The clash was a fist fight between Phalange Party anti-Syria activists and members of the pro-Syria Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) in the mountain resort town of Dhour El Choueir.

According to a statement by Lebanon's military command in Beirut, the army troops were called in to disengage the belligerents. "The unit fired warning shots in the air and one bullet hit Suleiman Rai, who died in hospital."

Thousands of supporters were present at the ceremony; many donning re-tailored party uniforms to commemorate those worn in the 1930s. "The return of Pierre Gemayel represents the return of Lebanon to its independence again," said Metn MP Pierre Gemayel, the grandson of Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, standing before his grandfather's 3.5 meter-tall bronze statue.

Bikfaya and Dhour El Choueir are situated 25 and 30 kilometers east of Beirut respectively, in the Christian-dominated electoral constituency of Metn. The two sides had thrown rocks and bottles at each other in the village earlier in the day when the Phalange followers were heading to the rally in nearby Bikfaya. Each party blamed the other for the violence.

The SSNP advocates a merger of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, pre-Israeli Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait and Cyprus into a Natural Syria. The SSNP founder, Antoun Saadeh, of Dhour El Choueir, was executed by a firing squad in the early 1950s for leading a revolt to overthrow the Lebanese regime.

The ceremony was organized and held by former president Amin Gemayel to honor his father, Pierre Gemayel, by restoring his statue in Bikfaya. The same statue had been destroyed twice before; most recently it was blown up with dynamite and torn down when Syrian troops entered Metn in 1990 and SSNP supporters were deployed in Bikfaya. Pitched battles took place during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war between the two parties' militias.

The statue, built in Italy, was first unveiled back in 1987, but was blown up a year later and then resurrected, to be blown up again in the early 1990s.

Sources: (via Naharnet), UPI (via Monsters & Critics), Ya Libnan