Lebanon’s Maronite leader, Nasrallah Sfier, on Friday visited Chouf Mountain, the home of the Druze community, becoming the first patriarch to visit the area in 200 years, said reports.
Sfeir told some 7,000 people that the time had come for Lebanon to regain its sovereignty, the Daily Star quoted him as saying.
The historic gesture is a bid to further the process of reconciliation between the Christians and Druze in the mountainous district, 11 years after the end of the civil war.
Sfeir’s message was clear: the Lebanese had made mistakes in the past, but they had learned from them and now they were ready and capable of governing themselves, said the paper.
“We are beyond the puberty stage, we are now adults and are capable of running our own country,” Sfeir said during the first day of a three-day landmark visit to the Chouf.
“This is what the reputable leader, Walid Jumblatt, is calling for,” the patriarch said, “and this is what I, and every sane and patriotic person in the country are calling for, as well,” he added.
Sfeir was speaking in Kfarhim, his fourth stop following visits to Khaldeh, Naameh and Damour.
As for the reassessment of relations with Syria, an issue that Sfeir has been championing for nearly a year, the patriarch reiterated the Lebanese wish to maintain an “excellent relationship” with Damascus.
Christians and Druze have experienced troubled co-existence, marked by outbursts of intense violence since 1860, when Mount Lebanon was under Ottoman administration.
The massacre of Christians then prompted intervention by the then-major world powers -- Britain, France and Russia.
They imposed upon the Turks an autonomous status for Mount Lebanon, leading to the creation of the modern state of Lebanon - Albawaba.com
