Lebanon’s Pro-Syrian Leader Resigns

Lebanon’s pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami resigned on Monday amid massive anti-Syria protests in the streets of Beirut, spawned by last month’s assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri—a benefactor of the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and an opponent of Syrian involvement in Lebanon.

Syria has denied any involvement in Hariri’s assassination, but protestors have said they believe otherwise.

A participant in last week’s Beirut protests, 2002 KSG graduate Wissam S. Yafi, called the demonstrations “electrifying.”

“[The assassination] basically brought a huge part of the mainstream into the opposition,” Yafi said. “I was involved in a human chain from the Martyrs’ Square for about three kilometers to where Prime Minister Hariri was assassinated.”

Barbara Bodine, the executive director of the Middle Eastern Governance Project at the KSG, said that the protestors’ success in helping to bring about Karami’s resignation was a “terrific” development.

“It really shows the power that the Lebanese people were able to bring to bear in a completely peaceful way,” said Bodine, who was formerly the U.S. ambassador to Yemen.

A number of nations have long opposed Syria’s presence in Lebanon, but this view has become more prominent in response to Hariri’s February 14 assassination.

Hariri, who built up a large fortune in Saudi Arabia, established the Hariri Foundation in 1979 to support Lebanese scholars, including students at the KSG. He also instituted the Rafiq Hariri Professorship of International Political Economy at the KSG in 1992.

The United States and France issued a joint statement yesterday repeating their call for Syria to pull its 15,000 troops out of Lebanon.

They voiced their support for an “independent, democratic and sovereign Lebanon, free of outside interference and intimidation,” according to a statement posted on the U.S. State Department website.

Continuing international support for an independent Lebanon has been crucial, said Adib Farha, a former advisor to Hariri’s government and a professor at Lebanese American University in Beirut.

“If it wasn’t for international pressure led by the United States and France,” he said, “many people who are currently in the opposition would not have been bold enough and daring enough to become so outspoken.”

Though the opposition forces were successful in getting Karami to resign, Lecturer of Government Carol R. Saivetz said there are still many unanswered questions in Lebanon’s pursuit of independence.

“Suppose Syria actually does withdraw, then what happens with Lebanon?” said Saivetz, who teaches Government 1968,

“International Politics in the Middle East.” “Does the whole thing explode...[or] does the opposition remain unified?”

Farha expressed hope that the country will not become split after its recent tragedy.

“The death of Hariri was a major shock to the system,” he said. “Tragic as the heinous act of killing him was, I think it’s going to reunite Lebanon.”

Calling Hariri the “Abraham Lincoln of Lebanon,” Bodine said that his legacy will help guide Lebanon in the years ahead.

“The idea that you can be a Lebanese national, that you don’t have to be the traditional warlord in order to succeed and in order to make a difference, it’s going to give a lot of encouragement to the future generation of politicians,” Bodine said.

—Staff writer Evan H. Jacobs can be reached at ehjacobs@fas.harvard.edu.