Murder in Beirut

The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al Harriri on Monday in a bomb blast follows the familiar cycle of violence that has earlier visited luminaries like president-elect Bashir Gemayal in 1982 and Druze leader Kemal Jumblatt in 1977 during the civil war that left the picturesque country a near-wasteland. With the end of the civil war hopes were high a new Lebanon would resurrect from the ashes of the fratricidal violence. Among those who foresaw a new country was Hariri who had a vision when he took power in 1992. But his optimism on his ability to resurrect Lebanon as a financial and tourism hub was tempered by the ground realities of the religiously divided land, which had been the staging post for regional dominance by powers such as Israel and Syria. And the result of this was very much in evidence even after the embers of the civil war died down.
Friction with Pro-Syria President Emile Lahoud curtailed Harriri’s efforts to handle Lebanon's debt that ballooned during the postwar reconstruction project he spearheaded. Added to this was the mounting number of battles he had to fight with Lahoud loyalists over privatisation and other cost-cutting plans. When Lebanon was on the brink of a financial crisis in 2002, Hariri successfully persuaded France to host an international summit of lenders who pledged enough cash to avert a meltdown of the economy. Hariri leaves behind a mixed legacy. His admirers saw him as the architect of the country's post-civil war reconstruction programme. For his detractors he was a spendthrift, whose administration dragged an already feeble economy deeper into debt and used sky-high interest rates to stabilise the Lebanese pound.
But now it is the time for all Lebanese to ponder where they go from here. Murder has been for too long used as a tool to settle scores with political rivals in Lebanon. The list of luminaries eliminated by rivals has been a long one not seen in any other country in the region in the recent past. That things have stooped to such a level only shows how much the protagonists are prepared to go to achieve their ends in this fractured land. It is now time all the parties involved in the political tug-of-war realised that there are certain red lines that has to be kept in mind in terms of acts of violence against anybody who is involved in the political arena. The earlier it is understood the better for the country or it will be soon back to the dog days of civil war. Surely no sane man will ever want to revisit those loony days again.
This is an editorial published in Oman Tribune