Picture of the Ain al-Rummaneh bus after it was attacked, an incident that ignited the Lebanese Civil War on April 13, 1975. (Credit: shared by former MP Fouad Makhzoumi on X today)
Lebanese MPs on Saturday made remarks on the anniversary of outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War on April 13, 1975, amid a tense security situation in the country following the killing of Lebanese Forces (LF) official Pascal Sleiman, whose death some accuse Hezbollah of being behind.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who visited the seat of the Maronite patriarch in Bkirki on Saturday, called for "lessons to be learned" from the past in a context in which the Pascal Sleiman's killing has resurrected the specter of war and raised fears of security abuses. "Today we commemorate April 13, the date on which the painful Civil War (1975-90) began. I call on the generations that did not experience the war to learn from it," Mikati said. "We will lose out if we start fighting each other … Everyone must return to the fold of the state," he added.
Sleiman, a leader of the Lebanese Forces in the Jbeil area, was killed earlier this week by a Syrian gang, according to the Lebanese Army's initial investigations. Sleiman's body was found on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Many, however, accuse Hezbollah of being behind his death.
Following Sleiman's murder, tensions between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces spiked. The LF released a statement on Tuesday about Sleiman's killing in which it blamed Hezbollah’s “illegal presence,” which it says has “hampered the role of the state,” leaving room for “armed gangs and chaos." In a speech on Monday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah strongly criticized the Lebanese Forces and its allies for being so quick to point the finger at his movement.
Commenting on the anniversary of the outbreak of the 15-year Civil War, when on April 13, 1975, Kataeb gunmen killed 30 Palestinians on a bus in Ain al-Rummaneh, Free Patriotic Movement MP Simon Abi Ramia said that this week has "reawakened in us the fear of fighting and getting back to atmospheres that we don't want to live again."
"There is no future for Lebanon in the presence of those who want to be a spy for the outside. We should acknowledge our differences and uniqueness and reject the violence and clashes between us. We have to go back to our human principles and our religious beliefs and national stances to ease the [sectarian] tension … No one can cancel anyone in Lebanon. There is no salvation except in our unity …," Abi Ramia said on X.
Meanwhile, MP Jamil al-Sayyed, who is close to Hezbollah, spoke against the Taif Agreement, which ended the Civil War, as well as against the current political class.
"Today, April 13, the anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War in Lebanon in 1975 … They said that the Taif Agreement ended that war, and they lied to the country and the people … No, The Taif Agreement did not end the war, Rather, it transferred that war from the streets and regions to the state itself and its institutions, and handed the state over to the militia leaders, who divided it into shares, farms, and clients. … As a result, they corrupted and destroyed the state, bankrupted the people, and pushed a generation of young and qualified people to migrate … The 1975 war did not end, every leader has his share, his power, his judges and officers in the state, and his thugs in the streets …. The war will not end unless those who made it leave," Sayyid wrote on X.
Change MP Melhem Khalaf warned of the potential for the escalation of the situation today into a scenario similar to the Civil War.
"Let April 13 of this year be a stage for brave decisions … April 13 is absent from the memory but is there in reality. Its rejected presence exists in several incidents that innocent people paid for as if it were an enforced tax on our peaceful people who are attached to their land and who dream of a country that is nice to live in," Khalaf said on X.
"This chaos that is contagious and full of sectarian virus that is rich with the language of hatred and resentfulness …. We do not have to enter into a useless war whose outcomes are still there 50 years after its beginning," Khalaf said.