Beirut, Lebanon: October 6, 2007 – There is a mounting tension among the Christian community. With the Islamist group Hezbollah having brought Lebanese politics to a standstill, the country’s once-dominant Christian community feels under some sort of blockade and has started re-establishing militias, training in the hills and storing weapons for self defence and fighting their own brethren. 

Many Lebanese apprehend a civil war, another one like the 15-year ago that started in 1975. The conditions have clearly divided the Christian community, which need reconciliation.

Christian young volunteers are rushing forward and offering their services to join the militant factions, there are reports of free spray painting of nationalist symbols on walls and tattooing them on their skin, a novel way of proclaiming their willingness to fight in a new civil war. This war is not against Muslims but against the other faction of their own Christian Brethren. 

One of the main issues of conflict is who would be the next president, a post reserved for a Christian under Lebanon’s Constitution, and which must be filled by the end of November.

The other topic is whether Lebanese Christians must accept their minority status and get along with the Muslim majority (the choice of the popular Gen. Michel Aoun), or should insist on special privileges no matter what their share of the population (the position of veteran civil war factions like the Phalange and the Lebanese Forces).

The government dedicated an extraordinary cabinet session in September to reports that Christian factions had opened militia training camps in the mountains.   They have opened recruitment centers on both sides and the young people are coming blindly, not knowing what they are doing?

This is such a stage where the govt. can handle the situation, if takes the matter as top serious priority, and it should not let it loose, since within days of a renewed conflict, heavy weapons could flow to rival Christian factions from Israel, France, Syria, or even the United States.

It is just a tactical war being playing by some vested interests who want to divide the Christian community and it is for the Christian leaders to understand this ideology of their opponents. If the govt. fails to control the situation, it may turn into a civil war, it shall, therefore, be advisable for some noble Christian leaders who should negotiate a compromise in the larger interest of the Christian community. (IR Summary).

On the other side of the Christian divide, followers of General Aoun and Suleiman Franjieh — two Christian groups allied with Hezbollah and considered pro-Syrian — have stepped up their “youth summer camp” programs, a combination of hiking and political indoctrination.

They have joined Hezbollah’s marches and occupation of downtown Beirut, and, according to the government, have engaged in militia training in Hezbollah camps.

Since the country’s last census in 1932, when Christians accounted for about 55 percent of the population, their numbers have shrunk to an estimated 30 percent. The president and the leader of the armed forces must always be a Christian, but since the Christian community is so bitterly divided, Shiite and Sunni Muslim leaders often end up choosing the candidates for them.

The government has avoided a new census because of the repercussions: power is delicately divided among Lebanon’s officially recognized 18 sects.

Traditional Christian leaders — notably Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, Lebanon’s chief Maronite cleric — are trying to broker a compromise. The patriarch has welcomed leaders to Bkirke, his compound overlooking the sea north of Beirut. But his pronouncements about what kind of leader should assume the presidency have been all but ignored.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/world/middleeast/06christians.html?th&emc=th