By Saad Eddin Ibrahim

Rafik Hariri of Lebanon was much of his life an engineer. During the Saudi Arabian oil boom of the 1970s he became a successful contractor, earning and reinvesting until he became one of the region’s handful of billionaires. Throughout Lebanon’s brutal civil war (1975-2000), he kept a distance from the warring factions, but agonized as he watched his beautiful country being devastated. Instead of taking sides in the ugly conflict he established the Hariri Foundation, giving thousands of young Lebanese --across all sectarian lines --opportunities to pursue higher education abroad. But this was just one part of a larger dream and a plan. As soon as the fighting stopped, Hariri was on the scene, encouraging thousands of young Lebanese to return and to reengage in their society on a peaceful basis. As he helped to underwrite ambitious plans to rebuild the capital city of Beirut, Hariri was in the process helping to rebuild a pluralistic society and a democratic state. More recently he served as Lebanon’s prime minister, resigning over heavy Syrian influence on the parliament. He tirelessly pursued his dream for Lebanon.

Hariri was assassinated along with at least ten others on Valentines Day, but hopefully not his dream. I have known his sister, Bahiya, for over twenty years. Every time we met, the favorite topic of conversation was Rafik’s dream ,which became hers and that of millions of other Lebanese whether at home or in diaspora. I saw Bahiya again last month during the wedding party of the Crown Prince of Qatar. The joyful occasion didn’t lend itself to an overly-serious conversation, but I casually asked about our twin topics of Rafik and the Dream. Bahiya’s face turned serious and in a wistful voice, she said, “The Dream is still there, but do you think the Syrians would let it materialize?” And then she added, “I am afraid for Rafik’s life”. I tried to comfort her by saying ritualistically, “They don’t dare.” But in retrospect she may have been right and I was definitely wrong. Someone dared.

Though there is no conclusive evidence as yet on who ordered the massive explosion that took Hariri’s life and that of eleven others in his motorcade, the fingers of accusation are pointing at the Syrian Baathist regime of Bashar al Assad. The latter has 15,000 soldiers still stationed on Lebanese soil along with hundreds of secret agents. That regime has an unparalleled record in assassinating Lebanese public figures who oppose the continued Syrian occupation of their country. That occupation has spanned nearly 30 years, beginning in 1976 and exceeding that of the French colonizers (1920-1946). The list of those assassinated includes two Lebanese presidents and the leader of the Druz minority, along with countless number of less prominent Lebanese.

The perpetrators of these crimes were never caught, and the ‘mysterious killings’ were never resolved. Significantly, attempts to deflect responsibility by blaming Hariri’s death on Israel or on US agents, the usually-favored scapegoats in the Middle East, do not seem to have been effective this time. Even the shadowy character, Ahmed Tayseer Abuads, who claimed on Aljazeera T.V to be behind Hariri’s assassination representing The Advocacy and Holy War In the Levent faction, was not taken seriously by the Lebanese, or anyone else for that matter. The persistent fingerpointing at Syria seems to go far beyond the immediate carnage at the elegant center of Beirut, the place that was Hariri’s pride, and may become an indictment of its entire shameful record in Lebanon.

The outpouring of Lebanese and Arab grief has been matched by worldwide condemnation of Syria’s defiance of UN Resolution 1559, demanding all foreign troops to get out of Lebanon. Judging from the unprecedented size of his funeral and the subsequent public marches demanding independence from Syria, I can now assure his sister Bahiya, that whoever it is who killed her brother Rafik has not managed to kill his dream. Momentum is greater than ever before for an independent democratic pluralistic Lebanon. That should give all of us heart at this otherwise tragic moment.