BEIRUT, Lebanon – About 200,000 Lebanese gathered in Beirut yesterday to mark the anniversary of the assassination of a former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, as calls mounted for the removal of the Syrian-backed president, Emile Lahoud.

A sea of red and white flags bearing the cedar tree of Lebanon mixed with banners bearing Hariri’s image and anti-Syrian slogans such as “The Truth” and “No to Bashar” – a reference to President al-Assad of Syria, whose regime is widely blamed for the killing.

What had begun as a somber occasion to show national unity soon became polarized with calls from Sunni Muslim, Druze, and Maronite Christian leaders for the resignation of Mr. Lahoud, whose term was extended for three years in 2004 under Syrian pressure.

The late prime minister’s son and political heir, Saad Hariri, called Mr. Lahoud “the symbol of [Syrian] domination.”

“They left us with the legacy of their domination at Baabda [the presidential palace] but we tell them to remove that legacy, remove the symbol of your oppression,” he said.

The veteran Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, called Mr. al-Assad a “terrorist tyrant,” saying: “The Lebanese are free men. We say to him he can take back his agent Lahoud.” Mr. Hariri returned for the demonstration from Paris where he has been living in self-imposed exile in fear of his life after a series of assassinations of anti-Syrian members of parliament and journalists in 2005.

The majority of people present, however, were there to seek justice.

A Muslim from the town of Chtoura in the Bekaa, Hussein Abbas, said: “I want to find the people who did these terrible crimes and I am here to ask the whole world to help us find the truth.” Oliver Gemayel, 28, from Beirut, said he was there “to remember and to go forward with peace and justice”.

Veiled women with families and men wearing the tribal red headdress from the Bekaa Valley shared traditional Lebanese bread with young girls in Western clothing.

Zeina Accouma, 40, from Accar, who had brought along her ageing mother and two young sons said: “I am here for the truth and to show that we are united in Lebanon, Muslim, and Christian, and I am here to pray for Rafik Hariri.”

Young men wearing T-shirts with the Christian Lebanese Forces logo held anti-Syrian placards in a repeat of demonstrations last March that led to Syria’s withdrawal of troops from Lebanon in April after 30 years.

Many in the crowd were buoyed by a promise from Washington to see justice done and the people who killed Hariri punished.

In a mark of the country’s deep divisions, the pro-Syrian Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies held a separate commemoration in the southern town of Tyre. They said that the Beirut commemoration had become “politicized.”