Lebanese mark civil war for first time, 30 years on 13 Apr 2005

By Lin Noueihed BEIRUT, April 13 (Reuters) - "Never again" read the signs in rebuilt downtown Beirut, where Lebanese flags hang on each wall.
On the old frontline that once cut the capital into Muslim west and Christian east, Lebanese are marching and lighting candles to mark the outbreak of the 1975-1990 civil war for the first time since the guns fell silent 15 years ago.
"I don't remember the war but we are here to say we don't want war again. We want to live united, Muslims and Christians," Karine Sihnawi, 18, carrying a Lebanese flag, said on Wednesday.
"Rafik al-Hariri's (Feb. 14) assassination moved us all to say we are Christian, Muslim, Druze standing together.
" Beside the former prime minister's grave in Beirut, a photo exhibition chronicles the furious street protests sparked by his murder, which forced a government to resign and Syrian troops to start leaving the country they entered early in the civil war.
But the fresh start promised by the withdrawal of the last foreign army from Lebanon has been tempered by four bombings that have shaken Christian areas in the past month and stirred underlying fears of a return to the country's violent past.
April 13 marks the day in 1975 when Lebanese Christian militiamen ambushed a bus carrying Palestinians through Beirut's Ain al-Roummaneh suburb, killing 26 and tipping the country into prolonged war after spells of unrest. During those years, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon in 1978 and Beirut in 1982, to crush Palestinian fighters.
Syrian troops arrived in 1976 to help Christian militias against the Palestinians, then Muslim militias, against Israel. Gunmen ruled the streets, slaughtering families at checkpoints. COLLECTIVE AMNESIA Israel pulled its troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.
Now the Syrians are leaving too. Bahia al-Hariri has called for April 13 to become National Unity Day, organising a week of concerts in the heart of Beirut that her brother Rafik rebuilt from ruins to a gleaming centrepiece critics said glossed over its troubled history. The years since the 1989 Taif Accord which ended the war have been marked by silence. There is no monument to commemorate the conflict and nothing dedicated to its 150,000 victims.
For years it was not polite to talk about the war, in which most Lebanese lost a friend, relative or neighbour. Instead people talked about "al-hawadeth", Arabic for "the events." Many still reject the tag "civil war" labelling it the "war of the others in Lebanon" -- an allusion to the multitude of foreign governments that once armed one faction against another.
A national amnesty declared at the war's end means militia leaders were never tried for the massacres. The warlords returned as officials to run Lebanon, which activists say bred a state-sanctioned collective amnesia. "We began this in 2000 because of the silence over the war and memory of the war, to say we killed and massacred each other for 15 years and must face this," said Amal Makarem, founder of Memory for the Future, which promotes discussion of the war.
The opposition, mainly Christians, Druze and Sunnis, say Lebanon can only begin a national reconciliation once the Syrians leave and the truth over Hariri's death is uncovered.
Wadad Halawani, who has campaigned for the wartime missing since her husband was kidnapped in 1982, said she hoped demands for truth over Hariri death would bring closure to the families of 17,000 Lebanese whose fate is yet unknown.
"We hope this demand for the truth over Hariri will stretch to the full truth, the truth about the fate of the missing and the kidnapped that has been hidden for so long," Halawani said. "We've shouted 'it is our right to know' for all these years and no one listened.
Now everyone is repeating our slogan."