Kataeb party leader Samy Gemayel addressing the crowd of his supporters on Saturday during a ceremony. (Photo taken from the x account @LebaneseKataeb)
The leader of the Kataeb party, Samy Gemayel, urged Hezbollah on Saturday, during a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, "to voluntarily surrender its weapons, as others have done," referring to the Kataeb party itself and the Lebanese Forces at the end of the war in 1990.
"We need to correct many misconceptions that we consider erroneous about the Lebanese war, the first being that it was a civil war," Gemayel said during his speech. He stated that his party "defended itself against foreigners, with the sole ambition that other Lebanese would join them, which unfortunately was not always the case."
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the civil war, the Kataeb party chose to organize a ceremony at a local venue in the very area where the incident that sparked this long conflict occurred on April 13, 1975. The incident took place in the Chiyah-Ain al-Rummaneh neighborhoods, involving Christian militiamen who fired on a bus carrying Palestinians. Shortly before, a shooting had caused deaths among the Kataeb, notably the first victim, Joseph Abou Assi.
In the presence of its president, MP Samy Gemayel, former President Amine Gemayel, party officials, and numerous representatives of other groups, Kataeb inaugurated a memorial bearing the names of 400 of their victims killed during the war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. Two documentaries were screened during the ceremony, highlighting the party's perspective on the Lebanese war and depicting its battles against Palestinian factions and then the Syrian army. The screenings covered the subsequent decades, with Syrian tutelage and then Hezbollah's hegemony.
'The state cannot prosper in the presence of illegal weapons'
The Kataeb leader said that the party's approach this year, which was to reopen the issue of the war, had no other goal than to learn lessons from it.
"And the first of these lessons is that the state cannot prosper in the presence of weapons outside its control," he stated. Addressing Hezbollah specifically, he argued that the party, which just ended a war with Israel for the second time since the liberation of southern Lebanon in 2000, "has seen the consequences." He urged it "to voluntarily surrender its weapons, as others have done," referring to the Kataeb party itself and the Lebanese Forces at the end of the war in 1990.
"The surrender of weapons to the state is not a subject for dialogue; this issue is settled by the Constitution, the will of other Lebanese, and the circumstances," he said. According to him, "it is up to President Joseph Aoun and the government to discuss with Hezbollah how its weapons will be handed over to the state."
Since the last war with Israel, which caused significant destruction in Lebanon and the weakening of Hezbollah, some voices proposed dialogue about the party's weapons, while the international community called for its disarmament and put pressure on the Lebanese state.
As in his parliamentary speech on Feb. 27, where he mentioned a "national truth and reconciliation conference," Gemayel said on Saturday that the Lebanese must learn to listen to each other and accept their differences, with a view to one day telling their common history. He particularly emphasized that the state "must now recognize all those who fought for it and pay tribute to them," referring to those who fell during the war, stating that without them, "Lebanon would no longer exist."
"We have an opportunity to build a country; let's not let it pass as we have lost so many others in the past," he argued.
Naji Boutros, a Kataeb official, then delivered the speech of the "former resistance fighters," calling the Chiyah-Ain al-Rummaneh area the "land of heroes" that, according to him, thwarted all plots.
The speech on behalf of the war wounded was delivered by Tony al-Fata. He, who lost his sight in the war, stated that if it had to be done all over again, he would not hesitate to make that sacrifice again.
"We have given of ourselves, but may God rest the souls of the 5,000 young people who died for the cause," he stated.