Grieving in a more divided Lebanon

The mourners stood for hours Wednesday in a creeping line, crushed together in this tiny village perched high above the Mediterranean Sea. Praying and weeping quietly, they doggedly awaited a chance to say farewell to Pierre Gemayel, the Christian Cabinet minister whose assassination has paralyzed a fragile nation.

The 34-year-old industry minister and heir to a Christian political dynasty was the latest critic of Syria to be killed in the streets of Beirut. He will be buried today, and his political allies have urged Lebanese to turn out en masse.

Outside Gemayel’s ancestral home, nuns stood silent, shifting their weight in the thin winter sunlight. Pale-faced teenage girls shuffled along, shoulder to shoulder with aging men. Politicians in expensive suits, flanked by beefy guards, shoved their way through the crowd without apology.

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Deepened differences

On the eve of Gemayel’s funeral, an uneasy silence suffused the empty streets of the country. There was a sense of suspension, of a perilous political struggle shot in freeze-frame. The yawning crisis and refreshed communal hatreds seemed to pause only long enough to allow the burial of one of Lebanon’s youngest politicians.

“This is traditional in Lebanon; it’s some kind of respect,” said Maroun Zeidan, a 28-year-old lawyer and member of Gemayel’s Falangist Party who stood weeping in the courtyard of Gemayel’s home. “First we bury the body, and then we look at our differences.”

There is a Lebanese saying that translates, loosely, to: “They kill a man, then march in his funeral.” If anything, Lebanon’s differences have been deepened by Gemayel’s death.

Wednesday was Lebanon’s Independence Day, a holiday marking the break from French control. But instead of parties and military parades, daybreak illuminated a landscape of shuttered shops and people lurking inside their homes.

Before Gemayel was killed, Hezbollah and its allies had mounted a campaign to seize a greater share of power in the government. The Shiite Muslim ministers and their allies had resigned from the Cabinet. Hezbollah’s charismatic leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, told his vast army of followers that the government was illegitimate. He repeatedly threatened to use massive demonstrations to attempt to force the anti-Syria bloc, which includes Christians, Sunni Muslims and Druze, out of power.

The street protests remain a strong threat; both sides fear that they could degenerate into street fights. But now it is the slain Gemayel’s anti-Syria allies who will hold a massive demonstration. The funeral march is set for today.

Grief-stricken Amin Gemayel, former president and father of the slain minister, had wanted to bury his son the day after his death, members of his party said.

But Saad Hariri, the head of the ruling parliamentary bloc, argued that the younger Gemayel’s death belonged to all of Lebanon and that he should be given a patriotic funeral.

There were hints here Wednesday that Gemayel’s allies might use his funeral to demand the resignation of Syria-backed Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.

Hezbollah and its allies quieted their criticism in the hours after Gemayel was gunned down. But a political aide to Nasrallah appeared to hint Wednesday that the Lebanese government, not Syria’s, may have had a role in the minister’s death.

“We were about to take to the streets. They were facing a crisis. They needed blood to get some oxygen,” Hussein Khalil, a political aide to Nasrallah, told the party’s Al Manar television channel. “This country is at the edge of an abyss. Some people are blowing fire in the air.”

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Threat of unrest

Gemayel’s assassination was expected to delay Hezbollah’s street demonstrations.

But the threat of unrest from other quarters remained. Prominent government officials accused Syria of choreographing the slaying and issued warnings about continuing violence.

If one more Cabinet minister leaves his post, either by death or resignation, the government automatically loses its right to rule. Some analysts believe Gemayel’s assassination is the opening shot in a campaign to derail the Cabinet, minister by minister.

“The Syrian regime will continue with the assassinations,” Druze leader Walid Jumblatt told reporters at his home in the Chouf mountains. “I expect more assassinations.”

Gemayel’s slaying has ripped open the profound animosities among Lebanon’s various Christian factions.

At the heart of the storm sits Michel Aoun, a former president and prime minister, chief of the Free Patriotic Movement and reportedly Lebanon’s most popular Christian leader. Once a fierce critic of Syria who lived in exile in Paris to escape the government in Damascus, Aoun, a Maronite Catholic, stunned observers last year when he returned home and forged a political alliance with Hezbollah.

True to Lebanese form, his followers went along with their leader and praised Aoun for building bridges between religious sects.

But other Christians were furious, and that resentment is exploding into view: In the hours after Gemayel’s death, angry young Christian men rampaged in Beirut, burning posters and flags belonging to Aoun’s party.

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‘He’s killing us’

Outside Gemayel’s home Wednesday, a 25-year-old accounting student named Johnny Akiki lounged against a stone wall, heckling Aoun’s allies when they paused to speak with reporters.

“What does your heart say?” he called, peering through his aviator sunglasses. “Our hearts say Syria is the one who did it.”

Aoun is a “Christian symbol,” but now he’s making a fatal mistake, Akiki said.

“Michel Aoun doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s taking his people to a place they do not need to be,” Akiki said. “We know where Christians should be, and it’s not there. People are very angry. He’s killing us. He’s killing us.”

The people of Bikfaya wore black and wept into handkerchiefs. Church bells tolled, and sad music sighed from open windows.

U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey D. Feltman was reportedly among the mourners. President Bush called Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the elder Gemayel to offer his support.

The Gemayel family has been a linchpin of this village for centuries, a fundamental political force entangled with the village’s devout Maronite Catholicism. The family owned businesses, doled out political favors, told the men when it was time to fight and when it was time to be calm.

At times like these, it’s hard to tell which way Lebanon will go.

“It’s a great, great family,” said Maria Mazarani, a 59-year-old schoolteacher who climbed slowly toward the Gemayel house. “Even the stones here are crying.”

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megan.stack@latimes.com

Special correspondent Raed Rafei in Beirut contributed to this report.