SUMMARY
NUF (National Union Front) was an armed group active in the Lebanese conflict over government. Lebanon has for a long time been a patchwork of different religious groups, with the most important ones in terms of size being the Christian Maronite, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims and the Muslim Druze. In order to ensure political and confessional peace, Lebanon relied on an elaborate, albeit unwritten, political power-sharing arrangement upheld by the National Pact (Mithaq al-Watani in Arabic). The Pact (established in 1943) dictated that legislative power in the assembly would be shared 6:5 in favor of the Maronite, that the President would always be a Maronite, that the Prime Minister would always be a Sunni, and that the Speaker of the House would always be a Shiite. However, intergroup tensions in Lebanon was reaching a breaking-point approaching the mid-1970s, as the country’s less favored groups grew increasingly aggrieved by the political and economic domination of the Maronite and Sunni elites. These tensions were heightened by the influx of Palestinian refugees from Israel, and the increasing influence of PLO in Lebanon. It was generally accepted that these tensions exploded following clashes between right-wing Christian militias and Palestinian fighters, a crisis that forced the Lebanese government to resign. Following this, Lebanon descended into a bloody conflict 1975-1990, which was characterized by inter-sectarian strife. In simplified terms, the two main factions of the conflict were the Christian/Maronite right-wing groups and the Muslim/Druze left-wing groups, with the latter being supported by PLO and other Palestinian groups. It was in this context that NUF emerged.
NUF was created on 2 July 1985, as NSF (a primarily left-wing/pan-Arab umbrella group) joined forces with Amal, one of Lebanon’s largest Shiite militias. As such, NUF included groups that had been part of NSF, including the PSP (Progressive Socialist Party, a mainly Druze outfit), the LCP (Lebanese Communist Party), the Communist Action Organization, the SSNP (Syrian Social Nationalist Party), and Baath parties (both pro-Syrian and pro-Iraqi). In total, NUF was comprised of eleven different militias. The primary purpose behind the creation of NUF was to continue to challenge the Government of Lebanon, led by President Amin Gemayel; both NSF and Amal had fought separately against the Lebanese government throughout 1983 and 1984. At the meeting on 2 July 1985 that created the NUF the attendants stated its goals as being “committed to ending Christian Maronite hegemony and sectarian structures”, which implied bringing down the government of Gemayel and his supporters. The NUF also advocated far-reaching electoral reform and special ties with Syria. NUF was also staunchly opposed to the Christian-dominated Lebanese Forces, which supported President Gemayel. Walid Jumblatt of the PSP was NUF’s official leader, but Amal’s Nabih Berrih held an almost equally strong position.
NUF received support from Syria, which from 1982 had become more and more at odds with the government of President Gemayel. In 1985, Syria supplied the NUF (Amal specifically) with 40 Soviet-built T-54 tanks.
