Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese turned Wednesday’s funeral of their former prime minister Rafik Hariri into a huge public demonstration against three decades of Syrian occupation.
During a 5km procession through the capital, Beirut, mourners chanted ”We need Syria out”, and ”We don’t want Bashar [Assad, the Syrian president]”.
They called for the resignation of the pro-Syrian government led by Emile Lahoud. The public outburst of hostility towards Syria marks a significant change in this part of the Middle East. Until Wednesday the Lebanese harboured such thoughts about their Syrian overlords but mainly kept them private.
One mourner, a businessman, said: ”There has never been a demonstration against Syria before. You would have been arrested. No one dared to say anything before.” But he preferred to be anonymous. ”It would kill me if they [the Syrians] had my name,” he said.
The anti-Syrian sentiment united the Lebanese factions which fought a devastating civil war between 1975 and 1990.
Christians, Druze, and Shia and Sunni Muslims merged for the funeral procession. The marchers were accompanied by prayers blaring from mosques and the tolling of Christian church bells.
Syria, which prefers to keep quiet its involvement in Lebanon, has been a dominant presence since 1976 and retains about 15 000 troops in the Beka’a valley.
The demonstration will embolden the United States, which, with the backing of France, pushed through United Nations security council resolution 1559 in September, calling on Assad to withdraw his troops.
The US Assistant Secretary of State, William Burns, who attended the funeral, said Hariri’s death must give renewed impetus to achieving a free, independent and sovereign Lebanon, and ”what that means is the complete and immediate withdrawal by Syria of all of its forces in Lebanon”.
Fearing further violence, the US government urged its citizens to leave Lebanon.
Jacques Chirac, the French President, a personal friend of Hariri, was in Beirut on Wednesday to offer his condolences to the former prime minister’s family. He praised Hariri for his fight for democracy and independence. The family had asked members of the Lebanese government to stay away.
Asked if the government was implicated in the death, one of the family circle said at Hariri’s villa, the Qureitem Palace, that it was not the time or place to discuss such things. But she added: ”There will be revenge, even if it takes two years, against this shit government.”
The Syrian Vice-President, Abdul-Halim Khaddam, a close family friend, attended the mosque service but did not take part in the procession.
The bodies of Hariri and five bodyguards killed by an explosion on Monday were carried from his villa on the Rue Mme Curie through the Zeidineh and Basta working-class districts of West Beirut to the Muhammad al-Amin mosque near the waterfront.
The mourners were showered from balconies with rice in a gesture of thanks. Carrying placards and portraits of Hariri or wearing T-shirts printed with his image, the mourners shouted abusive and personal slogans intended to antagonise the Syrians.
Marching down Independence Street, they chanted: ”There is no God but Allah and Syria is the enemy of Allah.”
Hariri was buried slightly apart from his bodyguards in Martyrs’ Square in the courtyard of the Muhammad al-Amin mosque, the biggest in Lebanon, which the billionaire politician was helping to restore. It is due for completion in May. The mosque is close to the shopping and residential area he helped renovate after the area was destroyed by civil war.
No one has yet been credibly identified as being responsible for Hariri’s assassination. Syria denies responsibility. Lebanon has resisted pressure for an international investigation on the murder, but has invited Swiss explosives experts to help.
Asked to pinpoint the blame for Monday’s killing, the leader of the Druze community, Walid Jumblatt, replied: ”Who is responsible for security?” Although Jumblatt did not name Syria, the Lebanese regard the Syrians and the Lebanese government as being responsible for security. He called for Syrian withdrawal. ”We do not want any more police state of Syria.” – Guardian Unlimited Â