Lebanese General Returns Home

Gen. Michel Aoun, who led a military government during Lebanon’s civil war and remains a divisive symbol of anti-Syria sentiment, flew triumphantly home from exile Saturday.

It was an emotional homecoming in Beirut for the general, who spent the last 15 years in France as an opposition leader and outspoken critic of Syrian domination of Lebanon. When Syrian soldiers retreated from Lebanon last month under pressure from the international community and Lebanese protesters, Aoun announced plans to come home to take part in this month’s parliamentary elections.

Thunderous applause greeted Aoun’s arrival at the Beirut airport, where hundreds of his supporters waited eagerly, along with a brother he had not seen for 15 years, his three daughters and grandchildren.

“I made a vow that I would not see him unless it was in Lebanon,” the general’s older brother, Elias Aoun, said at the airport. Wiping away a tear, he said, “I’ve waited 15 years for this day to come. These are tears of joy.”

Aoun, a Maronite Christian, served as an army commander and prime minister during the country’s 15-year civil war. He left his homeland after his two-year “war of liberation” against Syrian forces was crushed. The 1990 defeat marked the close of the Lebanese civil war.

Some Lebanese see Aoun’s homecoming as a sign of increasing independence and the return of political life; others see Aoun as a reminder of the bitter sectarian battles that tore through Lebanon.

“Today is a day of happiness and joy,” the balding, bespectacled Aoun said Saturday. “A black cloud oppressed Lebanon for 15 years. Today the sun of freedom is shining. I’m coming to look to the future and build Lebanon together.”

Tens of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese packed Martyrs’ Square in downtown Beirut to greet Aoun, transforming the scene of massive anti-Syria rallies in the last three months into a sea of red, green and white.

“General, general,” they chanted as they waited in the warm sunshine.

Many had traveled from across the country, jamming the main thoroughfares into the Lebanese capital. Their joy was unrestrained. Nationalistic music blared over speakers around the square, prompting some in the crowd to break into a traditional dabke dance.

“This is like a dream come true,” said engineer Joseph Haddad, 48, watching the impromptu show. “It’s like the last page in the story of the Syrian withdrawal.”

Aoun laid a wreath at the tomb of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and offered a prayer against a backdrop of thunderous applause from the thousands of supporters waiting for him across the street at the square. Hariri’s assassination in February was widely blamed here on the Syrian regime. His death galvanized a powerful protest movement that pushed the Syrian soldiers out of Lebanon.

Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement will run in upcoming legislative elections this month. The vote has been mired in controversy.

An electoral law governing the voting procedures has yet to be agreed upon by the parliament, even though polls are supposed to open in three weeks. The elections have reopened Lebanon’s old tensions between religious groups, as each sect seeks a division of electoral districts for its own benefit.

The issue is threatening the unity of the anti-Syrian opposition movement, made up of disparate Christian, Sunni Muslim and Druze parties.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, one of the most prominent figures of the anti-Syria camp, sparred publicly with Aoun on the day of his homecoming. Speaking in parliament, Jumblatt told reporters, “The assassination of Hariri secured the Syrian withdrawal, not the man who is returning to us this afternoon like a tsunami.”

“There isn’t enough space for everybody,” said Walid Chouchair, Beirut bureau chief of the pan-Arab Al Hayat newspaper. “There has to be some sort of a compromise. But [Aoun’s] return might suggest he wants to muscle a bigger piece of the pie.”