It may take weeks, if not years, before we know who killed Rafik Hariri. Whoever was behind the dastardly deed clearly wanted to achieve two objectives. The first was to deprive the emerging Lebanese opposition front from a credible leader capable of cutting across sectarian divides in the name of national unity. The second was to create the impression that without Syrian troops on its soil, Lebanon would be plunged into chaos and civil war. It is important that the Lebanese people, with support from the international community, unite to deny the perpetrators of the murder what they set out to achieve.
Although Hariri is certainly irreplaceable in personal terms, the policies that he espoused and the goals he set for his people could, and should, be taken up and promoted by other Lebanese leaders who also want their nation to reassert its national sovereignty. Contrary to some claims, Lebanon will not return to civil war. All communities are tired of war and remember well that the bloodletting which they experienced in the 1970s and 1980s was the fruit of sinister plots by foreign powers fighting proxy wars in Lebanon. Today, more than ever before, any attempt at pushing Lebanon into civil war would be a direct result, not of internal dynamics but of outside machinations. It is important that the truth about the murder be found and made public. That task cannot be left to the Lebanese authorities whose credibility is bound to be questioned.
Over the past 25 years dozens of prominent Lebanese, including two presidents, Bashir Gemayel and Rene Moawad, the Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt, the publisher Salim Al-Lawzi and several Cabinet ministers and members of Parliament have been murdered — always after trying to assert the position of Lebanon as an independent nation-state. At least 15 committees have been investigating these murders since the mid-1980s. None has come out with any report, simply because everyone is too frightened to tell the truth. The only credible way to investigate the Hariri murder is to appoint an international team, preferably acting under the auspices of the International Criminal Court of the United Nations. That court already has the jurisdiction to indict even the most senior officials for crimes of such magnitude.
It is also important that the gerrymandering scheme cooked up by opponents of Hariri to weaken his electoral base in Beirut be abandoned. Moments before his death, Hariri had attended a parliamentary committee meeting to express opposition to that brazen attempt at influencing the results of the next election which is expected to be held in May. The election must be postponed for a month or two to allow the coalition led by Hariri to pick a new leader and the people of Lebanon to absorb the shock.
Hariri gave his life in the course of his struggle to return its independence, sovereignty and dignity to his country. The most effective way that the Lebanese nation and the international community can pay tribute to Hariri and his political struggle would be to press for an urgent implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, a resolution already enjoying unanimous support from all the major powers as well as most Arab countries.
