the National Pact also reserved the presidency for a Maronite Christian, and as the Prime Minister assumes the powers and duties of the President in the event of a vacancy, it would be proper to fill that office temporarily with a Maronite. Gemayel referenced the historical precedent of 1952, when General Fouad Chehab, a Christian Maronite, was appointed as prime minister of a transition government following the resignation of President Bechara El Khoury. Liberation war against Syria: 1989 On 15 February 1989 General Aoun launched an offensive, with those Lebanese Army Brigades loyal to him (30% of whom were Sunni), against Geagea’s Lebanese Forces (LF) positions around Christian East Beirut. Nine days later, 24 February, with seventy people killed and the intervention of the Maronite Patriarchate the LF agreed to hand over to Aoun control of Beirut’s port’s fifth basin with its estimated $300,000 per month tax revenue. Suleiman Frangieh, in the north, also returned control of Ras Salaata port in Batroun District The following month Aoun launched a blockade against the unregulated seaports south of Beirut at Jieh and Khalde. On 8 March 1989 Aoun’s patrol boats intercepted a boat heading for PSP controlled port at Jieh. This percipitated a series of indiscriminate artillery barrages, with Amal shelling East Beirut harbour and Jouneh port, and Aoun’s army brigades shelling Souq El Gharb. On the 12 March Aoun ordered the closure of Beirut International Airport and two days later launched an hour long bombardment of East Beirut which killed 40 civilians. At the end of the month Aoun announced a ceasefire with the issue of the militia run ports unresolved. The area had seen the worst violence for three years with over 90 people killed and several hundred wounded. In October 1989, Lebanese National Assembly members met to draw up the Taif Accord in an attempt to settle the Lebanese conflict. This accord was later revealed to have been prepared two years earlier by Rafic Hariri. Aoun refused to attend, denounced the politicians who did so as traitors and issued a decree dissolving the assembly. After the Taif accord was signed over his opposition, Aoun further denounced it for not appointing a date for the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon. After it signed the Taif Accord (in Taif, Saudi Arabia), the assembly met to elect René Moawad as president in November. Despite heavy-handed pressure from Syria to dismiss