Lebanese leaders on Wednesday (November 14th) welcomed a historic reconciliation between Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea and Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh, Lebanon's Naharnet reported.
"The reconciliation between the LF and the Marada Movement is a white chapter that puts an end to chapters of pain, animosity and unease," PM-designate Saad al-Hariri tweeted.
Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Gebran Bassil said he welcomes "the Marada-LF reconciliation and every other Lebanese reconciliation", adding that the move "closes a wound that was left open for 40 years".
The LF-Marada rift began with the 1978 Ehden Massacre which resulted in the death of Franjieh’s father, mother and three-year-old sister. Dozens of Marada supporters were also killed in the carnage.
Marada accuses Geagea, the LF’s military commander in the North at the time, of leading the squad that carried out the operation. Geagea denies the allegations, arguing that he had been wounded and taken to hospital prior to the bloodbath.
Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel said the reconciliation "turns the page on a painful chapter in the history of Christians and Lebanon", thanking Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi for sponsoring the reconciliation.
He said he hoped the move will be "an additional step towards building national reconciliation on the basis of real democracy and respect for diversity and pluralism".
"We cannot build a country if our relation is based on the grudges of war," Independence Movement leader MP Michel Mouawad, who hails from Franjieh’s Zgharta region, said.
