March in Shiyah, Ain al-Rummaneh against politicians

Around 50 people gathered in the Shiyah neighborhood Sunday and marched to Ain al-Rummaneh to protest the country’s leaders and call for a genuine civil peace. The march, organized by the Coalition for Social Justice, Equality and Secularism, commemorated the 37th anniversary of the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) which erupted on April 13 when Christian gunmen killed 27 Palestinians on a bus in Beirut’s Ain al-Rummaneh neighborhood. The war left at least 150,000 people dead. Protesters walked through the neighborhood of Shiyah and Ain al-Rummaneh highlighting the still-visible destruction wrought by the war, particularly that which affected the area’s infrastructure. The location and trajectory of the march were symbolic, given that Shiyah, predominantly Shiite, and Ain al-Rummaneh, largely Christian, were separated by the so-called "Green Line" during the war. The Green Line was the unmarked border between majortiy Muslim west Beirut and preponderantly Christian east Beirut. Bassem Sheet, an activist attending the march, said Lebanese seek a genuine civil peace, “not peace accords that recreate the problem rather than solve it.” “This is not a grand mobilization, it is a message of [solidarity] with the people living in these areas,” Sheet told The Daily Star. Participants held up banners urging ordinary citizens to seize the initiative for change from politicians who have ruined the country: “Let us build our own peace, we have paid the price for their wars.” 16-year-old Bassel Solh, a school student, said he was taking a stand against politicians and added that “the leaders today are the ones who made the war happen and if they stay, it will happen again.”