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Lebanese Remember Former PM Hariri

Lebanon`s "Cedar revolutionaries" returned to the streets of the capital Beirut on Tuesday, transforming the city`s center into a swaying sea of red and white national flags as the country marked the anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Twelve months after his death, the shadow of the billionaire construction tycoon and politician, whose assassination seems inextricably linked to the Syrian government, continues to loom over a country that saw the heady optimism of last spring`s Independence Uprising, often called as alluded to "the Cedar Revolution, turn into disillusion, political turmoil, and even bloodshed.

"Lebanon will be engulfed again in a huge power game that will last quite a long time. This is the tragic destiny of Lebanon," says Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon`s Druze community. In Martyrs` Square, where the cedar silhouette on red and white flag waving demonstrators gathered Tuesday, organizers hoped to revive the spirit of the Independence Uprising, focusing this time on ousting Emile Lahoud, the pro-Syrian president.

"There is one person who is playing with Lebanon`s security and that`s Emile Lahoud," says Tarek Balad, carrying a portrait of Hariri. "All Lebanese want him to go." In an address to the crowd from behind a bulletproof glass screen, Saad Hariri, Rafik`s son and political heir, called for Mr. Lahoud`s ouster, describing him as "the symbol of [Syrian] domination."