Lebanon civil war still hunts families of disappeared

BEIRUT:
Forty  years after Lebanon's civil war bagan
,the  families of thousands of  people  who
disappeared are  still haunted by the conflict
and  fighting  to learn of their loved ones' fate

The civil war lasted 15 bloody years from
1975 to 1990 killing more than 150,000
people and  leaving some 17,000 missing
according  to official figures.


The  conflict primarily pitted  Christian group
against Palestinian factions backed by leftist
and  Muslim parties ,with significant regional
and international intervention

Those who buried their children were able
to weep for them,but we  have not been able
to mourn ,said Mariam Said ,whose 15-year
old son Maher disappeared in 1982 while
fighting near Beirut,

"It's a cause that must not  die "she insisted
in her apartment on the  old  line that separated
largely Christian east Beirut from the mostly
Muslim west of the  city

Like  the Argentine mother of the Plaza de
Mayo movement ,Saidi has since 2005 participated
 in a permanent protest camp outside the UN
headquarters in central Beirut.

But despite the long running protest and various
campaigns ,the  parties to the civil war have refused
to share information about the missing ,

"They refuse to reopen the files,saying it  will
threaten civil peace ,As if the country was at
peace !"Halawani said,

Lebanon has  experienced many spasms of
violence since the war ,and has   been criticised
by international NGOs for  its'collective amnesia"
about  the conflict,
u
"To earn the lessons of the war ,the  past must be
confronted "said Carmen Hassoun Abu Jaude,
director of the International Centre for Transitional
Justice (ICTJ)  in Beirut,


It's a  wound that was closed up  while it  was still
infected ,she  added ,nothing that investigations
into the fate of the disappeared in other countries
had  not rekindled conflict,

In 1991 Lebanon issued a  board amnesty that
benefited the country's war-lords allowing many
of  them to be  come political leaders
"Aboard ,people are astonished when I tell them
we don't want justice or the cancellation of the
amnesty law"said Halawani,whose husband was
kidnapped in front of her in   1982,
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