by Giovanni Sorbello
Twenty-four years separate us today from the bloody and devastating Lebanese civil war which caused 150 thousand deaths among militaries and civilians. Officially the conflict ended on 1990 with the general amnesty and the Taif Agreement which halt the armed clashes among groups. Yet in Lebanon survives divisions among communities as consequence of the foreign interference and a poor political dialogue.
The orrible numbers of the war; more than 700thousand people were dispersed in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 while the militias committed many massacres such as Karantina carnage of 1976, the massacre of Cristians in Damour and the Tel al- Zaatar one. The Lebanese civil war had a drammatic impact on the population. The available statistics show that almost 2,7% of the population has been killed during the conflict, the 4% has been injured and one-third fled from their homes.
On 1991 the leaders of that massacre conceded each other the general amnesty but the people, the true victim, has never forgotten it. Civilians suffered the biggest losses, they lost their loved ones, homes and their future. On the other side, the leaders did not lose nothing and their power became stronger.
To date Lebanon is dominated by conflicts and interference. It is more than 30 years that Saudi Arabia controls the area referred to the Hariri family and influences the internal as the foreign policy of the country. Beside that, the conflict in Syria didn’t relieve the Lebanese tensions but increased the political divisions by means of armed clashes and attacks which provoked hundreds of victims.
Fortunately after the dark time of the past war, today there are positive signs due to the prominent role played by Hezbollah, the lebanese resistance movement, whose action keeps high the position of the country in the whole region.
Waiting to know who will sit on the presidential chair, the Lebanese people is aware of the coming era, freed from the foreign interference. In fact only a great change may leave definitively apart the memory of the civil war and Lebanon can be rebuilt stronger.
