ON Tuesday, Lebanon took another step on its difficult road to recovery and stability with the release of former Lebanese Christian warlord Samir Geagea after a parliamentary amnesty Monday ended his eleven years in jail. The message for the world was that the Lebanese were putting their past behind them.

Geagea, who was convicted in 1994 for four political murders including the assassination of Prime Minister Rashid Karami, was the only Lebanese warlord ever to pay for his actions, even though cogent criminal cases could at one time or another have probably been made against most of the faction leaders during the bitter civil war.

Geagea had always protested his innocence. When he emerged yesterday he revealed that for most of his sentence he had been kept in solitary confinement in a basement cell beneath the Ministry of Defense. He said his life had been “ very, very hard”. But apart from this brief and measured statement about his imprisonment, what he told supporters at Beirut airport as he prepared to fly to an unrevealed destination abroad for medical tests was notably lacking in recrimination.

Indeed, he went out of his way to thank his former political foes including Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Sunni leader Saad Hariri, son of the murdered former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for their roles in securing his release. He concluded by calling for national reconciliation and saluted all the people of Lebanon in what he characterized as their struggle for survival. A staunch opponent of Syria’s role in the country, Geagea compared his release from his little prison to Lebanon’s release from the big prison of Syrian influence. He also deplored the continuing campaign of bombings for their clear purpose of undermining newfound peace and amity between Lebanese communities.

What Geagea did not do however was to once again protest his innocence or comment on the fact that he alone, of all Lebanon’s warlords, had been prosecuted and imprisoned. Implicit in everything he said was that the past was the past and that only danger lay in looking back. Instead, he chose to look forward resolutely to a new and independent Lebanon, free of rancor and prejudice.

Geagea said that he planned to return to the country in two or three months. It must be hoped that when he does, he will find a Lebanon still buoyed up by the moderation and statesmanship that all parties have shown in their turn, of which his is only the latest example. The message from everyone is that there can be no slide back to the bloody and savage days of civil war. Dark forces still remain at work in the country, which are intent upon bringing about a return to the instability and chaos from which they profited so much.

However, with each new day in which the different Lebanese communities continue to demonstrate their determination to work together for the good of all Lebanese, the future looks brighter and the forces of anarchy and violence weakened.