BEIRUT, International Herald Tribune   The anniversary this year of “April 13” – the spark that started Lebanon’s civil war – is like no other. Three decades after a gun attack on a bus triggered the 15-year sectarian conflict, Lebanon is once again in the throes of violence and political turmoil, after 15 years of relative calm and rebuilding. Still, this anniversary for the first time is characterized by Christian-Muslim unity and by the imminent dawning of an era when Lebanon will be free of foreign armies. Syria has pledged to withdraw its army by April 30, in compliance with UN and U.S. demands. Ending Syria’s 29-year dominance of Lebanon would have been unthinkable a few months ago. It came only after weeks of anti-Syrian protests and international pressure brought after the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. sraeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, and most Palestinian guerrillas – key players early in the civil war – also have left. The remaining gunmen are largely confined to refugee camps with their light weapons. In 1975, in contrast, they were running a separate state within Lebanon.

Lebanon has had ups and downs since the end of the conflict: Israeli attacks were frequent before 2000 and Syria remained the main power broker.
But matters took a turn for the worse earlier this year with the bombing of Hariri’s motorcade on a Beirut street. Four smaller bombing attacks have been made against industrial and commercial areas since mid-March, and the country is gripped by fear of more.
Prime Minister Omar Karami, who resigned Feb. 28 under popular pressure but then returned, is still attempting to form a new Cabinet. Parliament’s term expires May 31 and, without a government, holding an election by that date is becoming increasingly unlikely.
On the upside, the recent political turmoil has brought Christians and Muslims together in unprecedented unity.
“We refuse to go backward and to repetition of the war,” said Bahiya Hariri, the slain Hariri’s sister, a legislator, as she announced activities to mark the anniversary.
Activists hope to bring the city back to life after the bombings that have halted many activities, with art exhibitions, concerts and commemorations planned for several days before the anniversary. A run for unity Sunday drew at least 20,000 people.
April 13, 1975, marked the day that the country’s festering political and sectarian tensions exploded into civil war. In the end, the 15-year war killed 150,000, ravaged neighborhoods and towns and wrecked the country’s infrastructure. Hardly a person escaped losing property or family, and about a half-million people – out of 3.5 million – left the country altogether, to settle abroad.
On the day it started, right-wing Christians opened fire on a bus packed with Palestinians in a low-income neighborhood after a drive-by attack earlier in the day on a nearby church. The attacks killed 27 Palestinians and three Lebanese Christians.
They also set off sectarian bloodshed that raged until an Arab League cease-fire and political settlement that gave majority Muslims an equal share of power with the long-dominant Christians.
Yet to a large extent, those sectarian divisions that bedeviled Lebanon, a nation of 18 recognized religious sects, were cast aside with the outpouring of nationalism after the Hariri assassination.
Political differences now cut across sectarian lines, with Christians and Muslims in both the pro-Syrian and the anti-Syrian camps.
“Of course, it makes me feel better,” said Joanna Raad, a 31-year-old hotel executive, of the unity. “I feel personally I belong to a country, not a religion.”
Raad still regrets the lost years as a teenager spent during the war, moving between apartments and trying to find a balance between going to school and keeping safe. And she is worried about the current unpredictable violence and political turmoil.
Therese Chakkar, now 50, believes there is no way Lebanon could return to the war years. She was 20, singing in the choir during Sunday Mass at the local Catholic church in Ein el-Rummaneh neighborhood when the shooting erupted outside.
“God forbid,” the insurance executive said of another war. After all, she believes, Lebanese have learned the lessons: “Repetition even teaches a donkey.”
A statue of the Virgin Mary now stands where the Palestinian bus was ambushed. Most of the buildings have been repaired, although some still bear the scars of bullets and shells.
A few blocks up the road, what was once the Green Line that divided Beirut into Christian and Muslim sectors is now a major traffic artery.
Martyrs’ Square, once a killing field, is now surrounded by gleaming buildings in the city’s rebuilt downtown district. On that square about a million people demonstrated March 14 in support of independence and national unity – and against Syria.