I WAS THERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rafic Hariri Murdered

(i was there, i saw him a little! but now all i have memories... )

Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a massive bomb blast that shredded his motorcade in downtown Beirut opposite the St Georges Hotel as he was returning home from a parliament meeting at 12:55 p.m. Monday February 14th 2005. Hariri and six of his bodyguards were killed. The total toll was 17 dead and 134 wounded.

Hariri was planning to contest Lebanon's spring parliamentary elections in alliance with opposition groups demanding a termination of Syria's high-handed tutelage over Lebanon. Hariri's murder, which explosive experts said was the work of an intelligence service, came hardly 24 hours after the world community was reported to have warned the Assad regime that Syria would be held responsible if Hariri or Walid Jumblat are assassinated.Explosive experts said that Hariri was killed by a one-ton charge rigged into underground sewage or city water pipes that was mechanically detonated once his motorcade was spotted passing over the bomb.

This explains why the sophisticated jamming systems installed in Hariri's armor-plated limousines had failed to neutralize the bomb.Ten days before the assassination a ditch was dug at the assassination scene for underground public works repairs of the sewage system. The 1,000 kilograms of explosives were then introduced via this ditch into the water pipes under the street.The people of Lebanon were in thrown into a state of shock and took to the streets chanting slogans "Death to Syria" and "Syrians out, we don't need you, we don't want you." Several Syrian-owned businesses were ransacked and the Beirut headquarters of Syria's ruling Baath Party branch in Lebanon was attacked and a huge portrait of the late President Hafez Assad was torn off the building and set on fire at the city's Cola residential district. The building was then pelted with stones and shacks outside used by Syrian workers ere set alight. In other parts of west Beirut Syrians were beaten. The strongest condemnation of the killing came from Hariri's hometown of Sidon, where angry demonstrators blocked roads with barricades of burning tires sending billows of black smoke rising into the air. Demonstrators chanted slogans against Syria and the pro-Damascus Lebanese government, including: "Bashar Assad, what do you want from us? Take your soldiers and leave," and "We will not fear speaking out. We don't want Emile Lahoud." Demonstrators also carried banners reading: "They assassinated you because you were the hope of this country." Venting their frustration and rage at the closest target, dozens of demonstrators attacked Syrian workers, lightly wounding five before police intervened.

A group of youths with their hands and faces painted black shouted: "Syria, you have painted our days in black. Letting Karami laugh and letting Lahoud remain sitting on his chair, is the biggest crime." In Akkar, Hariri supporters expressed their grief by burning tires on the main roads in Abdeh, Bourj al-Arab and other areas. Black flags were also raised at the Abdeh Roundabout at the southern entrance of Akkar and on Hariri's Future Movement center in Halba. In Tripoli and other northern areas, black and Lebanese flags were raised alongside pictures of Hariri and countless banners. Demonstraters blocked roads leading to Syria.The opposition called for a three day strike.

All government departments were closed as well as Banks, schools, universities, shops, boutiques, cafes and cinemas in Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Nabatiyeh, Baalbek, Zahleh and Tripoli as well as the entire Christian heartland north and northeast of the capital. The strike was blessed by Sheikh Rashid Kabbani, the spiritual head of the Muslim Sunni community of which Hariri was its political standard-bearer. Kabbani said after an emergency conference of Lebanon's Sunni notables Monday night that Hariri's assassination "targeted Lebanon's existence." Night-long protest demonstrations were held in Beirut and lasted throughout Tuesday. Across the globe candle light vigils were held outside Lebanese Embassies by Lebanese of all faiths. Late Tuesday, a large crowd gathered at the assassination site with hundreds of lit candles and silence to commemorate a beloved leader. In the Bekaa, Baalbek bore witness to a massive demonstration staged outside the Serail. Demonstrators carried pictures of Hariri and raised black flags, condemning the assassination and calling for exposing the perpetrators.A tearful Lebanon gave slain ex-premier Rafik Hariri a national union farewell Wednesday. Church bells rang across the country and in Beirut blended with verses of the Koran rhymed out from Mosque minarets as an estimated 250,000 mourners of all faiths walked behind his flag-draped coffin from his west Beirut home to his last resting place in Martyrs Square. Thunderous chants of "Syria out" and "death to Syria" echoed continously from the anguished mourners as they waved a forest of Lebanese flags and huge portraits of the fallen statesman.

There were chants against Syrian President Bashar Assad in person. "Bashar, Bashar, Sunni blood does not go to waste," a sea of mourners shouted, pledging allegiance to Hariri's eldest son, Bahaeddine (Baha). The chants reflected the conviction of Hariri's family and Lebanon's opposition leaders that Syria's secret service engineered his assassination in collaboration with the state-run Lebanese intelligence apparatus, a contention shared by the U.S., France and the U.N. Security Council. Another huge crowd of mourners from east Beirut met up with the procession. In a scenes never before witnessed in Lebanon, hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians marched together united in their grief.Hariri's coffin was carried in an ambulance as the funeral procession wound through the streets of Beirut with thousands of candles burning on sidewalks. His casket was followed by the six coffins of the bodyguards who were killed with him in the assassination blast on Monday. Wailing women on balconies tossed roses at the procession. Midway through the six kilometer procession the coffins were taken off the ambulances and carried shoulder-high through the rest of the trek to the courtyard of the downtown Al Amin mosque. Senior government officials from across the world walked behind the coffins in the on-foot funeral from which President Lahoud, Premier Karami and most of the 30 cabinet ministers of his government were excluded at the request of Hariri's family, which blamed the "regime of assassins" for his death.When the procession reached the downtown mosque, farewell and anti Syrian chants reached a thunderous crescendo.

Zucchini and more...