November 22, 2008
Blast kills Lebanese politician
Former Communist Party leader, once an ally of Syria, dies after bomb goes off under his car in Beirut
BEIRUT, Lebanon - George Hawi survived Lebanon's fratricidal 15-year civil war. He made it through the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. And he outlasted Soviet purges of the Lebanese Communist Party.
But Hawi, a former Communist Party leader, could not survive the latest twists of this country's treacherous politics. As he drove through a crowded Beirut neighborhood yesterday, Hawi was killed by a remote-controlled bomb placed underneath his car.
Once a close Syrian ally, Hawi began criticizing Syria's political and military dominance over Lebanon in the late 1990s. Yesterday opposition leaders quickly blamed Hawi's assassination on Syria and its allies in the Lebanese security services. Damascus denied any involvement, as it has in two previous killings of anti-Syrian figures.
Hawi, 67, was the most prominent politician killed in Lebanon since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. That killing prompted international pressure and popular protests that led to the resignation of the Syrian-backed Lebanese prime minister and to the withdrawal of Syrian troops after a 29-year presence. On June 2, journalist Samir Kassir was assassinated with a remote-controlled bomb similar to the one that killed Hawi.
"This series of assassinations will continue as long as the Syrian-dominated security agencies remain intact," said Samir Franjieh, an opposition leader. "They must be purged."
Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition, which won a majority in parliament during elections that ended Sunday, hopes to use its new political clout to remove the last vestiges of Syrian influence. The opposition's main targets are the Syrian-backed Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, and the country's security services. Hawi did not run for a seat in parliament, but he campaigned for several opposition candidates.
The Bush administration, which led international pressure on Syria to withdraw its troops, stopped just short of directly blaming Damascus for the killings.
"These are not random killings. These are targeted assassinations of political figures," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in Washington. "Syria's long and continued presence inside Lebanon has created an environment of intimidation and political repression."
Opposition leaders say Syrian intelligence agents are still operating in Lebanon and that they have a "hit list" of prominent officials. "Why do all the assassinations target the opposition?" asked Ghazi Aridi, an opposition member of parliament.
Lahoud, the embattled president, tried to distance himself from the Lebanese security services yesterday, saying they are not under his "direct control."
A United Nations team investigating Hariri's killing yesterday questioned Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, head of the Lebanese Presidential Guards, for nearly five hours. Investigators also searched Hamdan's home and office, with Lahoud's approval. Hamdan is the only one of six top Lebanese security officials who remains in office since Hariri's assassination.
Hawi, a Greek Orthodox Christian, was a fixture of Lebanese politics for 40 years. He started out as a student activist and joined the Communist Party in his late 20s. By the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, he had become the party's leader. He was allied with Palestinian guerrillas and leftist Muslim militias in their fight against the Lebanese army and right-wing Christian factions.
During the 1982 Israeli invasion, Hawi joined forces with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization to defend West Beirut from an Israeli siege. In the mid-1980s, Hawi led leftist guerrillas in their campaign to oust Israel from southern Lebanon. When the civil war ended in 1990, Hawi began reaching out to his former enemies and held dialogues with Muslim and Christian clerics.
After a series of late-night bombings in March, which targeted mainly Christian neighborhoods, Hawi stepped up his criticism of Syria and its Lebanese allies.
"There is a political decision to create a security crisis in the country," he told Newsday in March. "I'm afraid that in the next stage, the attacks will happen during the day and will kill many more people."
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