Jocelyne Khoweiry
© AFP/File Marwan NaamaniGHADIR, Lebanon (AFP) - "In 1975 I was ready to die for my country. Today I want to live for its sake," Khoweiry told AFP on the 32nd anniversary of the outbreak of the 15-year civil war that killed more than 150,000 people.
Khoweiry, in a rare interview, said she wanted to "relay a message of peace" at a time when many people fear that deeply divided Lebanon may plunge back into the devastating violence and chaos of civil war.
"I tell the young Lebanese of today war is not a game," said Khoweiry, founder and director of the Pope John Paul II Centre which provides social, psychological and medical assistance for those in need.
"When violence breaks out it becomes deaf. Nothing stops it."
Khoweiry, still youthful despite years of wars and hardship that have turned her hair white, does not regret her active participation in the civil war as a member of the Phalangist (Kataeb) Christian party's militia.
"We (Christians) were forced to make war. And it was not easy, especially for women," she said.
Jocelyne Kowwiry
© AFP/File"Like all the young people of my generation, I had enthusiasm and ideals. I wanted to defend my country against the Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon.
"I only regret that the war broke out in our country," Khoweiry said, adding: "It is better to defend one's nation without resorting to arms."
The annual April 13 anniversary is always a time of reflection for her.
"I feel sad because I remember the young people who fell in combat and those who became disabled. I do not want this to be repeated."
Khoweiry, one of the first Lebanese women to bear arms during the civil war, has now sought refuge in Christianity.
"After carrying arms, I thought repeatedly about becoming a nun. When you see so much violence and drama, you start asking questions about men, death and God."
In 2000 she founded the Pope John Paul II Centre in Ghadir, a mountainous village in the Christian heartland northeast of Beirut, with the help of other "sisters in arms" who discarded their guns to become "messengers of hope and peace."
Jocelyne Khoweiry
© AFP/File Marwan NaamaniKhoweiry said the late Pope John Paul II -- whom she met three times -- encouraged her to pursue a path of peace, which has allowed her to meet many of the people she fought against during the war.
Some communist militants, who fought alongside the Palestinians in Lebanon against the Christian militias, have even become her friends.
Sitting in her office amid piles of books on theology, politics and economics, Khoweiry opens an old album to show pictures of herself in combat gear.
"I was so wild," she recalled, laughing at one photograph in which her hair was still long, brown and curly and in which she was about to fire an assault rifle.
Khoweiry earned a master's degree in theology with a paper on the personality and the cult of the Virgin Mary. Now she is writing a doctorate on the role of the Virgin Mary in politics.
"The subject may be strange, but it is really interesting," she said.
The former militant insists that her military and spiritual endeavours have much in common.
"Military combat is also an ascetic, mystical experience: one sacrifices oneself in wars -- just like in religion," she said.
©AFP