BEIRUT, 14 April 2005 — The political crisis in Lebanon deepened as pro-Syrian Prime Minister-designate Omar Karami announced that he cannot form a Cabinet and was stepping down as Lebanese marked the 30th anniversary of the start of their country’s devastating 1975-1990 civil war with a “day of national unity” — marches, concerts and other symbolic gestures across a rebuilt capital.
But the goal of unity may still be beyond reach as Karami failed to form a government. The move seriously undermines chances of holding elections due next month on schedule — and it prompted opposition calls for a new round of street protests to demand a vote be held. “We must have elections. If we don’t, we’re moving to the unknown. People may decide to return to the squares,” top opposition figure Walid Jumblatt said, referring to the protests on the main squares in central Beirut. Jumblatt was speaking to reporters in Strassbourg, where he was meeting European officials.
The opposition sees the elections, which are supposed to be held by May 31, as their best chance to overturn pro-Syrian politicians’ domination of Parliament as Syria ends its decades-long military presence in Lebanon.
But Lebanon’s political turmoil — including the failure to form a government since Feb. 28 — has underlined the sharp divisions that continue to hamper the country’s recovery. Some fear that those divisions, despite the feelings of unity, could still burst once again into violence.
Political and sectarian tensions exploded into civil war on April 13, 1975, when Christian gunmen killed 27 Palestinians on a bus. The war killed 150,000 people and ravaged a once-prosperous nation of 3.5 million — and even after the conflict’s end in 1990, the Lebanese remained divided.
But Christians and Muslims have shown unprecedented unity in the wake of the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which sparked massive protests against Syria. The opposition blames the government and its Syrian backers for the killing, an accusation Beirut and Damascus deny.
The assassination was also the catalyst behind international pressure that forced Syria to order the withdrawal of its army from Lebanon. Syria sent troops in 1976 to help stop the conflict before it got entangled in it, then emerged as the dominant power.
Marking the 30th anniversary, Lebanese organized over the past few days art exhibits, cultural events and concerts, some of them in Beirut’s rebuilt downtown, which was a notorious killing field during the war.
About 200 disabled people, some on wheelchairs from wounds suffered during the conflict, marched several kilometers from near the site of the bus attack in the Christian neighborhood of Ein El-Rummaneh.
— With input from agencies
