On 13 April 1975 Phalangist gunmen ambushed a busload of Palestinians in Beirut. The incident marked the beginning of a bloody civil war which lasted 15 long years and claimed the lives of 150,000. Since 1990, the Lebanese have been trying to simultaneously come to terms with the legacy of war and to forget. Ironically it was Rafiq Al-Hariri -- whose assassination last February threatened to revive the ghosts of the past -- who had planned to mark the occasion with a series of festivities celebrating Lebanese national unity. This week, Al-Hariri's sister, Bahia, inaugurated the celebrations which her brother had planned. But will Lebanon truly heed the lessons of the war? Serene Assir, in Beirut, seeks answers from some of Lebanon's most prominent past and present players on the political arena