The Druze leader Walid Jumblatt at Ain el-Tineh, October 15, 2023. (Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today.)
BEIRUT - Druze leader Walid Joumblatt, former head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), stated on Friday that during the commemorations marking 50 years since the beginning of the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), it would be better to observe 'a minute of silence' rather than 'giving lessons.'
'As the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon approaches, it would be preferable to observe a minute of silence, to reflect and to take stock rather than to give lessons on how to behave,' Joumblatt wrote on his X account.
The PSP, founded by Joumblatt's father, Kamal Joumblatt, had its own military wing during the civil war, the Popular Liberation Army. This militia was involved in battles against, among others, the Christian formations of the Kataeb and the Lebanese Forces, notably during the Mountain War in 1983. Joumblatt announced this year the end of commemorations for the assassination of his father, killed in 1977, estimating that justice had been served with the downfall of Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime and the arrest by the new Syrian authorities of the person accused of masterminding and executing the assassination.
The civil war commemorations occur in a special political context in Lebanon, after several months of war between Hezbollah and Israel, and as debates around disarming the party monopolize the political scene.
