armed force organised regionally, in the framework of the regionalism he is calling for, alongside the Lebanese army and Interior Security Forces (I.S.F.) and integrating Hezbollah Resistance weapons and fighters but also other and new volunteers from all the regions and from all the sects.

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