Machghara
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2017) |
Machghara
مشغرة | |
|---|---|
Town | |
  Machghara Location in Lebanon | |
| Coordinates: 33°31′41″N 35°39′6″E / 33.52806°N 35.65167°E | |
| Country |  Lebanon |
| Governorate | Beqaa Governorate |
| District | Western Beqaa District |
| Population (1997 census estimates) | |
• Total | 6,800 |
Machghara (Arabic: مشغرة), also spelled Mashghara, is a town in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon,[1] situated in the Western Beqaa District and south of the Beqaa Governorate. It lies just to the northwest of Sohmor and southwest of Lake Qaraoun, south of Aitanit and north of Ain Et Tine, and 45km(28mi) south east of the capital Beirut. The Iskander Spring lies to the northeast of the village.
There were 9,944 registered voters in Machghara in 2010. The inhabitants of the town are Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic and Shia Muslims.[2]
History
[edit]Ottoman Period and 1860 Conflict
[edit]Ottoman tax registers in 16th century indicate Machghara had two imams, 389 households and 26 bachelors, all Muslims.[3] Over the subsequent centuries, the town evolved into a major multi-confessional hub, split evenly between Shia Muslim and Christian (primarily Melkite Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox) populations.
During the 1860 sectarian conflict, the rural agrarian villages of the southern and western Beqaa Valley corridor became targets of widespread military campaigns. Parallel to the siege of Zahlé, Druze irregulars and local tribal forces swept through the mixed settlements of the district, including Machghara. The campaign focused on economic disruption, characterized by the burning of ancestral residences, systematic crop destruction, and the wholesale seizure of livestock.[4] While the immediate death toll in the fields was lower than the massacres inside major urban citadels, the severe intimidation generated a widespread humanitarian panic, driving thousands of Christian families out of the valley toward coastal enclaves.[4][5]
Lebanese Civil War
[edit]For the initial decades of the post-independence era, Machghara maintained a highly stable, cross-sectarian social fabric characterized by mixed ideological alliances across the political spectrum.[6] However, the mid-1980s marked a radical demographic and political restructuring as the Islamist faction Hezbollah expanded into the Western Beqaa, targeting secular, leftist, and nationalist rivals who traditionally dominated the local Christian and Shia communities.
On February 15, 1986, following intense security friction in the neighboring village of Sohmor, specialized security units executed a targeted ideological purge in Machghara. Eight residents—including Shia cadres from the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) and local Christian members of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP)—were summarily executed in point-blank liquidations designed to eliminate secular political influence from tactical southern military corridors.[7]
On June 5, 1986, the regional balance of power shifted permanently when an influx of approximately 500 external Hezbollah fighters from the Baalbek region entered Machghara under the guise of Al-Quds Day celebrations. A week of heavy fighting ensued between Hezbollah and local SSNP fighters, who were heavily drawn from the town's Christian families. On 14 June 1986 the Syrian army entered Machghara to enforce a truce that they had brokered between Hezbollah and the SSNP. During a week of fighting Hezbollah had taken control of the town.[8] Following the establishment of a permanent Hezbollah military barracks, a systematic campaign of intimidation and property arson ensued, precipitating a rapid, three-wave mass exodus of the Christian population, which had historically comprised roughly half of the town's 20,000 residents.[6]
Political liquidations recurred between June 22 and June 24, 1988, following a breakdown in military mediation between rival regional factions. Specialized militia units entered the municipality and carried out targeted house-to-house raids, resulting in the extrajudicial killing of eleven individuals. The victims included local Christian elders and secular-aligned Shia families who had maintained loyalty to the state apparatus, an enforcement measure designed to compel village compliance with the newly established regional militia order.[7]
Geography
[edit]The city is located at an average of 1,050 meters above sea level, more than 200 meters above the course of the Litani River. It leans against the eastern slope of the Mount Lebanon massif. Machghara is part of the Western Beqaa District Caza which has 18 localities.[citation needed]
Demographics
[edit]In 2014, Muslims made up 60.44% and Christians made up 38.87% of registered voters in Machghara. 58.17% of the voters were Shiite Muslims and 26.28% were Greek Catholics.[9]
People from Machghara
[edit]- Al-Hurr al-Amili (1624–1693)
- Nicolas Hajj (1907–1995)
- Zaki Nassif (1918–2004)
- Salim Ghazal (1931–2011)
- Farah Omar (1998–2023)
- Wassim Salamoun (b. 1952), 30th and current Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island in Canada
- Riad Sharara (1940-1994)
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Le Commerce du Levant. Société de la presse économique. 1967. p. 40. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
- ^ "Municipal and ikhtiariah elections in the Beqa'a 147 municipalities and 414 mokhtars" (PDF). The Monthly Magazine. February 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04.
- ^ Bakhit, Muhammad Adnan (1982). The Ottoman province of Damascus in the sixteenth century. Librairie du Liban. ISBN 9780866853224.
- ^ a b Fawaz, Leila Tarazi (1994). An Occasion for War: Civil Conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860. University of California Press. pp. 71–74. ISBN 978-0520200227.
- ^ Traboulsi, Fawwaz (2007). A History of Modern Lebanon. Pluto Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0745324371.
- ^ a b "Les déplacements de populations dans la Békaa ouest," Le Commerce du Levant, Société de la presse économique, June 1986.
- ^ a b International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) & UMAM Documentation & Research, "Interactive Mapping of Lebanon's Civil War Violations," Digital Database Archive.
- ^ Middle East International No 278, 27 June 1986, Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters MP; Jim Muir pp.7-8
- ^ "التوزيع حسب المذاهب للناخبين/ناخبات في بلدة مشغره، قضاء البقاع الغربي محافظة البقاع في لبنان". إعْرَفْ لبنان.
External links
[edit]- Machghara, Localiban
Capital: Joub Jannine | ||
| Towns and villages |  | |
| Notable landmarks | ||
