BEIRUT, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- A Lebanese Christian leader on Sunday urged Hezbollah (Party of God) to lay down its arms, accusing the guerrilla group of rejecting such calls and keeping weapons by force.

    Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces, the main Christian militia during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war, made the remarks on a mass rally held to commemorate the party's "martyrs" from the civil war.

    "To bet on keeping the weapons by force is wrongful...No weapons will make us surrender to this reality," Geagea told the rally, adding "when we find a solution to weapons, then it will be possible to establish the state as it should be."

    Tens of thousands of Christians joined the rally at the shrine of the Virgin Mary in the town of Harissa, about 27 km north of Beirut.

    Geagea led the Lebanese Forces during the later years of the 1975-1990 civil war. His anti-Syrian group surrendered its weapons at the end of the war, but Geagea himself was jailed in 1994 for allegedly committing war crimes.

    He was released last year, a few weeks after Syria ended its 29-year-long military presence in Lebanon in the wake of the murder of the anti-Syrian Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in February 2005.

    At the Sunday rally, Geagea sent a strong warning to Hezbollah that its refusal to disarm was the main cause of recent divisions in Lebanon, reminiscent of the splits that caused the 1975 civil war.

    The rally came two days after the pro-Syrian Hezbollah held a massive demonstration in Beirut on Friday to celebrate its "divine victory" in the July-August war with Israel.

    Israel launched a military offensive against Hezbollah on July 12 after the Lebanese guerrilla group captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in cross-border attacks.

    The 34-day-long fighting, leaving big casualties from both sides, came to an end in mid-August thanks to a UN-brokered truce.

    During the Friday demonstration, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah lashed out the current Lebanese government and called for a new "national unity government".

    Responding to Nasrallah's speech, Geagea denounced that "it was impossible for any Lebanese faction to act unilaterally and demand a national unity government. They have to first accept national unity and then demand a government of national unity."

    "They can not take pride in relations with Syria and at the same time claim allegiance to Lebanon," he said, adding "to date Syria is still striving to wrest control of Lebanon." Enditem