Americans frustrated, angry over US evacuation efforts in Lebanon
By VERENA DOBNIK
Newsday, NY
July 19 2006
July 19, 2006, 4:50 PM EDT
NEW YORK — Americans trying to flee Lebanon struggled on Wednesday
to find out what their government was doing to evacuate them, with
many relying on the news media for information _ only to learn that
plans were still not in place.
"We’re getting e-mails from the U.S. Embassy saying, ‘We’re working
on it,"’ Maria Bakalian said by telephone from Beirut, where she was
trying to get her 19-year-old son out of the country and back to his
college classes in Pennsylvania. The family used the U.S. Embassy Web
site to register Sevag Bakalian for an American evacuation list. He’s
heard nothing so far.
In Manhattan, his uncle was waiting. "I think incompetence explains
the situation," said Mirhan Bakalian. "The U.S. system is not working _
it’s ill-suited to think on its feet and move fast."
On Wednesday, a cruise ship carrying more than 1,000 Americans sailed
out of Beirut’s port, but more than 20,000 other Americans were still
in Lebanon a week after Israeli airstrikes started.
Some wondered why they were waiting for basic information _ like
confirmation that their names were even on a list for evacuation
_ while other nations already had transported thousands of their
nationals, free of charge.
The U.S. government at first said that anyone wishing to leave would
have to sign a note pledging to reimburse the government the price of
a commercial flight from Beirut to Cyprus _ usually $150-$200. After
criticism from Congress, the State Department dropped plans to charge.
Two other young Americans visiting friends in Beirut watched the
foreigners leaving.
"They all got out _ the Turkish, the British, the Danish, the French,
the Spaniards and the Italians," said Paola Rizzuto, 22, who was
in Beirut with her boyfriend, Rafael Greenblatt, 26, both of New
Brunswick, N.J.
U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey D. Feltman told The Associated Press that the
evacuation’s slow start was intended to safeguard Americans. A call
to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was answered by a Marine who said he
could not comment.
In New York’s borough of Queens, Rizzuto’s parents waited anxiously
to hear when they could pick up their daughter at an airport here.
"I’m getting angrier and angrier. The American government seems to
have money for everything else except its citizens," said Joseph
Rizzuto, a high school teacher in Queens who with his wife and son
waited for Paola.
He said he had called the State Department 800 number available to
answer questions about U.S. citizens in Lebanon, and although she had
registered, "they couldn’t find my daughter’s name on any evacuation
list, and had no information on her."
Rizzuto then called the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, "and it rang and rang,
and finally the line went dead."
In a telephone interview from Beirut, Paola Rizzuto told the AP that
after registering for evacuation with the U.S. Embassy via e-mail,
"we were supposed to receive an e-mail confirmation that we’re on
the list, that they’ve received our registration," she said. So far,
they’ve heard nothing from American officials.
The couple was in Lebanon on a month-long visit at the American
University in Beirut, whose students were among the first to be
evacuated. Left behind were Greenblatt and Rizzuto, a graduate
of Rutgers University in New Brunswick who had attended American
University as a student.
With water pressure fading and electricity cut for hours at a time,
Rizzuto and Greenblatt have spent their days as volunteers helping
Lebanese families displaced by the airstrikes and now living in a
makeshift camp in a Beirut park.
The Bakalian family huddled in their apartment in the Zokak El-Blat
neighborhood overlooking Beirut’s port, watching CNN for any new
instructions from U.S. officials. From the ninth floor, through thick
smoke from the airstrikes, "we see the ships come in and go out," said
Maria Bakalian, adding that the Israelis allowed "windows" of time when
the port area was safe from airstrikes and vessels could be loaded.
Bakalian, a Beirut-born Canadian citizen, said she had received
several cell phone text messages from Canadian officials offering
plans for evacuation, with costs for the trip covered all the way to
Canada. "The Canadians are keeping their citizens in the loop. The
Americans are not," said Bakalian.
She’s staying in Beirut, along with her husband, the Rev. Nishan
Bakalian _ the Armenian Evangelical chaplain of Haigazian University
there. Until 2000, the Philadelphia native was pastor of the Armenian
Evangelical Church in Manhattan.
Their biggest concern now was "getting our son out safely," said
Maria Bakalian.
But once that’s accomplished, the family faces another reality. "The
thought crosses my mind that if he goes, I may not see him for God
knows how long," she said. "But I know that it all has to come to an
end at some point."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress