The Washington Post
February 17, 2005 Thursday
Final Edition
With a Rare Display of Unity, Lebanese Bury Former Premier
Scott Wilson, Washington Post Foreign Service
BEIRUT Feb. 16
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese marched through the streets of the
capital Wednesday to the edge of Martyrs Square, where former prime
minister Rafiq Hariri was buried in a raucous ceremony that reflected
uncharacteristic unity and deep anger toward those they blame for his
assassination: the governments of Lebanon and Syria. Carrying banners
that read “Syria Out” and “Hey Syria — Who’s Next?” throngs of
Lebanese chanted and sobbed as Hariri’s casket was borne by ambulance
through miles of empty streets, then on shoulders into the enormous
al-Amine Mosque. The banners of political parties that were once
fierce rivals bounced along together in the flow of people. The signs
of religious and political unity in a country still haunted by its
15-year sectarian war were evident in almost every aspect of the
day’s activities. The bells of St. George Cathedral, a Maronite
Christian church next to the mosque, tolled for hours. No one could
remember such a tribute after the death of a Sunni Muslim, Hariri’s
religious affiliation. “The Syrians made all of this possible,” said
Mardiros Nigolian, 71, an Armenian Christian who joined the gathering
outside the mosque to pay his respects. “What was said in low voices
for months is now being said at a very high volume.” Syria maintains
15,000 troops in Lebanon, a legacy from the earliest days of this
country’s 1975-90 civil war, and exerted its decisive political
influence here last year to assure the term of President Emile Lahoud
would be extended.
Many Lebanese have blamed Syria and its allies in the Lebanese
security services for Hariri’s death Monday in an apparent suicide
bombing, and the United States recalled its ambassador to Damascus on
Tuesday for consultations to express its outrage over the slaying.
Syria has denied any involvement in the killing of Hariri, who in
recent months had emerged as an important opponent of Syrian
influence here. France, which administered Lebanon after World War I
and maintains a strong cultural legacy here, has joined the Lebanese
political opposition in calling for an international investigation to
determine who was responsible for the attack, which killed 13 other
people and wounded more than 100. President Jacques Chirac, a friend
of Hariri’s, reiterated that demand Wednesday when he arrived for the
funeral.Hariri’s assassination has brought together Lebanon’s
famously antagonistic political factions in a way no other event has
since the end of its civil war. Hariri, a self-made billionaire who
headed an important bloc in parliament increasingly associated with
the opposition, represented for many Lebanese a rare sense of
moderation and economic progress.Regardless of whether Syria is found
to be involved, Hariri’s death has galvanized the opposition at a
time when the country is preparing for parliamentary elections that
could begin as early as April. Hariri, 60, was believed to have been
planning a comeback as prime minister and had moved closer to the
collection of Christian, Druze and other sectarian parties that
largely form the opposition to the Lebanese government, now run by
men with strong loyalties to Syria. “When you lose your country, how
do you feel?” Talal Salim, 51, who owns an electronics store in
downtown Beirut, said as he watched the funeral procession. “To calm
the people now, this government must do something very big to make
sure we live in freedom. But we know they take their orders from
outside the country.”Although passion and political divisions run
deep here, there is evidence to suggest that the kind of fighting
that killed roughly 150,000 Lebanese during the civil war will not
return. The war was fueled by regional powers — including Israel,
Iran and Syria — that supplied arms and money to proxy armies.
Today, few countries appear ready to back factions in the same way.
But Lebanese officials have warned in recent days that the political
climate resembles the time preceding the civil war. Syria’s divisive
role could have an effect similar to that of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, whose presence in Beirut helped spark the sectarian
strife in 1975, according to a number of Lebanese politicians and
others who lived through the violence. “There is a regional power
here that is working against peace and stability,” Ali, 58, who was
born in Beirut and declined to give his last name out of fear of
reprisal, said as he waited for the funeral to begin. “Any
development in our country they see as a threat to their power here.
So they seek to stop it. And he [Hariri] was for that development.”
The day started with a gathering at Koreitem, Hariri’s hillside
mansion, which has been an open house for mourners since the
assassination. Thousands of marchers lined up outside, while inside,
people prayed over his flag-draped coffin. A group of men, including
Hariri’s sons and key members of the opposition, struggled to carry
the coffin from the large salon amid the crush of people.The cortege
made its way through empty streets on the second of three days of
official mourning. Koranic verses rang from minarets, drowned out at
times by angry chanting from those in the procession. Much of the
chanting was directed against Syria.A few former cabinet ministers
filtered through the crowd, but none from the current government.
Opposition leaders had warned that government officials would not be
welcome.The United States was represented by Assistant Secretary of
State William J. Burns, the senior U.S. diplomat for the Middle East.
He told reporters that Hariri’s death “must give renewed impetus to
achieving a free, independent and sovereign Lebanon” and called on
Syria to remove its troops immediately.Filing down the hill toward
Martyrs Square, at the heart of the postwar renovation of downtown
Beirut that Hariri spearheaded, the marchers surged through tens of
thousands of people already gathered in front of the mosque. Hariri’s
picture was plastered on shuttered storefronts and car windshields
along the parade route. Young men with the flags of a Christian
nationalist party and the Druze party led by Walid Jumblatt, the face
of Lebanese opposition to Syria, climbed scaffolding along one
minaret and waved the banners until loudspeakers boomed with orders
not to do so. Some obeyed, others did not, throughout an event that
had the feeling of a resistance march as much as a burial service.
People in baseball caps and red-checked kaffiyehs, scarves and
clerical vestments marched side by side. Well-groomed women with eyes
filled with tears led chants: “There is no god but God. Hariri is
beloved of God.” Admonitions to move back so the coffin could pass
into the mosque had little effect on the eddy of grieving people who
wanted to get near it and for a few minutes prevented Hariri’s body
from being lowered into the ground. “We have all come to say
something to the world,” said Sylvia Kayrouz, 38, an Armenian
Christian who expressed amazement at the spectacle. “Christians,
Druze, Sunnis — all of them here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress