Lebanon's former Primer Minister brutally murdered

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/15/beirut.explosion/index.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4266587.stm

For those who don't know him (most of you I suppose), Rafik Hariri was a self-made multi-billionaire who built his fortune in Saudi Arabia in the 70's. He headed 5 cabinets as Prime Minister in Lebanon. In 2000, his popularity was so high that he won the Parliament elections hands down. He put his fortune and his international relations to rebuilding Lebanon after the civial war, but he was a controversial man, and many opposed his methods because they inflated the national debt.

I was a couple of kilometers away from the explosion site, but the shockwave shattered most windows even here. My father was just a few hundred meters away though, and he was heading towards there. Thankfully, he got delayed, and managed to get away from it without a scratch.

Following the explosion, all phone lines (including mobiles) were disrupted for three hours. None of us dared more or go anywhere, and no one could get in touch with friends and relatives to know if they were fine. It was an extremely disturbing reminder of the days of the war, days we thought were gone for good.

I don't know what, or if anyone will have to say about this (or if anyone even cares), but I had to share it. I was among those who were madly trying to call, because I didn't know where my father was, and had to wait hours before I could finally join him and know he was fine. The entire thing is so terribly disgutsting.

We're hoping this does not mean things are going downhill from here. We can only hope a gloomier past will not be repeated, because we're getting sick of this.

 

Syria... or someone trying to frame Syria. Will one ever really know? Not likely. But this is not sure, either.

Political assassinations are already outrageous, but when they start messing around with "collateral damage" or do something like that so they could blame someone else for it, then it becomes so abhorrent in presses on one's throat.

 

Having grown up in Belfast and Lisburn during the 1980's I have witnessed a few shopping mall and school explosions but thankfully the most my immediate family had suffered were windows blown out from impact (this only happened once). I hope this does not becommon place in Lebanon but life does go on.

[ February 16, 2005, 14:24: Message edited by: Cesard ]

 

The problem is that it is becoming more and more commonplace. This is the third such event to happen in the past 3 years, all three were clearly political, but this is by far the biggest, both in its implications and in the sheer destruction it caused.

@Chev: This is the problem. No one does know, and the ones who do definitely aren't telling. You can suspect all you want, you can be sure all you want, but no proof will be found. And this is why it hurts so much. Because, as long as life just goes on, you KNOW it will happen again. Maybe not next month, not even next year, but it will happen again, when people have forgotten all about it and think that they are safe.

Fifteen dead and 140 injured, if you crunch the numbers, is nothing compared to the hundred thousand the tsunami caused. But the tsunami was a terrible NATURAL event. If some madman picks up a gun and shoots people for no reason, you can blame it on insanity. This, on the other hand, is cold-blooded murder, in a country supposedly at peace for 15 years. This is what makes it so hard to take.

 

Very scary Ziad. Did you see any of the funeral/protest marches afterwards? What is the mood like in Beirut now? Do people see this as a Lebanon-Syria issue, or has it also inflamed some of the bad, old tensions (Christian/Muslim, Lebanese/Palestinian, etc)?

 

Ironically, there has never been more solidarity among Muslims and Christians. Religious conflics have existed here before there even was a nation called Lebanon (whose birth was officially in 1943. People here have been killing each other in the name of religion as far back as 1860), but this is the first time people set them aside and meld together so spontaneously. Church bells and muezzins lamenting together, an old cheikh and a nun praying side by side... it's amazing to see this.

A lot of people are looking at it from a Lebanon-Syria point of view. Many blame Syria, and some have openly said they murdered him. Others say that Syria couldn't have done this, because they're the ones who are about to lose a lot from what has occurred. Myself, I don't know. The only thing I know is that the pro-syrian government has been issuing threats and silly attacks for months. Just a few weeks ago the Minister of Internal Affairs accused Hariri of being "the viper's head". The very same day the government was attacking one of his charities, claiming he was using it to buy votes for the upcoming elections (huh? it's a CHARITY for God's sake! It's been around for TWENTY YEARS!). Then, when something like this occurs, what's your first reflex? Do you accuse the US of trying to frame Syria for its own nefarious purposes, or do you simply look at who's been issuing threats?

From this point of view it doesn't matter who did it. The ones who have been so foolish for the past months have got to go. Whether they're behind it or not is immaterial. Syria is supposed to be here to "protect" us. If they cannot protect us from this, then they have no business being here. And what pisses me off is that this man can go on TV and say this would not have happened if Syria had MORE troops in Lebanon because in THAT case they could have afforded "better" protection!

Sorry. But it feels good to vent the anger.

The funeral march was impressive. I don't think it's overdoing it to say there were a million people there. It wasn't so much a "march" because people were filling the ENTIRE road all the way, along its entire lenth (we're talking a one hour walk here), and they weren't moving WITH the procession, rather the procession was moving through them.

The mood is tense, of course. The late Hariri was a very big name both politically and economically. But it doesn't seem like there will be any violence, at least not unless someone consciously stirs things (which will hopefully not happen). Today the city seems to have gone back to a normal state. As for what will happen now, it's difficult to say. We'll just have to wait and see.