Articles
In Lebanon, 2007 looks like 1974: Do you know where your sons are?
By The Daily Star
Oct 2, 2007 - 3:23:18 AM

Allegations that members of a major Lebanese opposition party had been training for armed combat when they were rounded up by the Internal Security Forces (ISF) over the weekend are deeply disturbing - but they should also serve as a useful reminder of mistakes made long ago whose costs are still being borne. The last time Lebanon's famously fractious political parties got down to the business of preparing to "defend" themselves against their rivals, they succeeded in slaughtering somewhere between 150,000 and 250,000 people in the cause of settling - and apparently learning - absolutely nothing.

It may be true, as the Free Patriotic Movement says, that its men were merely engaged in some lighthearted target practice after a picnic, and that the ISF took advantage of the situation to score propaganda points. What is certain, however, is that both opposition and government supporters have been up to such activities for months. The Cabinet's public announcement of this fact last week served only to confirm what most Lebanese already knew - or at least suspected. Residents of rural areas have been hearing the sounds of small-arms and even mortar fire, residents of urban ones have been getting phone calls inviting them to accept weapons for "self-defense," and credible reports indicate that at least some of the would-be militiamen are training in Egypt and Jordan. There is no longer any room for doubt.

Such activities can only multiply the number of potential sparks in a political climate already overflowing with tinder. Those who have seen this pattern before - and tasted its bitter consequences - have a responsibility to speak out against it this time before the inevitable "accident" happens. And it is not just wiser figures in the opposing political camps who need to rein in their baser colleagues: Lebanese parents, too, need to start asking themselves what their sons are getting up to before a new cycle of uncontrollable violence erupts. Then it will be too late to explain what really happened between 1975 and 1990: All sides committed unspeakable atrocities, all sides forged cynical alliances with unscrupulousness foreign powers, and all sides sustained horrific casualties.
Part of the problem, of course, is that whether they have openly retained their weapons or not, the armed groups that fought the Civil War remain the nuclei for today's political parties. Many are still led by the same warlords who sent an earlier generation to its death, and although some of the issues have changed in the interim, those who argue about them are still driven by the same tribal instincts. Left to their own nefarious devices, they might well drag the country into another round of bloodletting, one that could make the last clash seem gentle by comparison. Many of the young men currently preparing to battle their brothers have fathers who succumbed to similar temptations. Surely those who survived cannot want their sons to experience similar horrors - or to inflict them on a new generation of innocents. To prevent history from repeating itself, they will need to be brave enough and wise enough to go against the warlords.