THE CEDARS, Lebanon - Former Christian militia chief Samir Geagea expects turmoil in Lebanon that may spill into the streets as Hezbollah and its allies campaign against the anti-Syrian government, but no slide into civil war.

Geagea's Lebanese Forces, now a political party, has one minister in Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's Western-backed cabinet, which is resisting demands from Hezbollah and its main Christian ally Michel Aoun for a national unity government.

"I see some turbulence, but it will not be destructive or fatal," Geagea told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has asked politicians to start talks on Monday on a unity cabinet and new electoral law.

Speaking at his well-guarded home at the Cedars ski resort in the snow-powdered peaks of north Lebanon, Geagea said he favoured dialogue, but criticised Berri's agenda as too narrow.

He said it was more important to discuss what had led to Israel's devastating 34-day war with Hezbollah and how to apply the U.N. resolution that halted the conflict on Aug. 14.

Resolution 1701 demands a weapons-free border zone in the south policed by the newly deployed Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers, and indirectly calls for Hezbollah's disarmament.

Geagea said the best way to achieve this would be to recover the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area, which is claimed by Lebanon and which Hezbollah cites as a reason to keep its arms.

"PARALYSED PRESIDENCY"

Geagea rejected calls for a cabinet giving Hezbollah and its allies more than the five ministries they now hold.

Siniora's government, formed after last year's elections, was at least functioning, he said, whereas the presidency held by Syrian-backed Emile Lahoud was a legacy of the era of Syrian tutelage over Lebanon and was "completely paralysed".

Geagea said he would not run for the presidency, reserved for Maronite Christians in Lebanon's power-sharing system, next year because "you have to compromise your attitude and beliefs".

He would focus instead on rebuilding the Lebanese Forces as a political party after what he said was 15 years of repression that ended when Syrian troops left Lebanon in April 2005.

He said rearming the party was out of the question "because we would be betraying our own beliefs in the state". His goal was a pluralistic, sovereign, democratic, independent Lebanon.

Geagea, 54, the only Lebanese militia chief to be jailed after the 1975-90 war, spent 11 years in solitary confinement, serving four life terms for political murders.

Amnestied by parliament 15 months ago, the former medical student has always said he was a political prisoner victimised for opposing Syria's grip on Lebanon, which was loosened only after last year's assassination of ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri.

Syria denies involvement in Hariri's killing and subsequent assassinations of anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon.

Geagea said he had received death threats this year -- "two or three letters ... written in a very Alfred Hitchcock way".

LESSONS OF CAPTIVITY

He said his prison experience had deeply affected his personal outlook, without shifting his political convictions.

"I see things from a much wider angle. I can easily understand others, even though I am in contradiction with them politically," Geagea said quietly. "I can even love them."

He remains a hero to many Maronites. Even his old foes mostly backed his release, setting aside past animosity for a man they once feared for his military adventures and readiness to ally with Israel against Syria and Palestinian guerrillas.

Of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, one of his bitterest wartime foes, he said with a smile: "Now he is my bitterest friend."

Jumblatt, once a Syrian ally, now denounces Damascus.

"It was war unfortunately, but now things have taken a completely different turn and here we are, all together, with a clear political agenda," Geagea said of his new-found Druze and Sunni Muslim allies.

Geagea said he had learned in captivity that anger was "a real poison" falsifying reality. He said he had never despaired.

"In jail I reflected a lot on everything that occurred in my life," he said. "Of course there were many, many things that I will not do again. So in this meaning it was very enriching." (Reuters)